book.
new book is an arsenal. It is a must for every socialist who wants to know what lies behind sixty years of labour's failure to advance the socialist cause.
Early in the book Geoff TCCOUTES Labour MP James O'Grady's visit to soviet Russia. to Dersuade the SOCHICHE support the allies in the Yal. *When I was in Russia putting the case for the allies the best possible way I could,' he told the Commons on 23 October 1917. *I frequently declared that Great Britain in Chichne the war had nothing to gain, that she did not want regrandisement pe or any aggrandisement pointed out HERAL at the eginning the war 4,000,000 British citizen volunteered because they thought we were fighting a war of liberation.
The Kussians confronted O'Grady with one fact - which the Labour Party had ignored for its first twenty years. *You ay you are fighting a wa f liberation they said, 'but what about Ireland?' Britain enslaved a nation which had fought for freedom for seven hundred years; this counted Tor more man a ninetee grand declarations.
deals SCOTS 300K with such facts. It is researched in detail and Contals much material which will be new to most socialists.
Apart from its many other virtues it arranges its material with which Bell HEIROUE Facts are socialist weapons: Geoff Bell's aficionados will no doubt be familiar. It punctures two of the most persistent myths of Labourism: the myths of Labour's pracand the 'British compromise tions of pretentious and pompous Labour leaders under these two banners, have made themselves toys of Britain's establishment. Motor From its early days, Geoff explains, Labour louna ine insa issue a "troublesome" It was TOL OISCUSSCEEEADOUES first ten conferences, taksecona place to such burning. issues as *cab trade legislation, DOSL men's hours, vaccination, shop ment of juries and laws registration, Day.
governing motor traffic.
Bell also shows how Labour searched for "middle way', so that bi the early twenties, with War raging the demand for Irish separation, and with the ruling class preparing partition, it was blithely proposing a solution involving neither separation nor partition. The only problem was that no-one either listened to not this wonderfully 'practical' compromise.
Principles were involved which the Labour Party have a single link: refusal challenge the unaccountable power of the state.
SURe first was self-determination. Labour economic struggle took priority, for political SOCIaLISLS. OYCL struggle: crime that Marxists are often accused of.
But the border, annoying ane irksome regularity, would keep intruding on the class struggle. These stupid Irish would keep rabbiting on about freedom when the Labour Party was must 1t. ching to give them socialist gas and water The problem was very simple: in order to make socialism you have to have a democratic state. If you people their CONCHOW national rights, you can't have a democratic state So you can't have socialism.
Moreover the Labour Party never understood that self-determination is about one's right to form an independent state, and not about one's right to be part of another country. It could never distinguish practical Irish demand which was to form their own state, and the utterly false and impractical demand Northern Irish protestants. which was to be a sarora manor they did live in. A "right to be British' is no more socialist than a right to be hung.
This confusion meant that the party spent most of its history falling into a неа HELe trap which communities of colonists, YaHOUS parts of the and using their 'right to be British' as ar excuse to wage wars of foreign aggression.
Bell neatly illustrates the imcover-up coverage of the debate or the constitution of Northern Ireland during the 1945-51 government.
Southern renounced its links with the crown and the Commonwealth. Since parti tion was supposed to be a temporary allangelicat South and North would get together within the Commonwealth' (i.e. within the CHIDIC this was a problem. Labour changed the constitution - but why?
The cabinet began from a Civil Service paper prepared by its secretary, which explained that that Eire will shortly cease to owe any allegiance to the crown, In nas decome a matter of first class strategic importance this country that the North should to form part His Majesty's dominions...Indeed, seems unlikely that Great Britain would even be able to agree to this (Northern Ireland leaving the U.K.) even if the people of Northern Ireland desired it. (our italics)
So much for the 'needs of the Northern Irish people'! This real, but secret reason, made public release of Cabinet papers, translated by BERG Labour Party into an which declared, 1949, that 'in no event will Northern Ireland or any part thereof cease to be a part of His Majesty's Domi.
and of the United Kingdom without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.' Inus a despotic and degenerate clique was to be given custody of British military, and strategic interests in return British turning a blind eye to its domestic practices: publicly Labour was •defending self-determination: in reality handing veto powers an unrepresentative and corrupt rump parliament in L200U also understood that although ment many social reforms by renouncing extraparlia mentary methods, it did so in return for its support to which had to include its Irish policy In consequence it failed the historic democratic tasks of socialist party. It failed to attack any of the gigantic constitutional obstacles to radical change in Britain which the Bennite left are now, after a sixty year lapse, forced to confront anew: the unaccountable power of the state.
When 1913 the Liberal prevented from ent was trom enacung Home Rule legislation b rebellion in the North of Ireland, Tory leader Bonar Law openly backed this, declaring that the issue think if 1. en