The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is on the verge of a split. pioneered the democracy struggle in the Labour Party and laid the basis for the Deputy leadership campaign. On one side of the split, as the Financial Times bluntly puts it, stand Benn and his supporters; on the other Foot's. Benn himself is attending the CLPD AGM this Saturday to motivate a joint left leadership slate.
Foot's backers ecutive - have led a campaign of abuse against 'Socialist Organiser, the IMG and New Tribune', publicly circulating lists of names who are 'unfit to Icad Ine CLrD. joint statement backing their slate for election to the campaign leadership at its AGM on Saturday, that unless CLPD agrees to register and endorses their ideas, they will split and form a new campaign.
These are SDP tactics. Either you unite behind us, without dissent — or we split. Why are they doing it? Because they have swallowed a false road to unity: unity around the Labour leadership, around Michael Foot, and — since Foot is now Healey's willing prisoner Healey, backed by Foot, is leading the drive to split the Party by means of the witch-hunt, to surrender it bound and gagged Treasury and the Foreign Office.
unity around them to reproduce, disgusting form, CLPD.
Nothing makes this clearer than their attitude the WIES-SE deliberate defiance of the witch-hunt by CLPs. We must use constitutional means, they say — while half the members are driven out and so denied access to the constitution. changes do they want? They support the Manchester Withington amendment, which calls for a "democratic" register, so that conference (in which the witch-hunters have a majority because of their control of the block vote) can expel the socialists instead of the NEC. Last year this got less votes than any other proposal. So their argument that Activists' Diary Trade Union CND AGM, Saturday 29 January, 2pm, County Hall, London SEI. Delegates from trade union bodies affiliated to CND.
Campaign for Labour Party Democracy AGM, Saturday 29 January, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WCI.
National Labour Briefing Conference, Saturday 5 February, 10.30-6pm, County Hall, London SEI. Speakers will include: Ken Livingstone, Ann Bliss, Jeremy Corbyn. Details from London Labour Briefing, 23 Leghorn Road, London NW10.
Socialist Society AGM, Saturday/Sunday 5/6 February, Sir William Collins Schooi, Charrington Street, London NWI.
Labour Against Witch-hunt National Council, London SET.
Labour Committee on Palestine, Open Steering Committee Meeting, Wednesday 16 February, 8pm, County Hall, London SEI.
Open to members and others who wish to participate in the campaign.
Broad Left's Organising Committee Conference, Vote, Saturday 19 February.
trade union Broad Lefts and official TÚ organisations. Credentials from: BLOC 108 Princess Boulevard, Bebington, Merseyside, L63 7PE.
Labour CND AGM, Saturday 19 February, 11-5pm, County Hall, London SEI. Two delegates from each CLP affiliated to CND and open to individuals who are members of both National CND and the Labour Party.
Registration £2 (£1 unwaged).
Ban Plastic Bullets, Labour movement delegate conference, Saturday 26 February UMIST. Barnes Wallis Building, Sackville Street, Manchester 1. Credentials from: Plastic Bullets Conference, Box 15, 164/6 Hanging Ditch, Manchester M3 4BN.
Labour Democracy and Local Government, National Conference for District Labour Parties.
Saturday 26 March, Manchester Poly Student Union, 10.30-4.30pm. Sponsored by Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester DLPs.
Manchester City Labour Party, Hulme Labour Club, Istoneylow Close, Manchester M15.
Socialist Challenge 28 January 1983 page 2 This campaign - the right wing of the exThey have now confirmed, in a around Healey himself. But to Whitehall, The helpless splitter leads in a far more crude and Healey's tactics within the oppose any And what constitutional they are 'seeking a proposal which can obtain maority support nonsense.
Foot's support - and that means Healey's. At the very moment when the register is almost dead, they want to give it the kiss of life.
How should the left respond? Unfortunately, Vladimir Derer and Pete Willsman Jeading Foot supporters. use a quote trom lon Benn which tells us where the left's past mistakes lie. In a resolution on 'Party unity' they call for uty around me casung edacismp, me exisung membership, and the existing policies'.
But the leadership is junking the policies and trying to drive out membership because it wants a government acceptable to Whitehall and the CBI. The left must make a choice: unity round the policies and membership, or around the leadership? This was the origin of the tremendous crisis of CLPD at the last when it completely failed to organise the opposiLabour Against the Witch-Hunt had to take up the standard instead. CLPD was paralysed because its right wing baulked at resisting a witch-hunt backed by Michael Foot himself. All their talk of finding policies accentable to a maiority or con ference' is just a cover up for this. For the first six years of its existence CLPD's policies were not acceptable to a conference majority and this never deterred it from its campaign to change its minority support into a majority.
The demand for unity around the leadership is What they want is is needed.
but a necessity.
unity should be a policy SUCH most do an These the last eight years.
paigns' document an impossible demand. It is an appeal against rocking a boat when the officers are busily trying to throw the crew out of it. It is an appeal to drown Is there, then, a different basis for unity? Unity neither wealth nor status to defend itself, cannot afford the luxury of division. Unity isn't just a tacWe agree, Tribune who call for a common basis of unity in reply to the splitters, and we agree that the basis of Unfortunately Tribune's own suggestion as to the basis of unity isn't an ideal one: the proposal to change the basis of representation at Labour Party conference to give the CLPs a greater say. This isn't an agreed policy. Even within the left there is in extensive discussion going on about it. But mos urgent problem of today, which is what to year when democratically decided policies are being ditched by its leadership? — and when the same leadership is concentrating its entire energies on expelling the socialists instead of fighting the Tories?
- and above all the policy question are the real tests of everything CLPD has done for The NEC next month will discuss a draft 'camLa draft manifesto doesn't have unilateralism in it. Two thirds of the eyes of the Labour Party ranks.
Number Ten?
Greenwich constitutional against the Labour Party.
Secondly, on the agenda, which will certainly be which has constitutional change.
part in tary Labour CND has 180 members jority union support.
This is the road ahead. which in Labour's armoury. CLPD was formed to ensure that Labour's policies were implemented. If it cannot help stop this gigantic travesty of democracy, it will have neither credibility nor relevance in the What is the left going to do about this? What hope can it offer that after eight years of struggle there will be a difference if Foot moves into CLPD can make two vital contributions to this goal. First, it can throw its entire weight behind the amendment which establishes, clearly and without equivocation, the right of every group in the Labour Party to exist provided only that it does not stand candidates it can take up the struggle for unilateralism to be in the manifesto. Resolutions passed commit CLPD to this policy. Of course, CLPD as a single-issue campaign is primarily committed to But, just as it threw its weight behind a broader campaign for Benn to become Deputy leader of the Praty, it can take - and help establish — a broad campaign to defend Labour's socialist policies. Parliamen- the biggest cil group in ramament. outateransi Has ma It will be hard for union leaders to justity breaking clear mandates from their members on this issue. Unilateralism had a two-thirds majority at conference. It must go in Labour's manifesto, and Labour candidates must be committed to defend it in the next parliament The left must immediately begin to explore the basis on which a united Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory centring on unilateralism can be formed. This is the next step forward; this is the basis for unity.
Photo: GM COOKSON