Tory defeat strengthens coalition threat THE OUTCOME of the recent local government elections in Britain was a big setback for Margaret Thatcher's Tory Party, who lost 705 seats to both the Labour Party (LP) and to the Social Democratic Party (SP)/Liberal Alliance. [See the last issue of International Viewpoint, No. 100, June 2, 1986, for full details of the results].
In the second of two articles, Peter Green assesses the impact of these results and their implications for the future.
BRITAIN suffered vicious racist attacks after his defence of a local Black uprising last autumn. Here Labour increased its vote, with Bernie Grant securing a major personal victory. In Lambeth Labour also increased its majority, in a situation where 31 Labour councillors have been disqualified from holding public office by the courts for their defiance of Tory laws on local government public spending.
The impact of the crisis in education and of the teachers' strikes which took place during the last year was also felt. Labour did even better in the elections for the Inner London Education Authority than in the council elections in the same area.
The election results were interpreted by bourgeois commentators as a severe setback for the Thatcher government. John Biffen, Tory leader of the House of Commons, called for a "balanced ticket" for the Tories for the next general election, and stated that while Thatcher would continue to lead the Conservatives until then, "no-one seriously supposed" that she would continue to lead it throughout the next parliament.
An editorial in the Financial Times noted: "If the government has in the end got many of the big things right -such as coming to terms with Europe and the conquest of inflation, or daring to tackle the Irish question -it has made a lamentable mess of some of the smaller ones.
"It spent an inordinate amount of parliamentary time on the relatively unimportant business of the abolition of the metropolitan [large urban] authorities and the Greater London Council. During the Westland affair, which led to the resignation of two cabinet ministers, the government all but ceased to function (2). It then backed down from its plans to dispose of British Leyland to the Americans because of pressure from its own own backbenchers" [non-government Tory members of parliament].
The conclusion of this analysis is that a government is needed which maintains the "big things" of Thatcherism but allows some adjustment of the "small things". This is the perspective outlined by the SDP and the Alliance. David Owen, leader of the SDP, has been increas-
1. 'Militant' is a newspaper whose supporters dominate the youth section of the LP, the Young Socialists, and who are also a majority of the Liverpool councillors.
2. A public and very heated dispute broke out in the Tory Cabinet at the end of 1985 over whether the Westland helicopter company should be bought out by a US or a European consortium. This ended in the resignation of the two main protagonists, Michael Heseltine (Secretary of State for Defence) and Leon Brittan (Secretary of State for Trade and Industry).
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The May local election results leave British politics more clearly on course for a hung parliament at the next general election, which has to be held before June 1988. The SDP/ Liberal Alliance has failed in its goal of smashing the Labour Party and creating a two capitalist party system in Britain.
The Labour Party's strength in the north of England, Scotland and the big cities was confirmed by these results, and by the Fulham parliamentary by-election last month. Two of the three councils won by the Alliance, Sutton in London and Adur in Sussex, were taken from the Tories. In the third, the Alliance won Tower Hamlets in London from Labour only because the rotten old-guard Labour right wing split the Labour
The May electior
1983
Tories +128
Labour +37
Alliance +110
Source: Socialist Action
International Viewpoint 16 June 1986 vote by running candidates against the official LP nominees. In general the Alliance has begun to seriously undermine the Tory vote.
Other key results of the elections were the victories of the Labour left in Liverpool and in the London constituencies of Lambeth and Haringey. In Liverpool, where the Militant-led council (1) has been under vicious attack by Labour leader Neil Kinnock and the media, Labour gained a seat. One of 11 members of the council who have been threatened with expulsion from the LP for their support for Militant, Felicity Dowling, gained 71 percent of the vote.
In London there were also victories for the Labour left. In Haringey, Black council leader Bernie Grant I results
Change +17 +11 -29 + 3
1984
-131
+46
+143
1983-86
1985
1986
-763
-705
-55
+535
-32
+484
+270
+652
+129
Бродовода
LoTSTAG
Party control of local councils in Britain
Prior to 1986 After 1986 elections elections Labour control 74 91 No overall majority 42 53 Conservative control 75 46 Alliance control 3 6 Source: Socialist Action Gains and losses of seats in local government elections 1983-86.
Party control of local councils in Britain
Prior to 1986 elections
Gains and losses of seats in local government elections 1983-86.
USSR ingly putting forward policies which would combine the denationalizations of Thatcher, the Tory anti-union laws, and the continuation of mass unemployment with some increased public spending and more support for domestic manufacturing industry. There is a significant section of the bourgeoisie which is prepared to consider this as an alternative to the Tories.
Given the decline of the Tory vote there has therefore been a growing discussion in the bourgeois press on the desirability, or otherwise, of an Alliance/Labour coalition after the next general election. For example, The Economist on March 1 wrote: "Labour is not a mass party and never will be again. The local government politicians who will dominate Labour in the 1990s know that. They have joined hands with the single-issue, non-socialist campaigns with the electicism of any American power-broker. They might just might - be convinced that Labour's hopes of government rest on finding common ground with the Alliance. If Mr. Kinnock is as keen on power as he says, he should be telling his party that the days of splendid isolation are over."
Various ideologists advising the right wing of the Labour Party have also been putting forward similar perspectives. Marxism Today, the journal of the Euro-Communist wing of the Communist Party, has long advocated a coalition government between Labour and the Alliance. On March 28, the Labourite New Statesman's editorial said: "This week, the fifth birthday of the SDP, marks an event of tribal rather than ideological significance. The SDP is celebrating the event. So are some on the left - good riddance to the traitors. But the only tribe that can take any real comfort is the collection of warriors with the blue face paint: the Conservative Party. As long as their opponents remain divided, they stand some chance of winning the major wars."
nentner government nas The Thatcher government has weakened seriously over the last year. The bourgeoisie is attempting to maintain the essential policies of Thatcher in place while recognising that it may be necessary to make some limited concessions in the field of social expenditure. At the general election key sections of the ruling class will continue to support the Tories, but they are now giving much greater attention to the question of forcing Labour into some sort of coalition with the Alliance.
The fight against the Tories and against any form of coalitionism is now even more clearly at the top of the political agenda. 12