A victory for the right at Labour's conference THE LABOUR PARTY conference in the first week of October was successfully stage-managed to create the effect of a pre-election rally for party leader Neil Kinnock. Right-wing policies supported by Kinnock were passed on most issues. (1) The only exceptions were a decision to maintain the present system of accountability of Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) to their local party and a decision to commit a Labour government to give cabinet status to a ministry for women. [See box].
On nuclear power, a motion proposed by Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which called for the phasing out of all nuclear power stations was carried, and only narrowly missed the two-thirds majority necessary for consideration to be included in Labour's general election manifesto.
But behind the right-wing victories what also began to emerge was a new left in the party which is beginning to hammer out a common agenda and an organizational shape through Labour Left Liaison and Campaign Forum. (2) [This article appeared in the October 10, for Kinnock's goal of reducing the expectations of what a Labour government will do for those it represents.
Kinnock's right-wing line was the basic framework established by conference. But within that framework individual advances were registered.
The conference did not endorse a generalized political witch hunt in the party. The proposal to reinstate Amir Khan and Kevin Scally was only narrowly lost - and that was only because the NEC assured the conference that their cases would be reviewed. (5).
The NUM's resolution committing a Labour government to phase out all nuclear power stations came within a whisker of achieving the two-thirds majority necessary for it to be considered for inclusion in Labour's election manifesto. Lesbian and gay rights policy did achieve the necessary two-thirds majority.
Women achieved a major victory with the decision that constituencies must include at least one woman on every shortlist for parliamentary selection. This, together with the decision to review the structure of the party's women's organization - including the method of election of the women's section of the NEC - will open an enormous debate on women's rights and representation within the
1986, issue of Socialist Action. ] JOHN LANE
The conference strengthened Kinnock's control over both the National Executive Committee and the party. The new NEC is significantly to the right of last year's. Left-wingers Eric Heffer and Margaret Beckett were removed - Heffer as a result of the Labour Co-ordinating Committee's block with the right-wing in the constituency section and Margaret Beckett as a result of the National Union of Public Employees and the National Union of Railwaymen voting for right-wing Diane Jeuda in the women's division. (3)
The expulsions by the NEC of members of the Liverpool District Labour Party, associated with Militant, were overwhelmingly endorsed. (4) A new internal party court called the "National Constitutional Committee" was set up and a new allencompassing disciplinary offence created - "conduct prejudicial to the party"
Kinnock's speech and the economic and industrial relations policies adopted by the conference commit the party to the most right-wing positions it has ever held on these issues whilst not in office. The resolution which defended trade-union in8 dependence was remitted.
These policies indicate that a Kinnock Labour government on the economic and industrial front would be the most right-wing Labour government ever. They were a victory
1. Voting at Labour Party conference is unique in Western Europe and reflects the control of the trade-union bureaucracy over the party. The trade unions have over 90 per cent of the votes - a figure based on the union membership. The local Labour Parties - representing the individual members of the party - have 8-9 per cent of the total vote, so that the conference is controlled by the trade union block vote. (See box for voting figures].
2. Labour Left Liaison is an umbrella group of the most important campaigns in the Labour Party. Its affiliates include the Labour Women's Action Committee, the Labour Party Black Section, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and socialist newspapers.
Campaign Forum - An Alliance for Socialism was set up on 20 September this year. It is a tri-partite grouping of the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, Labour Left Liaison and leading trade unionists. Its members include Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill, and it is associated with the newspaper 'Campaign Group News'.
3. The Labour Coordinating Committee is a left Kinnockite group which claims 1500 individual members.
The National Executive of the Labour Party is elected in separate divisions. Seven members are elected by local Labour Parties party. (6) The conference also voted, against the NEC's advice, to support the establishment of a women's ministry with full cabinet status in the next Labour government. These decisions will put the debate on women's organization at the centre of the party in the next year.
The Black Section continued its progress at conference. (7) It did not win the vote but it decisively won the argument - and threw the right into based on their individual memberships, this is by far the most left-wing section. Thirteen members are elected by the trade unions affiliated to the party. Five women members are elected by the whole conTerence.
4. The Militant" tendency is a centrist current which calls itself Trotskyist. It is rightward moving and does not support the main struggles against British imperialism, or the right of Black people and women to organize within the labour movement.
5. Amir Khan and Kevin Scally were expelled from the Birmingham Sparkbrook Labour Party - the constituency of deputy party leader Roy Hattersley - at the end of last year for exposing membership irregularities and supporting the establishment of Black Sections.
6. The National Labour Women's Conference of the Labour Party has adopted a series of proposals campaigned for by the Labour Women's Action Committee to increase the powers of the women's conference, including the demand that it elect the women's section of the NEC.
7. The Labour Party Black Section was set up in 1983. It is not constitutionally recognized, but it will have six Black supporters as MPs in the next parliament -the first Black MPs in Britain since the 1920s. It has won hundreds of municipal council seats, particularly in London, and is building up support in the trade unions.
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986
a debacle in the debate. Alan Sapper became the first trade union general secretary to take the floor at party conference in support of Black Sections.
In a cynical move the NEC agreed to Militant supporter Frances Curran's request that she summarize against the Black Section for the NEC. This decision showed both the incoherence of the right-wing on race, and the fact that on the left Militant and the Morning Star are now virtually alone in opposing Black Sections. (8)
The Black Section debate was definitely the most inspiring of conference, and the Black Section successfully demonstrated that the Black and Asian Advisory Committee has failed. (9) The vote for Black Sections increased slightly. Accountability of MPs
A major victory was achieved on the last day of the conference with the vote by 3.5 million to 2.6 mil lion to defend the accountability of MPs to their local party General Committees - and to instruct the NEC not to bring any proposals to NEC not to bring any proposals to change this until after the general election.
The party's commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament was reaffirmed, including the promise to close all US nuclear bases within a year of taking office.
The position for the removal of all US bases, and for withdrawal from NATO, for the first time established themselves this year as coherent minority political positions in the party. Support for removal of US bases and withdrawal from NATO is no longer "fringe politics" and will increase — particularly because a Kinnock government will not get rid of nuclear weapons and nuclear bases, whatever the party wants.
The demand for British withdrawal from Ireland, and Irish unity, is also established as a minority, but coherent, position in the party. This was reflected less in the vote on the issue than in the Labour Committee on Ireland's spectacularsuccessful fringe meeting - and fact that the debate on Ireland
EL1 be stepped up in the party. Replying to the debate the NEC romised a policy document in the ew year - and that this document would contain commitments to abolish plastic bullets, "replace" strip earching and end the supergrass
On South Africa, a resolution ling for a Labour government to implement an emergency programme of sanctions against South Africa, to aid the ANC and SWAPO, and provide aid to the front-line states was passed. Unfortunately, the resolution tied British sanctions to international actions - a loophole Labour's rightwing will exploit. The resolution did commit the party to work with the Anti-Apartheid Movement and urged party members to join it.
On Central America Labour's support for the right of the peoples of Central America was reaffirmed. The NEC was instructed to put pressure on the United States to withdraw support for the contras, for the British government to reinstate all trade links with Nicaragua and to launch a campaign for aid to Nicaragua.
The key issues were put onto the conference agenda and fought through conference by the National Union of Mineworkers, the Campaign Group, the Labour Women's Action Committee, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Labour Committee on Ireland, the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights, and the Central America Labour Group - to name only the most important. (10)
Most of these came together in June this year, to form Labour Left Liaison (LLL), which unites the main campaigns in the party and a number of socialist newspapers. A week
Labour leader Neil Kinnock (DR) before the conference, Campaign Forum was set up, which establishes a tripartite structure linking the LLL, the Campaign Group and leading trade unionists.
The votes at conference revealed precisely the relation of forces on the main issues around which the left fought, in particular those voted for against the line of the platform.
On the maintenance of the accountability of MPs to local party General Committees, the most important of the reforms won in 1981, and opposition to the unjust explusions of Khan and Scally, the left has essentially maintained or won a majority.
Support for the demands of the women's conference fought for by the Women's Action Committee,
8. The 'Morning Star' is the daily newspaper published by the pro-Moscow Stalinist current in Britain - most of its contributors have been expelled from the Communist Party.
9. The Black and Asian Advisory Committee was set up last year by the Labour Party NEC to try to undermine support for Black Sections.
10. The Campaign Group of Labour MPs was formed in 1982 to link Labour MPs with struggles outside parliament. Arthur Scargill and Peter Heathfield of the NUM were made honorary members of the Group at the same meeting which set up Campaign Forum.
The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy organized the campaign which won the democratic reforms of the party from 19791981, including the accountability of MPs to their local parties and the election of the leader and deputy leader by an electoral college at party conference instead of by the parliamentary fraction alone.
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986
support for the demands of the Black Section, British withdrawal from NATO and the removal of all American bases, are issues which have won the overwhelming support of the won the overwhelming support of the constituency Labour Parties and are starting to gain ground within the unions - each notching up over a million votes. These issues are firmly on the agenda for the debate in the party.
The demand for British withdrawal and a united Ireland, for the disbandment of the Black and Asian Advisory Committee, against the establishment of the National Constitutional Committee and opposition to the new offence of "conduct prejudicial to the party" are as yet issues on which the LLL and the majority in the constituencies stand virtually alone. The task here is to get these issues seriously debated in the party - something not yet fully secured.
Taken very roughly, the issues which the Labour left grouped in the LLL takes up can muster 4-500,000 votes. Those with roughly a million votes are where progress is being made to cut into forces to the right of the LLL, and on a few issues the majority is already won, or almost won, with the leadership trying to roll it back.
These issues taken together, alongside support for those fighting for freedom and socialism internationally - and in particular today in South Africa and Central America - constitute a common agenda for the left which is put forward by Labour Left Liaison's campaigns and by Campaign Forum. It is one that is beginning to get a hearing.
The left which is emerging is the most coherent and strategie one to have been created in the party since the 1920s. Internationalism, support for the demands of the Labour's conference: a pre-election rally 10
Key votes of the conference
Result
For a ministry for women with cabinet status
Carried
For at least one woman on every
Carried parliamentary shortlist
For women's conference to elect the women's section of the NEC
Defeated
For a review of the party's women's organization and the method of electing the women's
Carried section of the NEC
To endorse the NEC's expulsions of Liverpool
Carried
District Labour Party members
Defeated
For reinstatement of Khan and Scally
Defeated
Against expulsions of socialists
For the constitutional recognition of Black
Defeated
Sections
2/3 majorit
For Lesbian and Gay Rights
Carried
To phase out all nuclear power plants
NEC statement on nuclear power
Carried
For an energy policy which includes nuclear
Defeated power
Defeated
For the removal of all US bases
Defeated
For withdrawal from NATO
For membership of NATO - and a so-called
"new treaty" governing US bases which
Carried includes a British veto over action
For British withdrawal from Ireland and a
Defeated united Ireland
For the principle that the constituency General
Committee is the best vehicle for maintaining the accountability of MPs, and against changes being brought forward until after
Carried the general election
[See Footnote 1 of main article on voting rights]
For Against Votes in thousands
3,335 2,905
5,491 822*
1,232 4,471
5,489 373
6,146 325
2,715 3,443
496 5,870
1,222 5,191
4,792 1,262
4,213 2,143
4,509 1,846
2,104 4,121
1,159 5,209
1,033 5,411
5,417 1,023
402 4,408
3,500 2,600
Black Section and women's conference, and defence of party democracy are at its core. At this year's conference it demonstrated the potential significant ability to reconstitute the left-wing of the party as a whole for Kinnock (DR)
- despite the fact it is very obviously a minority at present.
Tribune's editor Nigel Williamson wrote in that paper's conference edition that "the soft left has become probably the least coherent grouping in the party". (11) He acknowledged that "social democratic" policies are that "social democratic" policies are being adopted and "the realigned left feels almost powerless to do anything about the situation"
A major crisis in fact broke out in the Labour Coordinating Committee left at party conference. The Campaign Group/LLL left in contrast, despite its minority position, was clearly putting together its agenda for the party. This agenda has already made substantial headway in the constituencies and the key task is to deepen its roots in the unions.
A clear victory for the right; the emergence of a much clearer and better organized minority left; and the beginning of a crisis in the Kinnockite left - that is the balance sheet of party conference.
11. Tribune' is the weekly newspaper of the left Kinnockites. International Viewpoint 27 October 1986