In our last week's issane’ we
rs. + F outlined what we would call the "Scarborough mood" and posed the problems this raised for the left, Against this "Scarborough mood" must be sounterposed the general left sewing in the country and the very strow expression of left sentiment shown by the vote for left figures for the N.E.C. The process of keeping up the fight for socialist policies within the Labour Party without separating oneself from the mass of the party's supporters and workers is one which requires a great deal of thought, Here are some ideas which we hope will help discussion on the problem,
The left has been very vulnerable to the charge that it is "rocking the boat" by raising political differences. The answer to this is to show that the left is far more concerned with defeating the Tories than the right. The Toriss cal culate that by the time the General Zlection comes round the state of the economy will have improved so that thay give some concessions — say in next year's Budget = and generally have more room for manoscuvré. The foar that they will be able to pull this off is widely felt in the CLPa. Obviously the thing to do is to drive them out of office as soon as possible,
The charge of “rooking tho boat" will be completely undercut if the left makes itself the sproarhead of a campaign to drive the Tories out of office now. A great "Resign Now" demonstration could-be the focus of such’ a campaign. The great unemployment demonstration of March shows the passi-— bilities in this field. Sectiom of the right will argue that demonstrations never bring governments down, Against this we can argue: (1) it is not true — the Suez demonstration helped bring down the Eden Government; (2) that the Tories are in such a confusion over the leadership issue, that their international standing is so low, that there is such a paralysis of will at a time when very important issues face the country that such a demonstration could just tip the balance, And Anwy, do we just sit on our thumbs waiting for the enemy to choose the time of battle?
The Tories will try by all meas to regroup their forces when they have finally chosen their new leader, They will want to present the image of a new, fresh, invigorated team which will break with the mistakes of the past. The Labour movement must prevent them from doing this by keeping up continu ous pressure on them, by giving them no time to regroup, by demoralising then and Convincing them that they can't win.
Such a great demonstration could not mgrely be around the negative slogan of the Government resigning. To be successful it must be linked with living issues which masses of people feel strongly about and which they blame the Government for, There are many such issues — but let us take a typical one, housing. The Tories have come forward with the vote-winning (they hope) $arget of eventually building 400,000 houses per year. Such a campaign could turn this gimmick of their's against them. It can be shown that this target is totally inadequate -— it condemns hundreds of thousands of people to live in bad housing for 10, 20 and 30 years, It can be demonstrated that even this target could not be achieved unless there is a national planning of resources, Moreover, without measures to end land speculation, oven this increase in house building would lead the price of land to rocket sky-high. This is just one issue — there ars othors,
Thus the left would be to ip otecat of tha fight to drive the Tories out (and anyono who opposes such a campaign is rocking the boat) and at the same time taking advantage of the 'two-way' nature of so many of the Scar borough decisions to further the fight for socialist policids. To return to our example; a fight to expose the inadequacy of the Tory target of 400,000 houses would also be a fight to commit the Labour Party to building substant— ially more. ‘Such tactics will not be easy to apply and mst be combined with a throroughgoing critical analysis of Labour's policies in’ its more specialised press,