The Credibility Gap, Chapter 4: The Swindon By-Election

[page 65]

We have already pointed out that the SLL's verdict on the Krivine candidature in the French Presidential elections of 1969: "Krivine was only able to obtain a fraction over 1 per cent of the votes. On this showing, his impact was practically negligible", would apply equally to their running Frank Willis as a candidate in the By-election in Swindon on October 30th 1969; thus it might seem hardly worth anyone's time to discuss the question further.

Such, an opinion, would, in our view, be profoundly mistaken. For two important questions are raised: (a). Why on earth did they do such a thing? (b). What lessons have they learned from the experience? We shall try to show that the answer to the first question is that they utterly misunderstood the situation in which they are working, and to the second: nothing. In the course of doing so, we shall try to discuss parliamentary tactics for revolutionaries at present, and the impact of the Swindon defeat on the SLL.

The first thing which strikes a revolutionary about the comparative figures for Swindon in the General Election of 1966 and the recent by-election (1) is that the number of votes cast for left opponents of the Labour government increased by about 100 (i.e. 1/8th), but that in the second case they were split between the C.P. and the YS-SLL, the latter receiving slightly less than half of them. What this suggests, particularly in the light of the Liberal candidature, is that the working class is not yet, in any significant numbers, prepared to break, even in a by-election, to the left from the Labour Party. There is no reason to suppose that the YS-SLL candidature made more workers vote Labour than would otherwise have done so; it is conceivable, but in the light of what happened at the other by-elections of the same date, very unlikely.

Apparently then, the only aim the YS-SLL could have had which they in any sense could claim to have achieved would have been to win support from the C.P. That is, of course, something which should be done; but we think they had greater aims. And we think we can prove it.

Lab.majority of 10,443

73.5% of electorate of 57,582 voted.

1969 By-Election

Swing from Lab.to Con.of 12.8%

69.8% of electorate of 57,851 voted. Tory majority of 478.

[1] 1966 General Election

[page 66]

The first bits of evidence are personal knowledge or reliable informants; we hope our readers will accept them. (i) In late 1967 we were present at a public meeting in which Cliff Slaughter explained that the YS-SLL would be running candidates in future elections, and that they would not get the negligible crank vote which any candidate who had stood in the past would have got. (ii) As late as two weeks before the by-election, they were telling canvassers brought in from London that they would get 5,000 votes (this was related to us, between then and the election, by a sympathiser of theirs who had helped). (iii) When The Times of London, about a week before the election, predicted, in a rather snide comment, that Willis would get fewer votes than the C.P. did in 1966, most of their members and sympathisers we know were furious at the way their candidature was being run down, predicting surprises for The Times.

But there is more evidence than that. For example A Policical Challenge says that "The road now opens for the building of the revolutionary working-class party which every worker is beginning to recognise is needed" (our emphasis). It was published in Workers Press five days before the election. While "beginning" is a careful (if meaningless) qualification, one ought to get more than 1.1% of the votes if it were true!

Moreover, there is the strange question of their election manifesto. One would have thought they would publish it in their paper, since they were running a candidate for the first time, and it might be of interest to their sympathisers and supporters elsewhere. But they didn't, a fact which made some of us wonder exactly what policy they were running on. And, sure enough, it has to be seen to be believed.

We mean that literally. For the whole point of an election manifesto is that the slogans and bold print are read by far more people than read the text. (2) So the typography is all-important.

Thus, on the back, we find displayed, in large bold type, the platform:

"* Keep the Tories Out!

"* Hands off the unions!

"* Sack the Wilson leadership and bring in socialist policies!

"* No entry into the Common Market!"

which, if anyone else put it forward, would be denounced by the SLL on the grounds:

1. that it does not mention revolution;

2. that it does not mention the need for an alternative Marxist leadership, a revolutionary party;

3. that it does not pose the demand for a United Socialist States of Europe.

Indeed their canvasser-sympathiser whom we mentioned became decidedly less sympathetic after Swindon for precisely these reasons. But the text is more complicated: it reads more like an article by "Frank Williams" than "A Message from Frank Willis". Thus its main line, boldly printed, is equally opportunist, but the socialist united states of Europe, and the revolutionary party, etc., are mentioned, tacked on at the ends of sentences, "in the small print" so to speak. And although the need for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of workers councils (so urgent last spring) are strangely omitted, there are at the same time some third-period style sectariana to [p. 67] add spice to the meal.

[2] The ratio might be lower in the case of a new party such as the Young Socialists, but that does not change our argument materially. We should also say that the SLL XIth Conference Policy statement (for which see The Newsletter 31st May '69) may have been distributed in Swindon before the election campaign began; on the spot investigation is not decisive on the point.

We'll illustrate the cpportunism by two examples: leadership and the Common Market. Now Workers Press of 29th Oct told us, in 1½" headlines, that "Leadership is decisive" (headline news!). The statement A Political Challenge says: "Most essential is a socialist policy and leadership to direct this strength" (it's not clear which strength, probably that of the working class -TW), and also (original emphasis): "The essential question is to build an independent leadership", and yet again: "The essential question is to build political leadership in the working class movement". (This bizarre repetition is inexplicable. Do they think they can win the working class in its millions by iterating this one point?) We quoted previously an SLL PC statement having as a slogan: "Join the SLL and build the alternative revolutionary leadership!" While the election manifesto just mentions it in passing...

The treatment of the Common Market is just as bad, by the standards of the SLL or indeed any revolutionary. Thus "in small print" we are told that there is an alternative: "Fight for socialist policies in Britain and support the struggles of the European workers against their bosses - for a socialist united states of Europe!" (How to do these things is not explained). But this comes after displayed paragraphs, in bold type, red and black respectively:

"The Common Market would inflict massive price increases on every worker's family. Products like butter and beef will go up to three and even four times the present level",

and

"Vote against the Common Market! Vote for Frank Willis!"

One may be forgiven for thinking that they might have been in danger of getting support from those workers who opposed the EEC for the most backward, muddled reasons; fortunately, that danger did not materialise.

Moreover, A Political Challenge, five days before the election, and the "Interview" with Frank Willis in the same day's paper, had a similar line: "drastically reduced living standards would result from entry into EEC". But it did not explain to workers that drastically reduced living standards, or at least attempts at a drastic reduction, are on the way whether or not Britain joins. Nor did they even mention the question of a United Socialist States of Europe.

These strange phenomena, which are of course entirely unrelated to the fact that in Sept-Oct 1969 large sections of British voters, according to all the opinion polls, were opposed to entry, become even stranger when contrasted with the criticisms levelled by the SLL at the CP during the first attempt at entry in 1962-63. For then they attacked the CP's opportunist concentration on the cut in living standards if Britain entered, predicted a cut if it didn't enter, and put forward the policy of a United Socialist States of Europe (3).

Now if the line on the Common Market of A Political Challenge, and the main, emphasized, line of Willis' manifesto, were opportunist, even non-socialist, the "analytic" section of the manifesto is even worse. They explain:

"We are absolutely opposed to entering the Common Market! The employers want to be in the Common Market in order to be free to transfer their investments to cheap labour areas and sack the well-organised, highly paid trade unionists of the main British industries." Scientifically, [p. 68] this is of course nonsense: it ignores monopolisation on a European scale, the need for large units to meet American competition, etc., etc... And politically, it is all too reminiscent - to say the least - of an appeal to the insular nationalism of many British workers.

[3] Tom Kemp had an article in Workers Press of 19th Dec '69, attacking the current opportunism of the CP along much the same lines as in the early '60's. This heralded a shift in emphasis on the League's part so great as to amount to a change in line: Workers Press of 1st Jan '70 headlined the Case for a Socialist United States of Europe.

Other questions get the same sort of treatment; details would be superfluous. We content ourselves with pointing out that while they refer to the CP being "tied to the Stalinists in the Kremlin", who "brutally suppressed the Czech workers", there is no mention of defence of the USSR or support for the Chinese Revolution!

None of this prevented them from asserting in Workers Press on election day that "The Young Socialists' campaign...has not been caught up in vote-catching gimmickry through the television (4), inter-party debates and the churches."

The same article contained an interesting formula: "Whatever the size of the poll, the Young Socialists will not be leaving Swindon" (our emphasis), repeating the strange line adopted by Frank Willis in the interview we mentioned (5): "The big issue here is not the size of the vote. Working-class victory depends on the building of an alternative force based on principles, and this is the appeal of the Young Socialists...(who) have set an entirely new example in political campaigning in Britain".

Indeed they had: an example of confusion and disorientation!

Firstly, one would have thought that the size of the vote indicated the degree of success in the "building of an alternative force". At least it would provide a measure of the number of those prepared to follow the "independent Marxist Leadership"...

Secondly, their youth paper Keep Left had, all through the summer, boosted their Swindon campaign (in contrast to The Newsletter). In June:

"The seriousness with which the Young Socialists are tackling the political campaign in Swindon for the by-election was aptly illustrated on June 7 when 250 marched through the town and canvassed for support." (6)

In July/August:

"Over the last months, Young Socialists from all over the country have put in a great deal of campaigning work: canvassing from door to door, visiting the constituency's voters in their homes and explaining our policies."

In September (7) they dropped it for the daily, but in October Frank Willis got a front-page spread:

[4] Curiously, an SLL member told us of watching Frank Willis in a television discussion. We don't know whether any such discussion took place, since we don't watch TV. But, if it did, he was strangely proud of "vote-catching gimmickry"...

[5] It seems that, in the week preceding that interview, those stubborn things, the facts of the situation, crept up behind the SLL leaders and hit them over the head.

[6] The article went on to explain that not all the 250 demonstrators went on to canvass. Since the YS held an election demonstration in July 1968 in Swindon, which also had 250 participants, some of us were already doubtful about their prospects last June.

[7] The September 1969 issue of Keep Left is an excellent illustration of organisational fetishism. It has eight pages; two of these are devoted to the YS Summer Camp. On the right hand, we have an article: "An historic YS camp." On the left hand, we have, under the heading "Young Socialists learn about the role of leadership", no less than 11 (out of a total of 12) letters about the camp, describing it as 'a tremendous success', 'the best I have ever been to', etc. So many successes, they had better not let them go to their heads!

[page 69]

"Throughout the last six months we have been campaigning in the town from door to door with our election programme. We have met with an enthusiastic response because the YS stands for the only policies which answer the issues now facing the working class."

So we critics were entitled to expect, from comrades distinguished by their "seriousness" in "tackling the political campaign in Swindon", who were setting an "entirely new example in political campaigning in Britain", a serious assessment of the experience in the November Keep Left, published after the fiasco.

Unfortunately, it cannot be said that we got it.

Instead, we had some of the most complacent, hypocritical, dishonest piffle it has ever been our misfortune to read. Thus, under a front-page headline: "SWINDON We fought to keep the Tories out!", Aileen Jennings explains that "For the first time ever the Young Socialists stood their own candidate in a parliamentary election in the Swindon by-election. Our candidate Frank Willis...polled 446 votes following a year's campaign in the town." (Since it began in July '68, about a vote a day!)

They somehow fail to mention that the Tories won (8), indeed they don't give anyone else's vote. They claim that "the YS shunned vote-catching gimmickry" and that "Young Socialists learnt a lot from what was one of the biggest and best-organised campaigns we have ever had... the YS was able to canvass the town three times (9)." Demonstrating that in fact they had failed to learn the basic lesson - not to run candidates by themselves under those circumstances - the editorial went on: "All this was extremely valuable experience. We shall stand again in Swindon in the general election and in other places as well."

"We canvassed each house three times, carried out a door to door battle for support and raised the most important issues facing the working class - the Common Market, rising prices, wage freezing and unemployment. We warned of a return of the Tories...(We) had the most enthusiastic canvassers. Without vote-catching con-tricks our campaign was a struggle for socialist principles," &c.

Sarah Hannigan of Clapham YS writes:

"Up to the time of the election, the YS completed three full canvasses of the whole of the Swindon area in a mass drive to bring the YS policies home to every worker and housewife in the town. As we talked to people on their doorsteps, we could begin (?) to see very clearly the problems that are affecting workers all over the country today," &c.

And to complete the hat-trick, B. Gill of Hounslow YS writes:

"Young Socialists have been round Swindon at least three times to discuss with the working class about fighting the employers and their system," &c.

One is entitled to ask: can't these people do anything but repeat the same thing over and over?

[8] It does say: "...no political campaign was conducted by (the Local Labour Party) to keep the Tories out, in fact they opened the door for the Tories to win the seat." We can't regard that formula as enough, firstly, because, the working class youth at whom Keep Left is aimed would almost certainly not be conscious of the Tories' victory at Swindon, and secondly because that was the conclusion drawn by Healy from all five by-elections, four of which were won by Labour. A letter on page 3 does say outright that the Tories won. Incidentally, the editorial also presents us with more jargon: since the LLP must have waged a campaign to keep the Tories out, we can only conclude that Keep Left could not award the label 'political' - a favourite label, of course - to it. But that seems strange... the Labour Party is, whatever else one says about it, a political party.

[9] This theme is repeated in the letters column, which these days bears analysis as an awful warning of how a good paper can degenerate. There are four letters, three about Swindon. A "Swindon Canvasser" writes:

[page 70]

We must say that the editorial - outrageous though it is - is, indefinably, less arrogant in tone than a lot of their material, e.g. extracts above. We believe, that, in fact, their election experience at Swindon came as a pretty sharp blow. For the orientation towards independent candidates was adopted a long time ago (10), and a justification of it can be found in The Newsletter of 18th June 1968. A section of the 1968 Congress Resolution of the SLL is published there; it contains the following extracts on candidates:

"We shall stand candidates in the next parliamentary elections in certain constituencies, not at all because we are for any 'parliamentary roads' but, on the contrary, because we take every opportunity exposing and defeating the existing 'parliamentary' leaderships of the working class.

"We will, of course, not win electoral victories at this stage, and the most important gain will be to build up a body of experience in this field. Where we have no candidate we will urge support for the Labour candidate and oppose any turn away from the Labour movement by 'independent', 'tenants' and similar candidates encouraged by 'state capitalists' and other opportunists who always fall into sectarianism when the real strugge for an alternative is posed."

As a matter of fact that is not too bad. It is quite correct in principle for revolutionary socialists to use elections for propaganda work, even if they have no hope of winning (and the practical experience, is, of course, useful). But, when it is necessary to bring in "Young Socialists from all over the country" to run the Swindon campaign, particularly from "all different parts of London" (B. Gill), one wonders whether, given the strength and resources of the YS-SLL, it is really worth the effort, or is likely to be at the general election. Not that we share their Krivine assessment, that their "impact (in Swindon) was practically negligible". Their comments on Krivine were merely dishonest, inspired by factionalism; as the Ligue Communists did in France, the SLL has managed to establish in Swindon, through its activities including the by-election campaign, a solid, though small, base in the factories,etc. (11)

What we do think is that, in this talk of establishing a base among workers discontented with Labour and /or CP, the role of electoral work is at present minimal. If it were possible to establish a united front of various revolutionary groups - IS, IMG, SLL, perhaps Maoists - on an agreed program of specific transitional demands, and to mount, in one or two suitably selected areas, a serious, large-scale campaign, which set itself the limited objectives of gaining experience, of propaganda work and a certain amount of recruiting, then an electoral tactic on those lines might be justified (one could only say it was in a specific case).

Unfortunately, the prospects of such a campaign are negligible. One reason is the sectarianism of the SLL - just as they have recently refused, in the aftermath of the recent racialist outbursts in Leeds, to engage in joint anti-racialist activity with the IS and the local CP, so their comments on the IS "tenants'" candidature strongly suggest that they would refuse any united front electoral work. Now we don't know very much about that IS work, and, apart from not being partisans of IS, we are anyhow inclined [p. 71] to doubt its value. But the SLL's "criticisms" are merely another example of organisational fetishism: when they, the revolutionary party, engage in electoral work that is "the building of an alternative force based on principles", you see, but when IS run tenant candidates, probably with more support, as part of a genuine tenants movement, it is "sectarianism"...

[10] Between 1964 and 1966 they discussed seriously the possibility of putting up a candidate in the Bosworth constituency, where the MP is the extreme right-wing Labourite, and partisan of a Lib-Lab pact, Woodrow Wyatt. For various reasons, mainly their failure to establish a YS branch there, the project did not get off the ground.

[11] It is a curious fact, the significance of which we don't understand, that the main areas where, during the 1960's, the SLL has been able to win over significant sections of adult CP militants, are isolated industrial centres: Swindon, Oxford, etc...

Another reason is that the Maoists, at least, have an insane anti-parliamentary policy. Which question raises a very interesting episode, which cannot be too widely known. Oxford, of course, is one of the few centres where the SLL has a good base among the factories (consisting of some first-class militants). It is also a stronghold of the Maoists of the Peking-recognized CPB(ML)(Birch) tendency. The Oxford branch of the CPB(ML) publish, irregularly, a one-page broadsheet called Oxford Worker, for which they claim a circulation of about 1,000 (which, if true, is at least 5 times the Oxford circulation of Workers Press).

Here are some extracts from Oxford Worker No 3:

"Ever since they were expelled from the Labour Party, the Young Socialists (Socialist Labour League) have been gazing enviously at the seats of power occupied by the capitalists' front men - Wilson, Heath & Co. - at Westminster. This is why they lag so far behind British workers in seeing through the hypocrisy of Parliamentary politics.

"So in the Swindon by-election the Young Socialists politely asked the ruling class if they could join in their game, and put up their own candidate to "pose the fight for principles first' (as they claim). These principles amounted to an attempt to 'teach' the workers of Swindon about the Labour Party's betrayal of the working class.

"Even in Swindon, which had an unusually high poll, the number of voters' abstaining exceeded the number voting for any of the candidates. The real result of all the recent by-elections was a mass vote against Parliamentary politics. Workers obviously know a good deal more about class struggle than do the power-seekers of the Socialist Labour League..."

"The performance staged at Swindon in conjunction with the revisionist Communist Party of Great Britain and the other bosses' parties exposed the League's 'left' socialist phrasemongering as a cover for the most unprincipled opportunism."

As we said, some at least of the Maoists have an insane attitude to, among other things, parliament. We don't want to discuss that here: the important point is that this claptrap has had a pretty wide circulation in one of the League's most important centres. And, unless we are mistaken, the SLL has made no reply. In fact, Oxford Worker is just an extreme example of what has happened nationally, yet the only SLL statement on the Swindon by-election, apart from the November Keep Left, is an article "Labour Keeps Door Open For Tories" by G. Healy in Workers Press of 1st Nov. It is hardly worth reproducing it all here, but some quotes are called for (original emphasis throughout):

"Wilson has prepared the ground to hand over to the Tories.

"This is the political reality, no matter how unpalatable it may seem to those who continue to think in the old opportunist way.

"It was above all, the lesson from the Swindon result..."

"(The 'left' MP Mikardo) avoided the increase in unemployment which has been engendered by the government to placate big business..."

"The Young Socialists fought what was in our opinion one of the best organised political campaigns in what for them has been a history of well-planned campaigns.

"They were truly magnificent in their discipline and political seriousness..."

[page 72]

"It was absolutely correct for the Young Socialists to pose the fight for principles first in the by-election - this is a million times more important than vote-catching..."

"Hatred of the Tories is not enough - socialist policy is much more decisive (sic. Q. of what?) - that is surely the main bitter lesson from the five years of Wilson's rule..."

"In 1966 Francis Noel Baker had a 10,443 majority. It was Wilson's betrayal which transformed this into a Tory victory.

"The Liberals with Layton, who did not stand a candidate in 1966, received 6,193 votes (no doubt many were Labour in 1966).

"The Communist Party which received 838 votes in 1966 saw its vote fall to 518.

"The Young Socialists, who participated for the first time, received 446 votes.

"It is absolutely clear from these figures that Labour lost because of its treacherous policies, which strengthened the Tories and the Liberals." (12)

These extracts sum up the disorientation of the SLL. First, let us remark that the quoted extract is all - believe it or not - that is said about the CP. Second, let us note that, having driven so many people so hard in the campaign, it is impossible for the SLL leadership to admit the hypothesis that it might have been a mistake. Every one - we would have thought - would see that "it is absolutely clear from these figures" that the electoral significance of the YS's "absolutely correct fight for principles first" was probably negligible, and would ask why, after five years of Wilson's rule, that was so.

But not the SLL. They are unable to recognize that, although the Labour government has tried to solve the problems of British capitalism at the expense of the working class, its real success has been limited, mainly because of the strength, despite all its faults, of the organised trade union movement. Thus, while monopolisation and rationalisation have been carried through, the main damage - and it is very great - done by Wilson is the spread of demoralisation and confusion through the ranks of the Labour movement; the parliamentary and union 'left', by their abject capitulation to him, have contributed to this. But Wilson has not, despite the reiteration by the League since 1965 of predictions and accusations, increased unemployment to any very serious level.(13) In particular unemployment in Swindon is negligible, and can have had no effect on the election.

Moreover, as Healy himself admits, despite his campaign for socialist principles, votes have gone mainly to the Liberals, with the Tories benefitting from Labour abstentions. Now some of the votes cast for Layton may have been Liberal votes which were cast for Labour in 1966; but since the Liberals have not stood in Swindon for a long time, that is unlikely. And the conclusion one surely draws, from the fact of such a movement of votes - more so in the presence of a revolutionary socialist candidate than without - is that the British working class is not, yet, moving in a revolutionary direction or even, in its masses accessible to revolutionary socialist propaganda: the situation is neither pre-revolutionary nor rapidly developing into a pre-revolutionary situation, and, rather than it being "absolutely correct", it is most probably incorrect and a waste of time to engage in such candidatures.

Of course, we have not yet taken into account, in our discussion of the by-election, the effect of the ultra-left element in Healy's propaganda. [p. 73] It is very difficult to do so; let us content ourselves with pointing out that it is extremely unlikely that British workers, with their long social-democratic history, will respond to propaganda presenting the Labour Party (and the Liberal Party) as the same as the Tories (e.g. on the Common Market issue). Moreover, such assertions are inaccurate and a-historical: if it were pointed out (and Healy used to do this!) that the Wilson government is different from the Tories in that it is doing,exploiting the confidence of the workers, a job that the Tories could not (in 1961 to 1963) do, that would, in our opinion, find a much better response among discontented Labour voters.

[12] Readers of previous notes will spot in the Great Leader's words the inspiration for some of the rubbish we have quoted from Keep Left.

[13] With the exception, of course, of certain areas, such as Northern Ireland. Moreover bourgeois figures - although they must be treated with great caution - suggest that the specific impact of sackings and unemployment has been changed by certain measures of the Labour Government, e.g. the introduction of Redundancy Payments and less

Finally, let us pose another question: why Swindon? There have, after all, been plenty of by-elections since 1966, so some account is surely necessary of why the YS-SLL waited three years to be "absolutely correct" in "posing the fight for principles first". None will be forthcoming, we suspect, but if we look at it reasonably, we can see that the answer gives yet more evidence for the belief that they expected a high vote.

For Frank Willis is, after all, one of their best militants. He has a good record, is popular in the trade union movement, and has been involved in a number of important struggles in the area. No doubt the SLL leadership also has or had in mind standing candidates in places such as, perhaps, Birkenhead. But that aspect of the Swindon candidature - and we are fairly confident we have the right answer to the mystery - only emphasizes the SLL's confusion: they are unable to distinguish between the willingness of workers to follow a good militant in trade union struggles, knowing his politics, and support for those politics and "principles" themselves.

So let's sum up our assessment of the Swindon by-election. First and foremost, the utter inability of the SLL to honestly discuss the experience is damning. (14) Secondly, their incongruous combination of ultra-leftist and opportunist propaganda has, by all the signs, failed to attract the support they anticipated and one would have liked them to have got. (For while 446 is not bad, it completely undermines their assessment of the situation.) Thirdly, if they continue with tactics of electoral adventures in isolation while attacking others for doing much the same thing, they are wasting their time and everyone else's.

[14] A propos of this point: the pretentious bombast in their press after Swindon probably did not reflect accurately the counsels prevailing in the ruling circles of the SLL; we suspect the top leadership, as time passes, will find some excuse not to keep the promises then made. Although it may be a self-non-fulfilling prophesy, we predict: the SLL will not "stand again in Swindon in the general election and in other places as well".

[13, continued] miserly unemployment benefit.