Reviewing Kinnock's first fifty days in the Week in Politics, jovial right winger Austen Mitchell put it this way: 'I like Neil Kinnock. He talks left, and acts right. And that's just what's needed.' We couldn't have put it better, Austen. The basic sympathies of the party rank and file remain Bennite (witness the results of the conference elections for the NEC constituency section). The political and economic crisis that fuelled Bennism continues to gather momentum, so classic 'straight right' politics of the Gaitskell kind could not hold the party together. Moreover, the right wing old guard's commitment to the Atlantic Alliance is no longer valid in a world where Reagan stalks with hobnail boots, trampling on enemies and allies alike. The TUC right wing in opting for Kinnock/Hattersley therefore adopted a political project for the party leadership in harmony with the demands of the more farsighted sections of the ruling class than the Foot/Healey caretakership. The project seeks to recentre the party on Europe and above all on European capital. Old-style Atlanticism, in which Britain held onto its dwindling imperial conquests by means of its military and financial alliance with Washington and the Pentagon met with its comeuppance in Grenada and Greenham Common. The difference in fate of Jim Callaghan — howled down at conference — and Denis Healey shows just how important it is for the right wing to learn this lesson and incorporate a realistic dose of anti-Americanism into their rhetoric.
But this shift is in no sense a move to the left. True, it has involved acceptance of many of the right wing's former anathemas. For example [illegible] 'left phraseology' it is only necessary to study the objective situation to understand that preparing a full-scale attack on policy, a deepening of the witch hunt, and above all an extended ideological [illegible] necessary counterpart to Kinnock's left rhetoric. Indeed, anyone who believes that alignment with European capital will lead to leftward developments in the labour movement need only look at the evolution of Mitterrand and Soares and the effects of their governments on popular consciousness. Mitterrand has gone further than anyone would have dreamed possible: arming France to the teeth, rushing troops into Chad, clamping down a vicious austerity policy. He has presided over the most extreme outbreak of racism in recent French history. And there is a simple reason: European capital is being crushed by the economic war with the USA. It follows that every move to centralise [illegible] austerity and exploitation, regaining the advantage against US capital by compensatory superexploitation of European workers. What is true for France, whose economy is by far the weakest in Europe, is doubly and trebly true for Britain. Economic survival for a capitalist Britain — whether on a London/Washington axis of a London/Paris/Bonn axis — demands the most draconian attacks on living standards, a vicious strong state, and maximum use of Britain's military and nuclear bargaining counters to ensure a protective umbrella stays over precious overseas investments. Finally, such measures, under conditions of the continuing decline and crisis of the Tory Party, demand a radically new political formula.
This explains the growing discussion of electoral reform and the backing that important sections of the ruling class now give to the Liberal/SDP Alliance. Labour can no longer be entrusted with the office of government on its own. Important sections of the ruling class therefore support the political and institutional steps to ensure that Labour never regains a majority in parliament; these include attacking Labour's funds through reform of the political levy, bolstering of the Liberal/SDP Alliance, and toying with proposals for electoral reform. [illegible] alliance with the right wing of the party. The results so far have been to lift Labour out of the historic trough of support seen at the last election. But there is no evidence that Kinnock will be able to rebuild Labour's vote to the level sufficient for the formation of a majority Labour government.
[illegible] younger version of Foot nor is he a classic centre right leader of the Wilson mould. On the [illegible] the objective role of Kinnock will be to pave the way for the policies of the radical right, up to and including coalition government with the SDP/Liberal Alliance. It does [illegible] experience of such a government would be for the working class, not to [illegible] the type of reactionary forces that would be behind its inevitable failure. Kinnock's left rhetoric is part of the job qualification. Whereas Foot hesitated on unilateralism Kinnock has already [illegible] to abandon all [illegible]. Whereas Foot set limits on the witch hunt, Kinnock has made it clear he intends to broaden it to include potentially all those [illegible] views on parliamentary democracy he disagrees with. Whereas Foot defended the notion of Labour as a 'broad church' Kinnock argues for a party excluding both the SDP and the 'hard' left.
The Kinnock leadership will combine the surgical methods of the witch hunt, with the clinical methods of ideological poison to isolate the most consistent socialists within the party. The latter is to be the function of the Labour Coordinating Committee led by the ex-student politicians of the inappropriately named Clause 4. Their objective is to win a base in the constituencies for Kinnock's brand of 'realism'. They got off to a fine start in November with the call for the party to drop 'Clause 4' from its constitution. It is more likely than not that they will be handed control of New Socialist to facilitate this operation. They already have multiple links with the campaigning coalitionists of Marxism Today.
Nothing should have done more to awaken socialists to the realities of Kinnock's leadership than his failure to support the actions of the NGA and his acquiescence by omission in Hattersley's attack on 'trade union law breakers'. This failure is suicidal for Labour, because the only way to rebuild Labour's vote to anywhere near what is needed to form a majority government is to deliver the most crushing possible riposte to the attacks from the Tory government. Unity of the working class against the Tories has to come above unity with the party's right wing. There can be no compromises on this point.
That is the lesson of the way that campaigning against Cruise, in defence of the NHS and in defence of local democracy have been able to win popular majorities for these policies. It is even more the case in defending the unions and the Labour Party against the legal assaults of the Tory government. At stake here is the very existence of the Labour Party and trade union movement as they are presently constituted. In fact the Labour Party was established by the trade unions precisely as part of their defence against such legislative and legal attacks.
For Labour and the TUC right wing to stand by and allow the Tories to destroy the rights of the NGA on the grounds of 'respect for the law' will be the greatest disaster the labour movement has suffered for many years. The left wing of the labour movement must grasp the full breadth and significance of this threat. Namely that Kinnock is incapable of rebuilding Labour and at best is the [illegible] of a right wing, intent on destroying all obstacles on its path to agreement with the Liberal/SDP Alliance. Chief amongst those obstacles is the left itself, however friendly or [illegible] it is to the dream ticket. Everything that has happened since the 1983 Labour Party conference brings home one clear message: the left must organise to defend the Labour Party and its radical policies. The left must organise to ensure that unions like the NGA and women like those at Greenham do not fight alone. It must organise to defend the rights of socialists within the party and must organise to defend existing policy gains, and to extend them in those areas where they have been proven bankrupt — notably on Ireland and the economy.
A whole phase of the growth of the left wing of the labour movement came to an end with the general election. The left did not win a left leadership, nor was it able to prevent sabotage and fudging of left policies. Most important of all Labour suffered a stunning defeat. The right and former left renegades like the LCC and Marxism Today are organising to abandon the goal of a Labour government with socialist policies altogether. The left can no longer leave its own organisation to groups of self-appointed leaders. It must organise democratically and in a way to maximise its chief strength — its base in the rank and file of the party, the unions and the mass movement against this government.