Last Thursday, at a packed meeting in London, Bertrand Russell tore up his
Labour Party membership card, after more than half a century of allegiance.
To judge by the prolonged applause which greeted this action, Bertrand Russell
carried at any rate a substantial part of his audience with him, in thinking
that many of the Government's present policies are totally insupportable. It
gives us no joy to comment on these happenings. We are proud to have Bertrand
Russell as one of our sponsors, and we are compelled to agree with all he says
in repudiation of Mr. Wilson's foreign and colonial policies. At the same
time, we are dismayed that he, and hundreds of other fine people, some of the
most creative spirits who have ever given their talents to the Labour movement,
now find it necessary to resign from ite This erosion of the support of many
of our best people is itself a terrible indictment of the logic of Government
policy. Demoralisation, fragmentation, disillusionment are the direct product
of violations of principle,
We, however, will not be resigning from the Labour Party. Although we find
its present course immoral and debilitating, we cannot simply leave it over
to the uncontradicted blandishments of the present front bench. Besides Mr.
Wilson, Mr. Gunter and Mr. Stewart; besides the gassing of children in Aden,
the craven complicity in genocide in Vietnam, the colour-bar bill and the
attacks on the unions, besides these things Labour has another aspect: the
aspect of a million members of the Transport and General Workers Union, of
thousands of honest, loyal and dismayed activists, of all those for whom Labour's
past pledges and aspirations are not negotiable for dollar loans. While they
remain, we shall fight at their side.
But we cannot equivocate in order to do so. All the telling points which
Bertrand Russa] has made, we shall make again and again, until everyone can
understand them. We shall fight the union-tamers, the racialists, the empire-
defenders who at present monopolise office. We shall not fall silent or
pretend that things are not as they are, They stink, and we shall say so
loudly. And we shall try, constantly, on the basis of our vision of socialism,
to group together all those people, whether they have felt they must leave the
Labour Party or not, for whom humanism, political honesty, devotion to social-
ist principle, are not expendable qualities.
What is needed is a political focus for the whole left, in which policies can
be co-ordinated and developed, and through which we can jointly fight for the
conscience of the whole labour movement. Such an organisational focus will
BRIEFING - 1965 (the introduction to the composite Briefing pamphlet ) When the project of issuing a daily bulletin to delegates at the Labour Party conference was first mooted we had no idea of how successful the project would be. In view of the way most of the voting went at Blackpool, the fact that we claim success needs explaining, We consider that Briefing was successful for the following reasons: ~ Briefing united sections of the left, in practical work, which had different ideas, backgrounds, appreciations of the way to work and attitudes towards the Labour Party leadership. Anyone familiar with the fragmentation of the left in recent years will kmow what an achievement this was. The idea of supporters of | the Voice of the Unions, New Left Review, The Week, Labour Peace Fellowship, Tribune, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Labour C.N.D., Socialist Register, International Socialist Journal, Views, and others, working together in almost complete harmony would have seemed utopian a few months ago. And yet it happened! Differences which arose were calmly discussed and where, on rdre occasions, a complete line could not be found both sides were presented, This is a lesson to the left, one which it must learn in the hectic days that are
~ Briefing showed that the left could organise. It was no mean feat to bring out a daily bulletin commenting on all asnects of the conference in time to intervene in the discussions, Sometimes the writing of the articles could not begin until 10.00 pem., yet without any exception it was there each morning waiting for the delegates as they went in at 9.00 aeme This again is a lesson for the left - how many times in the past has it been said that the left remained Organised whilst the right had an elaborate machine, ~- Briefing demonstrated that there was still a principled socialist wing within the Labour Party. Despite all the sneers of the capitalist press about the "left's lack of leadership", and of its "insignificance", we were able to show to delegates from all over the country that not everybody had been mesmerised by Mr. Wilson and demoralised by the failure of Barbara Castle's and Tony Greenwood's socialist conscience. Somebody dared to say "“mperor Wilson has no clothes" without becoming a lepers
~ Lastly, Briefing was successful because it was popular, becnuse it was sought after and attentive) read. We are not exaggerating when we say that every morning numerous delegates askéd for copies of previous issues and that considerable disappointment was shown when we ran out of copiese Delegates showed their respect for and support of Briefing by donating very generously when we had the opportunity of collecting money, It was for these reasons that we decided to embark on the venture of bringing out this composite issue of Briefing. But Briefing is more than a comment upon the day-to-day events of the conference, It is an invaluable collectqion of arguments for use in the great post-Blackpool debate which is still going on in the Labour Party. When we say that every Labour Party activist should read it we literally mean that. We ask those who have bought . copies to make sure they do. If we are to ensure that next year's contcrence goes on record against trade union legislation, against the American war in Vietnam, against the White Paper, etc., we must prepare now.