After Scarborough

For the left as a whole, Scarborough was a disappointment. Although expectations varied, most tendencies and journals were confident that the Labour Party conference would following the TUC in voting against Government policy on most important issues. In fact, the Government was defeated on only one major issue, Vietnam, and came through with big majorities on two crucial questions, economic policy and the Common Market. Enough has been said about the mechanics of the voting - the switch by the NUM and Post Office Workers, etc. - to make clear how it happened, Not enough has been said about why it happened. This is a subject to which we will be returning in major commissioned articles, However, everyone from the newest of new delegates to Nora Beloff and other commentators has agreed that two things characterised the conference: firstly, lack of a real fight by the left, and secondly, the lack of meaningful alternative policies to those of the present leadership, intil these two things change we can expect no better than we achieved at Scarborough, We think, however, that it would be wrong to be pessimistic: Scarborough was by no means a defeat for the left and there are other encouraging signs, The fight~ ing spirit of sections of the working class - the dockers, motor car workers, etc. - is on the upsurge. We can confidently predict that the tendency for the number of working days lost in industrial disputes will no longer be on the decline. On the contrary, the tendency will be for a big increase. If the left links itself with these struggles we have the perspective of re~staffing and re-equipping the workers organisations, Likewise, the one signifieant victory at Scarborough must be used to the full. The left wing of the Labour Party must integrate itself fully in the various anti-Vietnam war activities - this is its only chance to win the allegiance of the thousands of young people spurred into action over Vietnam. Politically, the left must resist the enticing temptation of abandoning Labour Party struggle. Those who "buried" the Labour Party at Scarborough should examine a few figures, They should compare the number of people they had on their tiny demonstration with the number of people inside that conference, Those who would "bury" the Labour Party in political terms should stop and think, They too should examine some figures. It will be interesting to compare the vote of the Communist Party at Gorton, fighting on a good reformist - if not revolutionary policy, with that of the Labour Party, fighting on a policy of wage freeze, The remarkable thing will be how many continue to vote Labour after all the double crosses and betrayals, The Labour Party has been "buried" many times before, One has only to look back at past issues of Labour Monthly (especially those after the 1931 General Election) to read several funeral orations, We want to bury right wing social democracy - but this cannot be done verbally. Only when a decisive section of the working class has lost completely its illusions in right wing social democracy and - most important - sees a real and viable alternative will funeral services be in order, Until then we must work with might and main to build a left inside the Labour Party. Soberly assessed, Scarborough can be seen as a step in that diregticn,