There are few socialists, inside or outside the Labour Party, who will express any regrets at the departure of George Brown from the government. For too many years he was the very symbol of right-wing entrenchment within the Transport House establishment. It was he who, in the nineteen-thirties, moved the expulsion of Nye Bevan and Stafford Cripps from the Party. He was one of the instigators of the movement which pushed Gaitskell into the leadership. Not so many years ago he tried to expell Bertrand Russell. His present pose as the champion of the fundamental aims of the Labour Party will deceive no-one. It is but one more gamit in the game of manoeuvring for supremacy within the Party.
There are, however, some curious facts which came to light in the course of his resignation speech. Like many other Labour politicians - including the late Nye Bevan - George Brown entered Parliament under the illusion that it was the citadel of power in Britain. His experience as a Cabinet Minister, second-in-rank only to the Prime Minister, has brought home to him what Marxists have always known - that real power is in the hands not of Cabinet or Parliament but of those who control the country's economy. In the case of Britain decisions are taken in the City of London, in Wall Street and in Zurich. Roy Jenkins' Budget, delivered on the very morrow of Brown's remarkable resignation speech is the expression of the wishes of international finance capital. Far from reflecting the views and interests of the Labour movement, it is a vicious anti-working class budget, designed to defend the capitalist system come what may.
If George Brown was sincere in his desire to restore the morale of Labour he will now tell all. He could do a real service to the movement and the cause of socialism by exposing the tight grip which the Bankers exercise over the British economy, using the Treasury as their instrument within the Government. Marxism describes the State as a class institution, the Government as the executive committee of the ruling class. The trappings of parliamentary democracy are designed to conceal this iron fact from the people. When the Tories are in power, this camouflage is more successful because there is a complete identity between the Tory hierarchy and those who own and control the nation's economic life. Under Labour there has to be more direct interference with the machinery of government.
The masters crack their whips and the Cabinet has to come to heel. That is why the Labour Government ignores resolutions passed at Annual Conference and attempts to stifle criticisms within the Parliamentary Labour Party. They know they cannot serve the capitalist state and the cause of socialism, and from choice or from ignorance they prefer the former solution.
From this flows all the errors and betrayals of the past three years - the anti-trade union legislation, the racialist immigration laws, the support of American imperialism in Vietnam and the Carribean. The only alternative to this is a resolute fight for a pricipled socialist policy and this will not be realised by M.P.s who abstain on vital issues. Only by fighting all the way against the reactionary policies of the Wilson government can the morale of the movement be restored. The time has come to stand up and be counted.