number Act. ic of such a vote.
demned the changes.
son from the leadership of the Labour Party. draw out the logical implications in terms of 'personalities'.
the Parliamentary Labour Party than is the Labour left. ilised outside Parliament.
son from the haps he could pressurise Wilson! millions of workers is affected by any struggle within it.
Fing class many more thousands of workers are talking about the crisis of the The policies of the Tribune group continue to display all the inconsisten cies typical of left reformists. On the one hand the left MPs, after their capitulations on troops to Glasgow and the Budget, are showing a tiny bit more militancy in the House of Commons. The vote of eight MPs ag against the watering down of the Industry Bill follows on the heels of the votes against the Government on defence, the EEC, and by a small of MPs against the renewal of the Prevention of Terrorism There does seem to be a chance that at least some Labour MPs will vote against the public expenditure cuts and any incomes policy - although given previous voting records any socialist has the right to be sceptical on this. Such a vote by Tribune is not to be sneezed at - it would provide one of a number of rallying points against the cuts. Furthermore, if Wilson could only carry his economic policies through a coalitionist reliance on Tory votes this would substantially weaken his position within the labour movement. But even if Tribune were to vote against the cuts, it is all at sea when it comes to carrying through the log Firstly consider the question of the Wilson leadership of the Labour Party. Before the Cabinet changes Tribune were prepared to demand the reinstatement of Benn. After the reshuffle went through they conYet when it came to the crunch the Tribune group failed to carry through the logic of such a position. They condemn the action, they declare that they have no confidence in Wilson's ability even to carry through the policies of the Labour manifesto, and yet at the same time they resolutely refuse to make any call for the removal of WilABSURD POSITION This refusal to call for the removal of Wilson is a truly absurd position - you declare yourselves opposed to the policies of someone but you refuse to call for their removal from the leadership of the Party. Of course this position is given a left gloss by saying that it is policies and not personalities' which count, but this is just a cover-up - certainly you have to start with policies, but once you have decided these then you have to Secondly, and still more importantly, the Tribune left refuses to contemplate any idea of actually organising openly in the rank and file for opposition to Wilson and his policies. Indeed the Labour right, through its newly formed Social Democratic Alliance, is better organised outside ORGANISE WORKERS MOVEMENT Not merely does this refusal of the Labour left to organise prevent any serious fight against Wilson within the Labour Party, but, above all, it is suicidal given the present relation of forces within Parliament. A combination of Labour right and Tory votes can pass anything against the left MPs. To rely purely on a fight in Parliament is simply to hope that some act of God (perhaps lightning striking the voting lobby?) will succeed in wiping out the Wilson coalition majority votes. In fact it is clear as shown this week by the NUR and the anti-James White Bill demonstration, that the only really effective opposition is that which is mob If despite our scepticism, the Tribune group does vote against future public expenditure cuts or incomes policy, that will be a step forward However, 'unless Tribune comes out clearly both for the removal of Wil leadership of the Labour Party, and for the open organisation of forces for mass action against his policies, and for a fight for a socialist alternative, they will not be playing a role which can really have any important weight in the working ciass struggles which are coming.
2. THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS The IS position has remained as illogical as that of Tribune - it declares opposition to the removal of Benn, declares that Wilson is using his position to prepare an assault on the working class, but refuses to call for the removal of Wilson from that position. The only logical conclusion anyone could draw from the IS position would be that all would be well provided that Benn could be kept in Government - perBut even more striking than the extreme confusions of the IS position is the way they have almost completely ignored the whole crisis in the Labour party. For example, the week the Government changes were made, Socialist Worker decided to lead on a Maudling property scandal. This was a most extraordinary act by a revolutionary organisation, some thing which in itself should make any serious IS militant stop and think It is undoubtedly much easier to intervene in a strike, or in a national campaign on particular political issues than it is to intervene around a struggle which has so far been fought out primarily within the bureauc facy. But the impact of a crisis within the Labour Party on the consciousness of the working class is something of a totally different order to that of any strike. The Labour Party is the most immediately decisive political fact in the consciousness of the most important sections of the working class. The consciousness of literally hundreds of thousands or even For any revolutionary organisation not to take up this crisis in a cent ral way, no matter what the lack of immediate initiatives which can be taken around it, is for that organisation to confess that it is really incap able of dealing with the central problems in the political life of the work.
To concentrate a paper and a line on local strikes or property scandals at the present time is actually to say to the working class that local or partial struggles are more important than all the questions of Government and other central political issues that a crisis within the Labour Party inevitably raises. Not only is this the complete opposite of everything which Leninists have to fight for, but it won't even work - the reality of the social weight of central questions of politics means that Labour Party than about the Maudling property scandals. Seldom has the inadequacy of the semi-syndicalist polities of IS been more clearly