policy trap As the possibility of a snap General Election is more and more widely canvassed, a whole mass Labour Party.
The justification put forward for this appeal is that everything must be subordinated to defeating the Tores at the next election, and that unity is the only way to achieve this.
To the fore in this campaign is Tribune, the weekly paper of the Labour "lefis", In the 28 December issue, for example, Michael Foot writes as follows about Reg Prentice: "Stephen Haseler . is inviting me to engage in full blooded polemic with Reg Prentice The temptation is strong (sic) but | hope he will understand why I retuse lo do so. such an argument might casily be headlined in the Tory press. particularly at this moment, as the sign of another great split in the Labour Party. No-one but the Tories would benefit.* What Foot is saying is that he thinks the Tories, and not the working class, would beneBif from the exue of Prentice, And so the latter-who has been cariying out a public campaign against the tailwaymen and other workers in struggle-has the field to himself while the lefts stay sient in the name of ranity -NOTHING NEW This type of thinking, along with big illusions in the line of the Labour leadership, is by no means something new for the 'lefts". Who can forget, for instance, Tribune's description of the 1966 Labour programme: "The Labour manifesto s not only an interesting and stimulating document, It is also, in essence, a focialst one. The answers are inescapably egalitarian. There is some self-congratulation. bat is it not justilied?" (11 March 1966).
As for Michael Foot, he declared then that the date of the election will mark one of the essential dates in the forward march' (Tribune, 25 March 1966), He was, of counse, right-it was the forwand march to incomes policy, housing cuts, and the In Place of Strife anti-union proposals. So what is it this time that the Labour "lefts" are so eager for us all to unite around?
INDUSTRIAL ACTION The first and most important thing to note is that throughout the present struggles agatst Phase 3 the Labour leadership has been careful to avoid giving support to industrial action to smash Phase 3 and finish off the Tory Goverment. While not many have been prepared to go to the same lengths as Reg Prentice, they bave nevertheless made their real pasitions very packape only stands a chance of heing implemclear. As long ago as the end of November, for example, Wilson declared in an interview with the Sun that, 'I have not supported any particular wage claim". He then added for good measure that he thought the miners would lose public sympathy 'if they were seriously seeking to bring the Goverrment down by industrial action -when the only means of changing a government in this country is through action by Parliament or a Generai Election.
When he carpetled Renn and Prentice for their public feud on 26 November, Wilson stated Such are the manceuvres around which the quite expiscitly that Eabour could not support:
any actions against the law-that is, any real attempt to break through Phase 3. Since then, the party leadership has concentrated on trying to convince sections of the ruling class that Labour's subtle methods wouid be mote eftective than Heath's brucal ones in bringing the unions to hecl. Hence the campaien for the miners to be given "walting time" payments (a smali enough concession) combined with denuncialions of the Goveinment lor playing into the hands of the 'militants and troubiemakers. As Heath continues to apply the big stick, Wilson suggests that the ruling class anighr have waged no campaige to pas the resources prefer his own alternative of freguent small doses of arsenic.
LABOUR MANIFESTO All these manceuvres have paved the way for the manesto which Labour is prepanng in case there should be a General Blection. Large paris nt this have already been leaked to the press, including the section which advocates concessions for the miners though oaly as a 'special case. The real sting. however, bies Red Weekly 18 Jenuery 1973 Page 10 in the proposals for an incomes policy. Here we are told. "After so many failures in the field of economic policy under the Lahour Goverament, and even more seriously under the Tory Government's compulsory incomes policy, only deeds can persuade. Only practica! action by a government to create a much fairer distrbution of national wealth can convince the worker and his family and his trade union that an incomes policy is not some kind of trick to force him to bear the brunt of the nattonal What emerges from all this is that, in rebarmn for some action over prices and rents. plus taxes on properly speculators and perhans also on wealth, the trade unions will he expected to co-operate voluntarily in a Labour-imposed This is indeed a sugar-coated pail-and not a very well disguised one, cither. Of course it would be nice to see the property men stripped of some of their profits, but this is not at all the most central question, What is really at Michanl Foot - refuses to expose Prentice stake is not the outward show of capitalist wealth hut the inner mechanisms of orpitalist society, which produce the horrors of war in Vietnam and of mass powrty, rising unemployment and barharities such as fasciser, The strupele apainst capitalism is therefore the strugele to destroy these processes, which ure going to work themselves out rather nastily even in the immediate future, Capitalism, not only in Britain hut in the rest of the world too. is moving into its worst recession since 1945. The capitalist class will try to solve this problemn by shilting the burden onto the working class, Not merely will it not make way peacefully for socialism, but it will demand an extremely high price in retum for even small concessions on prices and tents.
In other words, even Wilson's reformist ented if the ruling class gots something much more important in return. That something eise would of course have to he a renunciation of the industrial strugele, the one means by which the working class has managed to protect it standard of bine over the last few years. At the moment, the ruling cass still backs Heath's big stick, But if all else fails and it reaily will he a last option-Wilson offers them another way out ROAD TO DISASTER Laboar "lefts' are now cailing for unity But anyone with any sense will decitne to tread thes narlicutar road to disaster, Chi the question of incomes policy, the oniy unity worth having Is around the resolutions already passed by the AUEW and ASTMS, opposing the introduction of an incomes policy by any govermment. NO INCOMES POLICY UNDER CAPITALISMGhis is the hasis on which working class unily should be forged.
Thibane and the other Labour lehls totally reject this policy, of course, prefering to coser up for the Labour right. Thus they of the Labour Party behind the present industrial struggles; nu campa-gu lor Labour councils fo use their resources in suppolt of the Struggles of the werking class ladeed they have Iprored the one coancil. Clay Cross, which hor played a truly heroic tole in the struggle apicast the Lones Now these detts call tor unity But as someone once said: You cun t fool all of the people all of the linte"
Passenger Train. Yet the drivers are not unique
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of propaganda is being chumed out to persuade the working class to unite its ranks around the