Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 16:08:48 GMT
From: Steve Wallis <S.Wallis-AT-mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Militant Labour, the SLP and the Labour Party


I wrote:

> > However, there is bound to be a certain amount of overlap between the
> > memberships of Militant Labour and the SLP.  In some cases (and this
> > applies to Derek), a member of Militant Labour will make a personal
> > decision to join the SLP.  <cut>
> > 
> > Militant Labour is certainly not going to expel members for joining
> > the SLP, or demand that they tear up their SLP party cards.  We would
> > obviously hope that the SLP will not go down the road of expulsions
> > either.
 
Adam Rose replied:
 
> I find this a bit bizarre, to be honest.
> 
> Joining the SLP isn't a personnal decision, it's a political one.
> Either you all do it, or none of you do it, or all of you decide that 
> some of you do it.  But you don't just leave it up to personnal 
> preference, surely ?

Well, of course it is political, as is deciding to participate in any
campaign.  Such decisions are often made within the structures of
Militant Labour, but we don't ban individual members from taking
personal initiatives.

Militant Labour has not decided to enter the SLP en masse, or that
some members should join it.  But we have not decided to ban members
from joining it either.

Militant Labour isn't the sort of organisation that rigidly enforces
the "party line" on all its members and takes disciplinary action
against any member who steps outside it.  I don't know of anybody who
has been expelled from Militant due to political differences (although
some have left voluntarily due to them).  Even when we decided to make
the "open turn" (i.e. ceased entrism in the Labour Party), we were
happy for those members who disagreed with it to stay in the
organisation, and we had no problem with some members retaining their
Labour Party cards.  [However, those members who started setting up a
new organisation, Socialist Appeal, were expelled.]

> MORE INTERESTINGLY :
> 
> > I personally expect Labour's transformation into a fully bourgeois
> > party to be completed during the next Labour government.  It is clear
> > that they would face very little opposition from their own ranks if
> > the Labour leadership decided to do this - completely severing the
> > links with the trade unions and introducing state funding of political
> > parties.
> 
> The Australian Labour Party hasn't broken its links with the unions
> - the opposite, it has found them very useful in government.
> Why should the British ? And if it did try to, it would have people 
> like John Edmonds of the GMB and John Prescott to reckon with.

Adam is correct to point out that some right-wing leaders can see
advantages in retaining links with the trade unions (due to financial
considerations and to try to hold workers back from taking action).
However, there are also disadvantages (from their point of view) in
that they are more subject to pressure from below.  Additionally, some
of them believe that the links with the trade unions are an electoral
liability.  IMO, Blair will probably push for total severance,
especially if pressure starts to mount from the rank-and-file of the
TUs against a Labour government that is attacking workers.

Will Prescott oppose Blair?  I doubt it.  He has not opposed Blair on
anything since becoming Deputy Leader and is fulfilling a similar role
to that of Kinnock (i.e. using his "left-wing" credentials in order to
help move the party to the right).

There may well be some opposition amongst trade union leaders to the
severance of the link, but Labour has already massively reduced the
ability of them to influence the LP.  Blair could well use
"preferenda" (balloting individual LP members) to secure a majority
for severance to bypass opposition that would arise from the TUs at
the party conference.

I'm not saying that this will definitely happen, but I do think that
it is a likely perspective.

Steve.

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   /----------+ Centre for Policy Modelling,         Email: S.Wallis-AT-mmu.ac.uk
   \/\  Steve | Manchester Metropolitan University,    Tel: (+44) 161 247 3884
\    / Wallis | Aytoun Building, Aytoun St.,           Fax: (+44) 161 247 6802
 \/\/---------+ Manchester M1 3GH, UK.        http://www.fmb.mmu.ac.uk/~stevew


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