Letter
| THE SWING TO LABOUR IS WIDE AND DEEP
By T, J. Peters
Elections to the newly organized Greater London Council have shown a swing sufficient to give the Labour party a majority of over a.hundred if a general election were held in Great Britain today, [See World Outlook April 17.] That is the unanimous opinion of practically all the news media here, The Labour victory in the poll for this new and largest of the world's local government bodies is all the more. noteworthy because the Greater London Council is the creation of the Tory government. By gerrymandering outlying workingclass districts into their "safe" middle-class suburban divisions some time ago, they had hoped to overturn the Labour majority which | ruled the old London County Council for over a quarter of a century | and thereby sweep this metropolis under their wing.
The elections on April 9 showed, therefore, that not only was Labour winning back the upper layers of the working class, who had strayed off in recent years of prosperity -- middle-class supporters were deserting the Tories in droves and by-passing the decrepit Liberals whom they lately gave a flush of false hope.
The conscious nature of this shift to the Labour camp is under~— lined by another regulation, requiring local voting to be conducted without party labels, so that voters had to learn the names of Labour candidates and pick them out from long lists that included the better known Conservative incumbents in these marginal areas,
Furthermore the Communist party, which does not play any role of significance in the electoral struggle in this country and is without representation in Parliament, managed to increase its share of the poll in London from the usual’ less than 1% to over 4%; more than 90,000 out of the some 2,500,000 ballots, It is an indication of the all-round radicalization both in extent and in depth, (Other such pointers include the swing in the Young Socialists at their recent conference to rejection of the reformism of the Labour party, their parent body's program, which the press attributes to the strength of Trotskyism in their ranks,)
The artful aim of the Conservatives was to stage in London a sort of “little General Election” that would serve as a dress rehearsal to hearten their faltering support in the rest of the country, shaken by the scandals and increasing unpopularity since the last year of the premiership of Harold. Macmillan, The Tory machine had in fact poen put in top gear; so the turnout in many districts exceeded. 50% of the electorate, bringing average participation in the poll up to 44%, while ordinary averages for voting in local elections range between 35% and 40%.
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Instead the “little General Election" proved to be a crashing. demonstration of the bankruptcy of the ruling party on a national © scale, the local vote in the hinterland duplicating the London results on the whole with many long-held counties, like Staffordshire, going over to Labour.
An interesting result that looks particularly ominous for the Tories was the vote for a seat at Cornard in West Suffolk during the rural county contests, ‘there, in 1961, the Conservatives won against Labour by 520 to 2503 on April 9 Labour received 740 against 565, The parliamentary constituency in which Cornard is located happens to be what used to be considered the safe seat of R.A.B.Butler, the Foreign Minister, regarded by many as the rightful heir to the leadership of the Tory party, whom Macmillan helped his right wing to ditch in favor of Lord Home, now known as Sir Alec.
"Reprieve" until October
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the prime minister, obviously given the direction of the electoral breeze by his machine men in charge of the London contest, announced on the eve of the poll, after a bare rage or coaxing in the. entire press, that the General Election would be held in October, That is, the Tories would hang on until the very last constitutionally possible momens., Previously the expectation was June, to enable them to cash in on the momentum to be gained in London.
The October date, cynically justified by the venal press as within the purview of any prime-minister-politician under the British system -- although no previous government within memory has held out to its full term -- proved to be just what the stock market wanted, regardless of the continued uncertainty that a government obviously losing popular confidence is bound to have on trade and international relations, The stock exchange reacted to this "reprieve" with a steady rise in shares prices that completely ignored the London vice tory, even though Harold Wilson, the leader of the Labour victors, has been dubbed with unintended humor "the pipe- smoking Lenin" by the more choleric men of the City.
One of the reasons for the absence of panic may be gathered from news items buried in the inside pages of the press such as one last week that the Treasury has calmly announced "a massive relaxation of exchange controls which will make it both easier and more profitable. for British subjects to take their money abroad for investment in foreign properties." (London Evening Standard April 7.) ‘The speculators and profiteers are showing their appreciation of the decision made by the. prime minister to allow them ample time for a flight of cavital and such other adjustments as they may find nesessary to prepare for the coming of a Labour government in England,
Labour party leadership has so far appeared to ignore this. threat, among others, to paralyze government by them frem the start,
In fact, they have gone out of their way. to discourage support by effective mass action even against the most outrageous sort of Tory shenanigans, <A typical maneuver of this kind aims at flooding the country with panicmongering antinationalization propaganda, They hope by such ruses and tricks to retrieve their increasingly diminishing chances of re-election,
Thus postal officials, allegedly to increase revenue, some time ago-agreed to accept for unfranked delivery advertising circulars at bulk rate. Millions of these were produced by “Aims of Industry," a notorious Tory propaganda front organization heavily subsidized by big business. The postmen, who have been in a militant struggle for better wages and conditions, spontaneously refused to deliver these circulars in many places,
See Workers as Pawns
The Lahour leaders confined themselves to a barrage of parlia-~ mentary protests, They delayed the agreement but did not definitively scotch it, On the other hand, they worked with the postmen's union officials to dissuade their members from the contemplated action. They ‘thus indicated that they were not prepared to call upon postimen and similar workers in strategic positions to come to their support by mass action-against the certain attempts at financial subversion once the Labour government takes power,
‘For the social-democratic leaders, the working class whom they represent continues to be a masse de manoeuvre in the electoral game, to be played according to the rules set by the capitalist masters, As long as they ignore the need: for extra-parliamentary action and the real democratic power residing in the organizations of the workers, they are bound to be subjected to the blackmail and ultimate control of the financial oligarchy, regardless of all their intentions to "modernize" Britain, to inaugurate a "scientific revolution" for bringing about a society of plenty, and regardless of all their professions of egalitarianism -- whether they be a gloss as in the case of the right wing which is now providing the main support of the "left-of-centre" Wilson, or genuine do-good reform ideas as in the case of the left wing, among which radical views such as those of Anthony Wedgewood Benn on isolated issues of importance (structure of government and international relations) are coming to the fore, The party leadership as a whole bases itself on the idea of a moritocracy of talents, rather than on the democracy of a working-class participating fully in the rule of the country. With such a basic outlook, commitment to Clause 4 (with its insistence on public ownership of the means of production) cannot but remain a dead letter,
Postmen, electric-power workers., railway and bus men, steel — workers and dockers have been in action in recent months; and workers in many other industries are restive over the deterioration of pay and conditions -- particularly in the nationalized industries, which the Tory government has utilized to keep the lid down on labor
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standards throughout industry as a whole, going so far as to -reverse agreements favorable to the workers reached by managements of individual public corporations and bringing constant pressure upon them to refrain from such concessions, often seeming deliberately intent on provoking strike action with which they hope to scare back their falling middle-class support. :
Mindful of the increasing possibility of the election of a labor government that would be more attentive to their needs, and under direct. exhortation of their party and trade-union leaders, the postmen and others have called off strike and goeslow actions and accepted for the time being independent tribunals, (However, they forced the government to concede labor representation which could lay the case for their demands before the public and thus counteract the vicious antiunion and antilabor agitation of the Tory-run press.)
"Re-thinking" Among the Tories
The | Times recently opened its pages to a Tory leader who cynically debunked the "myths" and "humbug" (his words) of Conservative party policy over. the past 12 years -- from the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth to "modernization" and the "new planning." His comments could provide a few useful lessons for Labour even if his aim is to stimulate Unesthinking" for a reactionary policy of the ruling olass more in tune with present-day life,
The Times has also recently published some outspoken editorial articles of its own entitled "Election. Papers." In these it has a few words to say that could well be borne in mind not only by the Labour leaders, but by many who are rightly critical and who aspire themselves to jead the British workers to power,
For instance, the. Times editorialist, a cynic who, like the Tory leader featured in the same pages, is not above almost plagiarizing a Marxist view, says: "The political struggle is an extension of the struggle.for power which is going on all the time in industry, between shop steward and_supervisor, between union official and man-_ agement, between T.U.C. [Trade..Union Congress] and the employers! organizations, On the one side is control of money and machines, on the other control of ments loyalty. Political parties, as such, are concerned only with power, which in a democratic society is dependent on the popular vote. .. . Because there are more trade unionists than employers, the Conservatives are under the general compulsion at least to give an impression of considering their wishes, Because financiers and industrialists control the financial and production machines, and have a tremendous propaganda edifice behind them, the Labour party have to remember that effective government without their acquiescence would be impossible," (The Times April 9.)
The writer then goes on to show how and why "the result of this situation is that the words of both [Tory and Labour leaders] tend to be more radical than their intentions.!'
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The fraud of Tory words is apparent after twelve years in which financiers and industrialists have battened as never before on the workers, The task of Marxists is now to go with the British workers through the experience of trying to make the Labour leadership live up to-their words; to show that this is impossible with "the acquiescence" oF the financiers and industrialists; to break out of the parliamentary game for which the oligarchy of wealth makes the rules; to mobilize for the full participation of the working class as a whole, not only in establishing a Labour government but in making it an instrument for the transformation of Great Britain into a socialist commonwealth,
A program concretizing such a course is the need of the moment for Labour's revolutionary left wing.
BRITISH POSTAL STRIKE CANCELED
By Alan Adair
LONDON, April 16 ~- The one-day strike of Britain's 120,000 postmen, which was scheduled for today by the Union of Post Office Workers [UPW], has been called off, Likewise the two-week ban on overtime that was to have followed, Instead, the UPW leaders have agreed to accept the proposal of Maudling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to set up a four-man committee to inquire into the post office pay structure,
The committee will be composed of a chairman of academic baok-~ ground, a representative of the employers, a representative of the trade union, and a member of the 1955 Royal Commission on Civil Service, (In that year the commission recommended a semiskilled rate of pay for postmen, The government still opposes this as it would mean a wage boost,)
The committee is expected to hold public hearings and to report in three weeks, Negotiations will then commence between the govern-~ment and the UPW on the basis of the committee's recommendations,
UPW General Secretary Ron Smith considered Maudlingts proposal to be a union victory, since it is only a variant of what his exeoutive have been demanding -~ an "independent" inquiry. [See World Outlook April 3.] : ~~
‘The Home government did make some concessions, Negotiations will open almost immediately instead of in 1967. Postmen had been told that an eleven per cent wage increase spread over three years was "final." Now the rate is open to negotiation. A few days ago: © Postmaster General Bevins was talking about using troops to sort. and
deliver mail, Today he is willing to talk "reasonably" with UPW officials,
The union, meanwhile, has been considerably strengthened in a different way. For many years a conservative and backward organization, with only a small percentage of the workers. actually holding union cards, it is now taking on flesh, Workers have recently been Signing up at the rate of more than a thousand a week,
The threat of strike action had businessmen worried, Last week end the football pool promoters mailed their clients five weeks!. supplies of coupons.
WILL ITALIAN CP