The Labour Party Conference (1947)

From the July 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the 1946 Labour Party Conference can be described as a “victory binge,” then using another metaphor, this year’s might be said to be the hangover. Undoubtedly another year of Labour government has cleared away any intoxicating fumes. It was this perhaps that gave to the conference the somewhat depressing and jaundiced air of those who have at last sobered up and are beginning to see things as they really are. “Things as they really are” being Conscription, continued Austerity, Power Politics, etc. It is hardly to be wondered at that even the most optimistic member of the Labour Party is hard put to it to recognise these things as the signs of “Labour’s New Social Order.” Nevertheless party loyalty was the keynote sounded, and the huge Labour Party voting machine went obediently into action and, apart from one or two irrelevancies and minor side shows, automatically clicked its approval of Government policy. In Labour Party circles it was known as "the Unity Conference.”

The opening speech of the Chairman, Mr. Noel Baker, was significant for what it omitted rather than for anything it contained. Unable to give any convincing reason why the record of the Labour Government should merit any working-class support, Mr. Noel Baker played up the Tory “big bad wolf ” theme by telling his audience that bad as things might be under a Labour Government, under a Tory regime they would have been infinitely worse. Or, to use his own words, it would have ended in a catastrophe (Daily Telegraph, May 27th, 1947). On the international field he offered the dismal information "that to end the fear of war is the crux upon which for our generation and for our children all else turns." However, his cloudy idealism trailed a vapour which spelt out "that it was possible for nations with different social systems to live in peace and harmony.” Why it has not hitherto been possible for nations with just one social system to live in this “blessed state” he failed to explain. Of course the idea of Western democratic nations and a communist totalitarian Russia being fundamentally different social systems is a piece of fiction. All these nations are Capitalist Powers merely differing in form and certain incidental details. As a piece of fiction it is, however, both mischievous and dangerous when circulated among members of the working class, because it serves as the basis for an idealogical justification for some future conflict. Strangely enough, Mr. Noel Baker himself supplied a distinctly discordant note in all this “peace and harmony” by issuing a warning—“Let no foreigner believe that Britain is down and out.” His only statement which might have significance for working class consideration was hie admission “that poverty was still the master problem for mankind” (Daily Telegraph, same issue).

The “Socialist” Morrison began, and perhaps fittingly so, by appealing to the capitalist class for co-operation and even enthusiasm for his "Socialist State.” He even asked them to accept in terms of real spendable power, less surplus value (he called it net reward) than they had been accustomed to. (Times, May 29th, 1947). Admitting "great inequalities of wealth and bad examples of luxury spending,” he seemed determined, however, to ensure that there was a level below which the wealthy must not be allowed to sink. "There was little or no more to be got by squeezing the rich,” he declared. Whatever the workers got in the future would only be by hard work and producing more. Mr. Morrison has probably never been told that whatever the workers have got or are likely to get is only the result of their own labour. It might come as something of a shock to Mr. Morrison to be also informed that whatever the rich get is also the result of that labour of the dispossessed majority. Apparently Mr. Morrison views the working class in the light of a set of profligate nephews who have dunned their good-natured and wealthy relatives to the point of pecuniary embarrassment. That the rich have acquired their riches only by squeezing unpaid labour from the workers, and in ever greater quantities, is of course the plain, even if somewhat unpalatable, truth. It is remarkable, perhaps, how one can spend a lifetime in the Labour Movement without ever acquiring these simple elementary facts of working class existence.

Mr. Morrison also played up to what he referred to as “the so-called middle class ” (Times, May 25th, 1947). That is managers, technicians, etc. Asking also for their co-operation and help but unable it seemed to implement it by any increases of salaries, it appears he is prepared at least to confer on them official recognition of the social dignity of a middle-class status. Whether suburbia will feel that this non-material reward outweighs the disadvantages of austerity conditions is of course open to question.

Mr. Morrison then spoke as a Trade Unionist (although not at present following his craft) to his fellow trade unionists. He told them that the battle for Socialism was the battle for production. Being slogan-minded, he would just as readily have made the same claim for “The battle of Britain." He warned his fellow trade unionists, however, that all unofficial strikes were sabotage with violence to the body of the Labour movement (Daily Telegraph, May 29th, 1947). Seeing, however, that most strikes occur not as the result of any action undertaken by the trade union leaders but in spite of them, Mr. Morrison was virtually declaring that strike action for all practical purposes is incompatible with Labour Party Government. Whether a 20th century version of “ unofficial ” Tolpuddle Martyrs will evolve under "Labour’s New Social Order” might at least be reflected on. Mr. Morrison demanded the lifting of all restrictive practices on the part of the workers. No strikes, no wage demands, no action likely to interfere with Government planning; only hard work and more hard work. Mr. Dalton added his quota to Morrison’s “I can offer you nothing but toil and sweat ” formula by telling the conference that non-compliance by the workers in Government planning would lead to economic disaster (Times, May 29th, 1947).

The dangerous implication contained in Mr. Morrison’s speech was apparent from the discussion which followed it. Hampstead D.L.P. moved a resolution—subsequently withdrawn—asking for Government regulation in the distribution of man-power between essential and non-essential industry (Daily Telegraph, May 29th, 1947). Mr. Lawther, of the National Union of Mine Workers, then moved a resolution which was accepted by the Executive Committee and carried by Conference asking for necessary measures to be taken by the Government to attract Labour into the under-manned industries. Mr. Deakin, of the Transport and General Workers Union, opposed it on grounds that it posed a wages policy. He said it was not the Government’s responsibility to fix wages and conditions. He did not, however, comment on Mr. Morrison’s unofficial strike denunciation of which his Union has, in respect of such strikes, the largest number. Several delegates supported the reactionary notion of Government regulation on wages and conditions. Mr. Hawser described Mr. Deakin’s speech “as irresponsible and pernicious,” adding “That there would be trouble in the movement unless Trade Union leaders began to think on Socialist lines. If the Trade Unions are unable to prevent delays then the Government would have to take more drastic steps than it had done so far.” It might seem that certain sections of the Labour Party consider that the conduct of present day Trade Union activities is rendered superfluous by the advent of a Labour Government. The New Statesman, June 7th, 1947, succinctly expresses it by saying “that very soon a decision will have to be made between old fashioned trade union principles and Socialist planning.”

It is ironical to reflect that had proposals for wage regulation and industrial conscription by the Government emanated from any Tory quarter, it would have evoked among Labour Party supporters considerable resentment and hostility. By a curious process of self-deception they are prepared to discuss it within their own ranks in the light of “Socialist measures.” Measures, we may add, that if adopted would convert the Trade Union movement into a department of the Ministry of Labour and put back the trade union clock a hundred years.

In the Labour Party a sentimental pacifism has endured a lingering and precarious existence. It was by the Government’s Conscription Act finally slain. Professor Laski, speaking on the Government’s behalf, had to dispose of the body and ask Conference to return a verdict of “death from natural causes.” Professor Laski, who is not noted for plain speech and direct utterance, was, however, on the subject of conscription brutally frank. "The Government had to defend the country,” he said (Manchester Guardian, May 27th, 1947). ‘‘It could do so by the old method of recruiting an army by way of poverty, hunger and unemployment ’’—which would of course be unsuitable to the higher technical standards and requirements of the modern army (our comment)—“or by offering recruits opportunities and privileges so outstanding that it became a special caste.” That of course we may add would be too dear. Thus conscription is the cheap and therefore ideal method of ensuring for capitalism a plentiful and suitable supply of potential cannon-fodder for possible future wars. Apart from Mr. Rhys Davies, what opposition there was to conscription was in terms of its adverse effect on industrial man-power rather than to any objection to it on principle.

In the debate on foreign policy, Mr. Bevin, spoke as the official representative of one of the three Great Powers. His insistence on the maintenance of oil interests in the Middle East, his opposition to conflicting Russian claims and his insistence on maintaining British capitalists' interests wherever they are, marked him as a worthy descendant in the long line of British Imperialism. Mr. Bevin added a touch of melodrama to the scene in answering certain of his critics—the same critics who had objected to the “cards on the table” pamphlet eulogising his foreign policy—by shouting that he had "been stabbed in the back.” This is, of course, always an emotional trick winning device with a Labour Party audience.

Only on minor issues such as the abolition of tied cottages and equal pay for women doing equal work did the conference vote against the executive. The first is an age-long abuse of agricultural interests. The second is a measure which has considerable support in the Tory party. Its application, of course, is highly restrictive and full of anomalies. Neither of them touches the real problem confronting the workers. Nevertheless Aneurin Bevan complained that the abolition of the tied cottage system would put the Government in a legislative strait jacket, while Mr. Dalton, with a fine disregard for conference decisions, has recently rejected the equal pay for equal work project.

The Labour Party has undoubtedly proved an inestimable boon for existing capitalist interests. British capitalism, weak from the emergence of a great war coupled with the recession of the traditional hold over the workers, exercised by the older political parties, might have found the process of recovery and rehabilitation a grave problem.

The Labour Party, in securing the support of the workers by their claims to be able to run capitalism differently from the older parties, have not only strengthened the hold of capitalism over the working- class but have facilitated its recovery. Looking at the Labour Party Conference one is almost inclined to paraphrase Voltaire by saying that if the Labour Party did not exist it would have been necessary for capitalism to have invented one.

Ted Wilmott

Running Commentary: Hart Attack (1984)

The Running Commentary from the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hart Attack

Senator Gary Hart's primary campaign is looking rather like an old Mickey Rooney movie, with its message that money doesn't matter and that what does matter is being young, honest, humane . . .

Hart claims to bring the very stuff of youth—freshness, vitality, courage—to the election and he is not too abashed to admit that, compared to the overflowing coffers of Walter Mondale, his is an impecunious campaign. If the early primary results are any guide, workers all over America may be about to fall for this, and perhaps in November make a choice between Hart and the wrinkled, somnolent Reagan.

Of course we have seen this all before, many times and in many countries. It is very often a profitable political tactic, to promote a candidate on personal characteristics which mark them out from the person they are to challenge and to assert that these characteristics are a virtue in themselves. Thus the ageing, aristocratic land owner Douglas-Home was challenged by young, ex-grammar schoolboy Wilson. After Eisenhower, Kennedy was able to make his promise to "get America moving again" sound like a battle hymn of American youth. And what myths have been fashioned, and have lived on, about Kennedy's time in office.

It is to be expected that Hart should be compared with Kennedy; he is not the first American politician to try to gain from those myths. But workers who are seduced by such propaganda might take pause to recall what happened to Kennedy, and to Wilson, when the realities of capitalism overcame their posturing. They might remember how the ambitions turned sour, the promises were forgotten, the wizard was exposed as a tawdry trickster.

There is no reason to believe that if Hart makes it to the White House he will succeed where Kennedy, Johnson and Carter failed. He can offer nothing new; he must deal in the same outworn policies which have time and again been discredited, even if they are offered with his own gloss of striving youth.

No politician, whatever their age or other attributes, has ever been able to control capitalism. None has been able to cajole, or charm, the system's problems into abolishing themselves. That can come about only through a social revolution, for which society will need a working class invulnerable to all political seduction.

Ring down the curtain, not just on Hart but on everything he represents.

On the Move

One of the most revered names in the Labour Party is that of Noel-Baker. The patriarch of this clan was Philip, a frail embodiment of pacifist humbug, a spectral figure whose performance at party conferences often went some way to reassure unhappy delegates that Labour's heart was in the right place, and so reconcile them to accept the most bellicose of policies.

So it was predictable that Philip’s son, Francis, should also join the Labour Party and carry the honoured name into the Commons in the bright young intake of 1945, who outraged parliamentary customs by singing The Red Flag in the House and who were sure that they would set Britain's feet on the road to the new Jerusalem.

The rest, as they say, is history — the disillusionment with Attlee and his crew as they steered British capitalism through the early post-war years; then the long wilderness of opposition: then the heady euphoria of Wilson, which ended miserably as Callaghan was beaten by Thatcher. Labour was not just defeated, they were also in despair.

So at some point Francis decided that he, and his dad, had got it wrong. He took himself off to the Ecology Party, a well-meaning bunch who survive through an ability to observe the problems of capitalism as if through the wrong end of a telescope. Then he moved again, to the Liberals and the SDP, who survive through a stubborn refusal to admit that the problems exist to be observed. This, it seemed, might be a natural resting place for a Noel-Baker, exhausted by the demands of a heritage of self-delusion.

But the clan is made of sterner stuff and Francis is on the move again. Fed up now with the Alliance because it has no joint policy on nuclear weapons, he has switched to the Conservatives who he says, he finds "more credible". It is tempting to speculate on the "credibility" of a government which presides over three million unemployed, which has launched a harsh assault on workers' living standards and which proudly puts its name to the jingoistic blood-letting in the Falklands. Tempting too to wonder about Noel-Baker's “credibility”; by easy stages he has moved from Labour Party to Tory and there is, as they say. no place much for him to go now.

Slip-Up?

Many colourful metaphors have been used to depict the process in which a government fails to master the problems of the social system which they all claim to be able to control.

Like being caught, in the thirties, in an economic blizzard. Or, in the sixties, being blown off course. These are prime examples of the art of deception through language, in which metaphors can be especially effective. For in these cases they gave the impression that the problems were temporary and surmountable; like the weather they will eventually clear up and meanwhile there is the strong, clever political leader at the helm able to provide shelter for us all.

The art of the metaphor composer has never been better displayed than in the current fondness for describing the Thatcher government’s difficulties as a tendency to slip on banana skins. What could be more temporary than that? It needs only a new political broom, to clear away the carelessly discarded debris, and all is well . . .

Unemployed workers—many of them being told that never again in their lifetime will capitalism find a profitable use for their abilities—will have some feelings about being compared to a banana skin—slimy, undermining and discarded. Those whose discomfort is being accentuated by cuts in hospitals or social services may also have some questions to ask about the usefulness of the phrase, as well as its sensitivity.

In fact it is never useful to regard the problems of capitalism, and the difficulties which governments experience in trying to control and reform the system, as temporary, easily remediable matters. This social system inexorably produces poverty, war and a vast range of other social ills, none of which can be eliminated unless there is a fundamental social change—a revolution to replace capitalism with socialism.

The political metaphor-maker exists to obscure that fact and to divert attention from that reality to fantasy. Governments do not slip up; even if at times they become accident-prone that is beside the point. What matters is that as long as the working class are prepared to accept the fantasies and the obscuring they will remain, metaphorically speaking, flat on their backs.