Labour Government's failure (1966)

Report from the 8th November 1966 issue of the Hackney Gazette

S.P.G.B's condemnation at Hackney

"The Labour Party formerly claimed to be Socialist, but events have finally exposed this notion. The differences between Labour and Tory Governments are superficial; both aim at running Capitalism," declared Mr. H. Baldwin recently, answering "Any Questions on the Labour Government" at Hackney Trades Hall, at a meeting of the Socialist Party of Great Britain's Hackney Branch.

Questioned on the difference between . the S.P.G.B. and the Labour Party, Mr. Baldwin said that the S.P.G.B.. formed in 1904. has always been independent and opposed to all other political parties in this country. Whether obviously pro-capitalist, like the Conservative and Liberal Parties or pseudo-socialist like the Labour and "Communist" Parties, these aim to achieve power by reformist election promises, but when returned can only attempt to cope with the numerous problems which Capitalism produces, inevitably clashing with working-class interests.

The S.P.G.B., while exposing the Labour Party's non-socialist character, since its inception, is the only party that aims solely to change completely the basis of society by replacing Capitalism by World Socialism, he said.

The speaker described Capitalism as a social system in which a minority capitalist class own almost all the means of production and distribution by money invested in private or Government concerns, whilst the overwhelming majority, the working class, have only their labour-power which they must sell for wages to the capitalist class. The capitalists employ workers solely to create wealth over and above the total wages paid. The commodities produced by the working class are sold to realise profit for the capitalist class. Competition for markets, trade routes and raw materials leads to international conflict and war, hence armed forces and H-bombs, while the conflict over the price of labour-power shows itself as industrial! strife.

WEAPON OF UNEMPLOYMENT

This system, he continued, answering further questions, the Labour Government claimed to be able to plan. The Labour Party, formed in 1906 to protect Trade Unionists' interests, which claimed the workers' votes recently with slogans like "Higher Wages and Productivity" and "Planned: Growth — An End to Stop and Go" now deliberately creates unemployment as a weapon of economic policy. Again wages are frozen by a Labour Government, while prices rise, many of them by Government action. They pressed through legislation giving , them the power to fine or imprison Trade Unionists, which no Tory Government had dared to do. 

Asked about previous Labour Governments, Mr. Baldwin said it today's event are reminiscent of the past. Unemployment rose under every Labour Government since 1924. The 1945 Labour Government, the first with a working majority, also introduced a wage-freeze. As prices steadily rose steadily, helped by devaluation, real wages declined. Troops were used to break strikes and dockers prosecuted for striking. Today’s Labour Government supports America’s private Vietnam war and sends arms salesmen round the world, while the 1945 Labour Government introduced peacetime conscription, started the A-bomb and helped in the Korean War— a strange record for a one-time "Party of Peace."

Mr. Baldwin concluded: "Labour Governments, like other Governments fail to solve working-class problems, not through insincerity, but because they attempt the impossible. These problems just cannot be solved within Capitalism. The Labour Party's so-called solutions merely perpetuate the myth that Capitalism can be made to work in the workers' interests. Enmeshed in Capitalism's sordid conflict of class interests and economic chaos, the Labour Government, itself, applies the Tory policy which it formerly ridiculed, but with greater ruthlessness. The real solution is the replacement of Capitalism by World Socialism, a society of cooperation and freedom where men will really be able- to plan, their affairs and in which man, not profit, will matter most."