Above Party
Tins is the most exhaustive examination yet made of the relationship between the unions and the Labour Party; and it comes at a most topical moment. Mr. Harrison is a shrewd, conscientious and unbiased observer; and his book is both a scholarly study and an absorbingly readable con- tribution to the debate on Labour's future.
On paper, the unions wield an overwhelming power in the affairs of the party. They control 80 per cent. of the votes at Annual Conference. They elect (or, rather, select after a process of horse-trading) seventeen out of the twenty-eight members of the National Executive. They spon- sor ninety-two Labour MPs. They provide 55 per cent. of the parry's total income (though Mr. Harrison considers, nevertheless, that they get their politics decidedly on the cheap). And al- though the unions seldom vote as a monolithic block, it remains true that a successful policy must command a majority of union votes. To that extent, although they seldom initiate, they do ultimately determine party policy, even on matters far removed from the industrial sphere.
Mr. Harrison's picture of how union votes come to be cast is not exactly reassuring, though most union leaders would probably accept it as true. The original resolutions are passed, and delegates elected, at branch, meetings where the average attendance is 5 per cent. of members; and the resolutions are usually markedly Left- wing. It is hard to believe that they reflect the views of the average trade unionist. They can hardly reflect those of the sizeable minority who vote Conservative; and in some major unions they are disproportionately influenced by a tiny group of Communists (who are not even eligible to attend the Conference at which the votes will ultimately be cast!).
'At every Party Conference,' concludes Mr. Harrison, 'the Unions cast• a minimum of five million votes on behalf of men who have never made the slightest attempt to participate in the decision, many of whom have no idea what is being said and voted in their names, and who never will know.' True, the level of participation is no lower than in other voluntary organisations. But other organisation' are not deciding the policy of a major political party.
Furthermore, the system leads to an appalling degree of uncertainty. Not only are contradictory resolutions often passed; but since union con- ferences are held months (or even years in some cases) before the Party Conference, even clear- cut resolutions are often hopelessly out of date. This gives rise to tortuous problems of interpreta- tion, which often lend an element of complete unpredictability to Labour policy-making.
Further uncertainty is • created by sudden changes in top union personnel. The Transport Workers swing from Right to Left with the transition from Deakin to Cousins The Engin- eers' vote might switch completely if five more Communists were elected to its National Com- mittee. The Miners may suddenly move Left if, as many observers expect, they shortly elect a Communist president. Such erratic changes make a strong and consistent political leadership ex- tremely difficult. Moreover, as Mr. Harrison remarks, if two more large unions tilted decisively to the Left, 'the Party would have to find new leaders, or the Party leaders would have to accept a far greater degree of positive union dictation.'
The formal union-party alliance has, histori- cally, brought inestimable benefits to both sides. But Mr. Harrison raises the question : are the
disadvantages now growing? These are, to th party, the uncertainty created each year from Easter onwards as one union conference succeed another, the fear lest party policy on a wholl non-industrial issue may be decided by sour almost accidental union resolution, the dange that an unrepresentative union conference, buck ing its own leaders, may swing the Party Con ference against the parliamentary leadership, and finally the serious threat to the party's electors image which comes from the appearance of unio domination.
Do the unions, for their part, now need s formal an alliance? Surely, today, their ultimat power depends not on t.cnference resolutions bu on their direct access to the Government, thei immense industrial bargaining strength, thei sponsored MPs and the pressure which the TUC l can bring directly on the Labour leadership.
It is a merit of this book that it provokes sue fundamental questions—but a demerit that i i i
1 does not describe how they are answered in othe countries. One would have liked a reference t those European countries (Sweden, Holland an Germany amongst many others) where th Socialist Party is formally independent of th unions, yet informal relations are close an cordial, and union finance forthcoming on a scal at least as generous as in England For th question is not the alliance between the part and the unions—that is as natural and inevitabl as the alliance between Conservatives and busi ness—but only how formal and constitutional i should be.
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y a e e y e
ANTHONY CROSLANI
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