Political Commentary
Could Labour break up?
Patrick Cosgrave
Mr Benn's letter to his constituents, not to mention the Prime Minister's speech on unnecessary strikes, has given a certain point to the arguments of those — especially Tories — who prophesy the splitting up of the Labour Party at some time between now and the next general election. Some of these prophecies are, of course, wishful thinking, but this is not true of all. There are, for example, those who sincerely desire, as good for the country, a national coalition and cannot, rightly, see the whole Labour Party as being willing to enter one — though they feel that Mr Jenkins and Mrs Williams and Mr Prentice, as well as Mr Callaghan and Mr Wilson might all be persuaded. Such people feel, further, that the national economic situation is so incipiently calamitous that a national government will be forced on the politicians by events, and they accept that its leader would have to be a Labour politician, either Mr Wilson or Mr Callaghan. The former eventuality might even please some Tories, who, like Mr Maurice Cowling, have always seen Mr Wilson as the ideal Tory leader, unaccountably strayed into the wrong party. My purpose here is not to examine the arguments for or against a national government — I have several times made clear my views on its undesirability and the Sunday Times this week made the same argument most forcefully and elegantly. Nor do I want to join the argument about whether or not the left now control the Labour Party: they are certainly a great deal more powerful than they have ever been before, but there is a lot to be said for Mr Alan Watkins's argument that their influence has been greatly exaggerated. Rather, I want to discuss the question of how much division actually exists within a party noted in its history for fratricidal strife. The first point to be made is that — saving the kind of national calamity which would produce a coalition — the Labour Party's future is unlikely to be bedevilled by division to anything like the extent of its past. True, the further left one moves on the political spectrum the more conspiracy-minded politicians become, and there will always be a great deal more considered conspiring in the Labour than in the Tory Party: apart from the general tendency of ideological politics to division and faction, the close relationship between Labour and the trade unions would see to that, for trade union politics and tactics are founded on caucus, committee and clique. However, Labour has undoubtedly learned from its history.
It is customary at this point in this argument to make reference, as Mr Wilson frequently does, to the unhappy history of the National Government of Ramsay Macdonald, and to say that Labour politicians most of all are determined that that kind of thing will never happen again. But there is far more than the experience of the 'thirties to teach members of the Labour Party not to divide: there is the memory of the Bevanite splits which had some influence on the .exclusion of the party from power in the 'fifties. There is the vivid memory of the vicious quarrel that broke out over the White Paper, In Place of Strife. And there is a lively and
• growing sense of the importance of Mr Wilson's work in keeping the party together during the dark days after 1970, when a lesser party leader might well have seen everything beneath his feet crumble to nothing. All these, and especially the enjoyment of power and office, have ground into the party a real and strengthening consciousness of the importance of unity. Woe betide the Cabinet Minister of whatever hue who, by resigning, seeks to strengthen all of the old tendencies to division. There have been rumours that Mr Benn was planning just such a resignation. I do not believe them: anybody who rocks the boat now will not readily be forgiven, or followed. The brute fact which Tories have to face now is that Labour has become a — if not yet the — natural governing party, and the sorry condition of the Conservative Party ("a sick party if ever there was one," as one senior Shadow Minister worriedly observed to me the other day), serves to underline that. We have all been brought up to believe that a radical party, especially a radical party of the left, cannot of its nature be a natural governing party, but we now know that this is not true. For the truth again is that, just at a time when the intellectual and moral coherence of the right — by which I mean the right wing of the Conservative Party — has been developed to a point of sophistication and distinction which it has never before achieved, the whole structure of British politics has moved to the left.
The newly formed Labour group of so-called moderates has named itself after the Manifesto; and the manifesto was the most markedly left-wing document any major political party has produced in this country ever. The adult generations of the moment are becoming accustomed to, and the younger generations are being trained to live in, a society which has vastly greater expectation of state action, and which will cry out luridly for greatly increased state action more readily — over a daily increasing range of acitivity — than would have seemed possible even a decade ago. It is pointless to deplore this development — though it may still be barely possible to fight it — for it is there for anyone with eyes to see.
That this has happened has been the fault of the Conservatives as much as the triumph of Labour. Save for the quite glorious period of Mr Heath's leadership of the party between 1966 and 1971 — and for all its and his faults; inadequacies and errors, it was a glorious period — the Tory Party since 1955 has moved steadily to the left. For a time, under the •
supremely magical leadership of Mr Macmillan this movement was successfully dressed up as a new method of dishing the Whigs, but, with the speeding up of the game of politics which has gone on since his departure it has become rapidly apparent — again with the exception of 1966-71 — that the Labour and Tory leaderships have behaved roughly in the same way, and use roughly the same means to achieve roughly the same objectives. And, if there is to be no choice on these three points, surely it is more sensible to have a Labour government, the members of which at least believe wholeheartedly in collectivism? Such, I believe, has been the unconscious reasoning of the people.
Of course, it is clearly not the case that Mr Wilson can do anything he likes, or readily abandon his manifesto commitments as he did between 1964 and 1970. It is true as well that he now has to run his Cabinet and Government on a much looser rein than he did when he was last Prime Minister. There have been spats, including his rebuke to some ministers who were members of Labour's National Executive: but Mr Heffer has survived his speech on our relations with Chile and Mr Benn has not even been flicked on the wrist because of his letter to his Bristol constituents — a letter which, admirable though it was in many ways, and admirably though it supported the position in the Labour manifesto was, as several commentators pointed out, in flagrant opposition to recent statements of Government policy by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. Here again, though, too much should not be made of apparent division. It is now widely believed that Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan alike have been persuaded of the merits of Britain remaining a member of the EEC. 1 believe this to be largely accurate in the case of Mr Callaghan, but I am sure it is not at all accurate of Mr Wilson. If anything, I believe Mr Wilson has shifted somewhat against the Market since the Paris summit but, whatever the truth of that suspicion, I have little doubt that he will put the unity of the Labour Party before any other consideration when the time comes to decide what the collective judgment of his Government on the negotiated terms should be. It is going to be a horrendously difficult moment for both parties, let alone the Labour Party by itself, for the vast majority of Labour Party members and supporters will want to oppose the continuance of our membership, thus making theirs the patriotic party and possibly — depending on who then leads the Tories — plunging the major Opposition party even deeper into trouble than it is at the moment.
Mr Wilson's speech on strikers played a vital part in the further evolution of the unity of the Labour Party for, just as Mr Wilson did not rebuke Mr Benn for his letter, Mr Benn is unlikely to let his leader down in discussions with the British Leyland workers. Likewise, Mr Jack Jones's reaction to the Prime Minister's attack has been a markedly muted one: at. no time has he tried to contradict Mr Wilson. All this indicates that there will be an attempt to inject some measure of responsibility into a basically socialist economic policy, and that this will be done with real support from the Labour Party and a measure of acquiesence on the part of the trade union movement. The consensus that exists on the left may thus be strengthened not, of course, by a prudent and responsible economic policy, but by something more nearly approaching such a policy than seemed likely after the last general election. It may yet, social contract and all, be a more responsible economic policy than the one Mr Heath had adopted.by the end of his time as Prime Minister. Thus the Labour Party looks fairly safe from division and in fairly good shape, saving an economic catastrophe, to build the socialist Britain of its dreams, gradually but certainly reducing Personal freedom, eliminating adventure and stifling enterprise; but approaching within a reasonable distance of its own hope of an equal, if tatty, Britain. No coherent force opposes it.
Previous page
