Political Commentary
Mr. Wilson's Guerillas
By ALAN
WATKINS
HOW much longer can Mr. Harold Wilson keep up his apparent support of American policy in Vietnam? Has he, indeed, already begun to modify his position? One asks these questions because, in the few days since Parliament re- assembled, there has occurred a noticeable hard- ening of attitudes inside the Labour Party. Labour Members are no longer prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt indefinitely. So far. Mr. Wilson has contented himself with claiming that he is doing good by stealth. He moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to per- form. While the ordinary back-bencher is lying snugly in his bed, the Prime Minister is hard at it on the transatlantic telephone. This, is it not, is the impression which Mr. Wilson has given both at question time and elsewhere? On Tuesday,how- ever, there was a noticeable change in the Prime Minister's public position. He can read the warn- ing signals as well as anyone. He confessed that the Government was 'deeply disturbed' about events in Vietnam; and he promised to make a statement very soon.
This declaration by the, Prime Minister had a certain success, though a limited one, with the Labour left. For on Monday evening a number of leftists had gathered together under the chairman- ship of Mr. Sydney Silverman. At this meeting it was decided that a letter protesting against the Government's policy on Vietnam should be sent to the Prime Minister. After his words on Tues- day, however, there was a split in the group over whether the protest stiotild in NCI be dispatched. EventualWthere was a compromise: the letter was sent, but in suitably civil and subdued terms.
Yet Such a limited pacification is not really very much. omfort to Mr. Wilson. For one thing, most of those attending Mr. Silverman's meeting were the old lags who might have been expected to protest anyway. For another, letters of protest, like petitions, can be read quickly if at all and then forgotten : we may assume that No. 10 is well supplied with Capacious wastepaper baskets. No, the Prime Minister's worry is not that he may receive letters of protest. It is that dissatisfaction over Vietnam may take more dan- gerous forms, and that this unrest may extend beyond the bounds of the traditional left.
The traditional left is predictable. It is there- fore containable. Moreover, Mr. Wilson himself has always had a certain rapprochement with its members--though this little stock of moral capital is now all but exhausted. Unrest over Vietnam, however, is not confined to this group. The pro- testers include not only Mr. Konni Zilliacus and Mr. John Mendelson but also such respectable figures as Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop and Mr. Phillip Noel-Baker. Even more important. the protesters
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