Political Commentary
BY HENRY FAIRLIE THERE have now been three important votes about Mr. Bevan's future in the Labour Party within three weeks. The Parliamentary Labour Party has voted to withdraw the Whip from him by a majority of twenty-nine; the National Executive has voted not to expel him by a majority of 1: and .now the same National Executive has voted by a majority of nine, with four abstentions, to keep him in the Party, but only under the most humiliating con- ditions. Statistical jugglers may do what they like, but the one common factor of all these votes is that throughout these crucial three weeks the Right Wing has remained solid and now, in the last resort, proved itself impregnable. Whoever it was who decided last week that the Right Wing should chance its arm and openly oppose Mr. Attlee has been proved abundantly justified. Looking back, it is easy enough to say that no Leader of the Labour Party can survive without the support of the Right Wing; and that 'the Right was therefofe not risking very much, but it must have taken some daring and calculated determination last week to throw back Mr. Attlee's temporising motion in his face, The calculated determination. 1 think, is the point. There has been evidence again and again daring this month that the Right has decided that the time has at last come to draw blood, and that, though during the process it might tempo- rarily lose the support of some MPs. or even a union repre- sentative or two, in, the end the power of the Right would tell. In a normal situation there are many counters to the power of the Right in the Labour Party. But in moments of total war like this the only factor which matters is the combined voting and financial power of the large unions. If this power represented only the bigoted and selfish interests of a few union bosses, then the Right Wing would be building its castle on sand. But the fact is that the power of the unions in the Labour Party reflects one simple social and political fact : namely, that organised labour is today the only major interest which a non-Conservative Party can represent. The organised workers cannot do without the Labour Party and the Labour Party cannot do without the organised workers.
This is the basic rule of political grammar on which the leaders of the Right Wing have been relying : that the Right represented the solid basis of the Labour Party and could there- fore afford to act alone. That its assurance was justified may be gleaned from the astounding fact that the three abstentions (Mr. Tiffin of the Transport and General Workers was away in Liverpool) included Mr. Attlee and Mr. Griffiths. In other words, the Right Wing. which last week polled thirteen votes against Mr. Attlee, this week polled sixteen. This is the only fact which matters. At one stage on Wednesday afternoon the rumour was going round that the voting on the National Executive had been twenty-one to six. When I put this figure to one of the Right Wing members, he replied, 'Oh! No! It was much better than that, it was only sixteen to seven,' and proceeded to explain that a vote of sixteen against Mr. Attlee was a far greater victory for the Right than a vote of twenty- one which included Mr. Attlee. Then he looked out at the sunshine. 'We brought March in like a lion,' he said, 'and it is going to go out like a lamb—and the lamb will be led to the slaughter.' For a moment I thought he meant Mr. Bevan. But of course it was Mr. Attlee.
It is quite, impossible to forecast now what will happen. But the deposition of Mr. Attlee—it is nothing less than that, whether he cares to remain the nominal leader or not— renders the Labour Party more vulnerable than ever at a general election. If Mr. Attlee, whatever the absurdity of his manoeuvres, had managed to emerge from the ordeal of the past four years with his public position at least not seriously impaired, then the Labour Party would not have found it difficult to paper over the cracks and fight an election united under his leadership. But it is no longer a straightforward split between Mr. Bevan and the rest. The leader of the Labour Party has ceased to have any power in his party. Twice in successive weeks the Right Wing has voted solidly against him, and on this second occasion has shown that it can command a majority. I hesitate to repeat what I wrote last week, but the only pertinent comment still is that 'the Right Wing has declared its intentions and its strength.'
The official statement about the National Executive's decision closed with this pleasing sentence : 'The Committee also adopted a statement putting the view of the party with regard to the H-Bomb.' Trust the Labour Party to have a sense of proportion.
Previous page
