After the Bombardment
By G. S. GALE Scarborough HE youngest member of the National Executive Com- mittee of the Labour Party is called George Brinham.
He is a woodworker from Devon, and it is not so long ago that the woodworkers, for all practical purposes, could be included in the outlying tents of the Communist encampments. But then the woodworkers went beyond the iron curtain and came back with a report which transgressed the party line, and the woodworkers no longer were numbered among the white- beaded boys of King Street. True enough, the woodworkers might still have been counted among the left wing of the Labour movement, and they occasioned no surprise by voting against the platform at the Trades Union Congress this year when the worn-out controversy over German rearmament came before it. And then, at Scarborough this week, Mr. Brinham—who sits on the National Executive as a union member—persuaded his fellow d,plegates to switch their votes (he explaining that the diplomatic situation itself had switched). 129,000 votes left the rebels and sat themselves in the lap of the official side. The swing they occasioned themselves was of 258,000 votes— and the official majority was only 248,000. `The textile workers, too, swung, for whereas at the TUC the two principal unions concerned had been split on the issue, here at Scarborough— where the textile workers vote as a block—all 150,000 of them Supported orthodoxy. It was only by a couple of textile workers' votes and a few woodworkers' that the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party had its policy endorsed and the entire Labour movement was saved from a fate, if not worse than death, at any rate closely resembling it.
Lots of people have argued that the great debate on German rearmament has always been academic, since there has never been during the course of the debate anything the Labour Party could do about German rearmament. It is an attractive argu- ment, but inadequate. The point, really, which has dramatised the familiar arguments and put life into the decisions of the Smallest unions and the modest little constituency parties, is what German rearmament could do. about the Labour Party. And it could have done plenty. Somehow or other, r have no doubt, the official leaders of the party would overcome the embarrassment of being committed to two policies, their own d their party's, but it would have been awkward, to say the east, devising a parliamentary policy in the next few months. east, devising conference here at Scarborough had refused to accept German rearmament it is a fair bet that the parliamentary party would promptly follow suit, and since there has never been any doubt at all that the great majority of the rank and file of the Labour Party are against German rearmament any- way, the leaders (as indeed both Mr. Attlee and Mr. Morrison recognised on Tuesday) would have been left holding the baby, and the baby would be yelling a good deal louder than anyone else. It would also bear on its face the cherubic smile of Mr. Bevan.
The magnitude of the executive's victory and of Mr. Bevan's defeat is not to be measured by the magnitude of the..majority. 248,000 is a trifling majority, especially in these days Of mandated speeches, mandated constituency parties, mandated unions. The magnitude of the executive's victory lies in the fact of victory, in the successful conclusion of a war it almost lost. On this issue of German rearmament Mr. Bevan had a very good chance indeed of defeating the leaders and establish- ing his own claim to lead the party. German rearmament aroused emotions, but it also aroused doubts ih the minds of serious trade unionists, who might not be particularly fond of Mr. Bevan but who were even less fond of an arms race between East and West Germany. German rearmament was an issue which roused people, brought them together—the unlikeliest combination of allies, when you think about it—and held them together. And at the head of them all, whether they liked it or not, was Mr. Bevan. But now the issue is dead. It died at quarter to one on Tuesday afternoon, when Mr. Burke read out the voting figures. It died quietly, with no fuss. There were no tears, no wild lamentations, not even an unduly satis- fied light in the eyes of those who were happy to see it buried. There were plenty of people who welcomed the death although they had themselves been the chief source of the issue's life. People were glad to see it over and done with.
Now the point of this is that with the German rearmament question now as dead as a dodo as far as the Labour Party is concerned (of course there will be a few looking through blood-coloured spectacles who won't recognise the death), and with Mr. Bevan's attempt to win the party on the issue having failed, Mr. Bevan is just about as dead himself. Naturally enough, being full of life and as irrepressible as Mr. Tom O'Brien, Mr. Bevan does not accept this, and of course there will be plenty of sound and fury ahead. But Mr. Bevan will need more than the luck of the devil to come across an issue anything like as good as this one. Twelve tricks had been played -and the question was who held the master. No one knew because no one had counted. It happened that the National Executive held it, and they won the trick, the game, the rubber, the series, the whole shoot : and now the play is over. If Mr. Bevan had held the right card, and he might have done so just as well as the National Executive, then he would have won the trick, the game, the rubber and would have as good a chance as any for the whole shoot. But he didn't.
That is the point, that and the 4,338,000 votes that went to Mr. Gaitskell and the 2,032,000 that Mr. Bevan scored. The constituency parties voted fifty-fifty. At the Agents' Night here it was being gossiped that lots of local parties were deserting their hero. They didn't like the driving accident affair, they didn't like Mr. Bevan deserting the safe front seat they gave him for the safe back seat the unions were certain to put him in, and they were hard up. Now Mr. Gaitskell has made it no secret that as Treasurer he intends to effect as best he can a reorganisation of the party machine and an overhaul of its finances. The agents are underpaid—and the only way they and their local parties are going to get more money is by Mr. Gaitskell's producing a scheme, presenting it to the unions and winning their acceptance and their cash. Matters like these are a long way from the hectic world of politics as seen in capital cities, but they count, just as the woodworkers and the textile workers cotgned, or Nelson's blind eye or Parnell's indiscretion or some obscure farm workers in Tolpuddle.
On Tuesday afternoon the Labour movement sighed with relief, and the most energetic sighs were breathed by those who had been defeated. • Not the Bevanites themselves, of course, for they were pleased enough and comforted them- selves with the thought that they could win next time. But there won't be a next time. There will be rows and grand debates again and Tribune meetings will continue to be packed and everybody at them will be rooting for Mr. Bevan and public ownership, or nationalisation of land or of rented houses, or for bigger and better insurance benefits or for colonial development or for an end to war in Kenya—whatever happens to be the favourite reform, injustice or danger at the moment. But the party has been saved, adventitiously without a doubt, yet nevertheless saved, and the grand affair of Bevanism is over and all that remains is the bickerings.
Previous page
