LABOUR AND THE POPULAR FRONT E ASTER has been enlivened politically
by renewed and vigorous discussion of a " Popular Front " in Great Britain' And the Labour Party appears to have committed yet another of its atrocious political blunders by hastening to issue a manifesto condemning root and branch the demand for a united opposition to the Government. Labour's position, as officially stated, is simple ; and its prospects brighter than they seem to anyone else in the country. The party stands on a plat- form of unqualified Socialism, and by its efforts is capable of winning an absolute majority in Parliament. Anyone who suggests that Labour needs allies, and must make concessions in its programme if it is to acquire the necessary support from other Opposition parties, is a heretic, a defeatist, and a traitor. It appears, indeed, as if one of Labour's chief activities in the next few months, of critical importance in Europe's history, will be to stamp out the heretics and compromisers in its own ranks. Yet to unprejudiced observers of the present political situation, and indeed to thousands of Labour's supporters, Labour's manifesto reads like a fairy story. And the Daily Herald's sentimental and emotional glosses on the official statement only serve to emphasise its essential weakness.
The facts are that to obtain a majority in Parliament Labour must win some 1,46 seats by its own efforts ; that seven years of National Government have not created in the country a majority of Socialists pur sang ; that there is no prospect of a general election unless the Government chooses to go to the country at some moment excep- tionally favourable to itself ; and that in Parliament the Labour Opposition, which appears to believe it is on the verge of power, has been clumsy and ineffective up to a degree which has aroused protests from the rank-and- file of the parliamentary party. And one reason at least for the ineffectiveness of the Opposition is that Labour has failed to give appropriate expression to the sense of dissatisfaction with the Government that pervades large sections of the electorate outside the Labour movement.
There is no majority in the country for Socialism. There is no conceivable prospect of there being one in any near future. Even with a Parliamentary majority, a Labour Government could not achieve Socialism now by Parliamentary means. And a leadership which imagines that that will or can be done is likely to lead Labour to yet another disaster; and in the meanwhile, long before a majority has been achieved, events in Europe may sweep the whole Labour movement into oblivion. A party that ignores such facts is doomed, and rightly doomed, to failure ; there is much to be learned from the history of other Socialist movements in Europe which have tried to realise socialism in countries that were not prepared for it, or refused to co-operate with other progressive forces. It is interesting to notice how the failure to recognise the facts of the case intrudes itself into the official party declarations. Mr. George Dallas, for instance, claims that the Labour movement is already a Popular Front, composed of the Trade Unions, the Co-operatives and the Parliamentary Labour Party ; at the same time the Co-operative Conference declares for that wider Popular Front which the Labour Party has so completely condemned. The Party points to its recent victories at Ipswich and West Fulham as proof of its independent progress to power ; while everyone knows they were won only through the support of other Opposition movements, and especially of the Liberal vote. The Party says that Labour will win by itself ; yet throughout the country, on such vital issues as Spain, China, unemployment, nutrition, Labour has continually and successfully co-operated with Liberals, Conserva- tives and Communists. Finally, Labour claims that Socialism's final victory is inevitable ; what concerns the country is whether any alternative Government, or any effective Opposition, is possible at the present moment.
Labour's official claims may be dismissed as the products of fantastic optimism ; they do not represent the state of feeling either in the Labour Party or in the country as a whole. And if persisted in they will destroy the possibility of building up an Opposition which shall be, as an Opposition should be in a parliamentary democracy, both an effective check on Government policy and the source of an alternative Government. The lack of such an Opposition in recent years has had a profound and disastrous effect on British politics. In practice it has allowed the Government to become almost completely irresponsible for even the most serious mistakes, to proceed by a process of trial and error with the knowledge that errors will not have to be paid for by the loss of office. On several occasions in recent years the inconsistencies, tergiversations, weaknesses of British policy have caused dismay and bewilderment even among the Government's own supporters; in others they have aroused profound, hostility, but opposition has dissipated itself in protests, meetings, demonstrations, unco-ordinated campaigns on specific questions, and has never made itself properly felt in Parliament, and it is difficult not to feel that the result has been a depreciation of this country's political currency.
The truth is that an effective Opposition, which shall perform both the functions of an Opposition, can only be built upon close co-operation, extending to electoral agreements and the formulation of a common programme, between the Labour and the Liberal Parties ; the task of both parties in the immediate future must be to give effective leadership and direction to the Opposition movement wherever it exists. The essence of that task must be to formulate a united programme of agreed policies capable of achievement in the lifetime of a single Parliament. Such a programme would be pro- gressive, and would necessarily fall short of Socialism ; foreign policy, tariffs, coal, taxation, nutrition, unem- ployment would alone be sufficient to provide its basis ; and it would give effective expression to the Opposition movement in the country. Labour may protest that, while bringing by far the largest body of support, it is asked to make by far the largest concessions. The answer is that in such a movement Labour would neces- sarily be the dominant partner, as the Conservative Party has been in the National Government ; and Labour might well consider whether Conservatism has gained or lost by the compromises and concessions made when it entered into the compact of 1931. It is equally true that, were such a movement successful, Labour would gain immeasurably in prestige, in experience, and in political responsibility ; it would become, as it has not yet succeeded in becoming, a national party in the best sense of that phrase. The alternative is a purge and heresy hunt among its own supporters, and patient expectation of a parliamentary majority in that hopeful future which may never arrive. Labour in this country has always been reformist and never revolutionary ; for that reason there can be no insuperable bar to co-operation between Labour, Liberals and certain sections of the Conservatives in providing the leadership for which many are now waiting.
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