POLITICS
The loud voices and still, small minds of the Labour Left
NOEL MALCOLM
Clement Attlee once told his party, in a moment of frustration: 'Conscience is a still, small voice, not a loudspeaker'. Most other Labour leaders, in their time, have felt the same jangling of the nerves, testily asking the 'conscientious' dissenters in their ranks to quieten down.
Since the Gulf war began, Mr Kinnock has suffered the irritation of seeing 34 members of his parliamentary party voting against the Labour whip on a motion in support of the British troops; the rebels included three MPs with junior posts as party spokesmen, whom he has now sack- ed. And when a senior front-bench spokes- man, Mr John Prescott, criticised Mr Kin- nock's stance on the allies' war aims last weekend, the Labour Party media men were quick to respond with some rather heavy-handed publicity about the way in which he had been confined to quarters by the party leader.
Apart from recognising the high level of public support for the war, Mr Kinnock has also to consider the fact that his personal popularity among Labour voters rises ev- ery time he is seen to be getting tough with his own left wing. And it just so happens that nearly all the Labour critics of the war are on the left of the party. But on the other hand there is a sort of aura of sanctity which surrounds all those who claim to be acting or speaking as their consciences demand. When Mr Kinnock throws his weight around against MPs who sympath- ise with the antics of Militant Tendency on Merseyside, he is praised for his firm leadership; when he clamps down on 'con- scientious' objections to war, he risks being portrayed (within the party, at least) as an intolerant party boss engaged in censorship and repression.
Labour has always had MPs' consciences on its conscience. As early as 1906, when members of the Parliamentary Labour Party still regarded themselves as 'man- dated' delegates of the people, a 'conscien- ce clause' was introduced to allow a Ro- man Catholic MP to abstain from support- ing the party's policy on secular education. In 1945 their Standing Orders decreed that `on certain matters . . . Members may have good grounds for conscientious scruples'. Seven years later, after a big back-bench revolt against a three-line whip in a de- fence debate, that phrasing was tightened up: 'The Party recognises the right of individual Members to abstain from voting on matters of deeply held conscientious conviction.' Not any old scruples would do then, but only 'deeply held' ones; a later version of the Standing Orders specified `matters of deeply held personal convic- tion'.
These are almost meaningless phrases. One might say that the only thing which saves them from being completely meaningless is the fact that we all know what they mean. We all know that there are certain issues, such as abortion or capital punishment, on which most MPs will want to be allowed to vote as their conscience dictates, and that there are other issues where a few MPs will want to claim the same privilege, for special reasons: Quakers will want to vote against war, for example, and Presbyterians against opening shops on Sundays.
These are what are known in the trade as issues of conscience; yet calling them mat- ters of deeply held personal conviction does not cast very much light on the subject. I am deeply and personally con- vinced, for example, that the market eco- nomy is the best means towards human prosperity, and that those regimes which try to abolish it inflict both poverty and oppression on their people; but calling me a 'conscientious' believer in the free mar- ket says no more than calling me a believer in the free market. Mr Benn is deeply and personally convinced that the workers should take over the commanding heights of the economy, etc, etc. Does that mean he will always be entitled to vote against Mr Kinnock's more modest economic proposals on grounds of 'conscience'?
The point about the views of devout Catholics on abortion, or Scottish Sabbata- rians on Sunday trading, is not that they are held deeply, but that they are held in a different way from their views on, say, economics or foreign policy. They are held in an absolute way, a way that is not open to argument, that does not admit counter- evidence, that refuses to weigh reasons for and against.
In politics the range of issues where such absolute principles can be directly applied is, fortunately, extremely small. I say `fortunately', because otherwise politics would become an impossible enterprise. The point where absolute principles take over is the point where political debate, the weighing of human advantage and dis- advantage, must cease. For the only thing that an absolute pacifist can say is: 'I am against all war.' Once he starts giving reasons why this or that war is particularly undesirable, he is back in the arena of ordinary political judgment, and fair game for his opponents — be they in the party opposite, or on his own front bench.
I have listened carefully to the rebels and dissenters on the Labour benches, and so far I have not heard a single one of them making (let alone confining himself to) a statement of absolute pacifism. I have heard a variety of reasons against going to war, of which the most commonly stated one (that sanctions should have been given longer to work) used to be, and in some sense must continue to be, the policy of the Labour front bench as well. I have heard batty reasons, such as Mr Bernie Grant's claim that 'the fact of the matter is that Saddam Hussein cares about his people', and unverifiable ones, such as Mr Tam Dalyell's predictions of worldwide climatic catastrophe. But I have not heard a single moral absolute on which to construct an argument of pure 'conscience'.
What we are offered instead is a sort of simulacrum of moral authority. Either they assume that they are the only ones to consider the moral problems involved in, for example, the infliction of suffering on Iraqi civilians. Or they talk as if the Government can only be acting for the most morally reprehensible reasons: West- ern imperialism (according to Messrs Nel- list and Corbyn), militarist machismo (Mesdames Mahon and Primarolo), 'rac- ism' (Mr Bernie Grant again) or the desire to placate 'those people in society who actually want war', namely arms manufac- turers and newspaper proprietors (Mr Benn). This is not the sound of anguished consciences crying out; it is just the famil- iar droning noise of the Left, slightly adapted to new circumstances.
As for those rare critics who are not on the left of the party, no one could accuse them of trying to argue from moral abso- lutes. What could be more complaisantly calculating than Mr Healey's remark: 'Let us have no more crocodile tears for the Kuwaiti people . . . a war will subject them to far worse suffering than they have endured under Saddam Hussein'? But luckily no one — not even in the Labour Party — would ever expect to be guided by Mr Healey's conscience.
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