Labour Party Conference

Will success spoil Jim Callaghan?

Maurice Edelman, MP

As Jim Callaghan beams from his chairman's throne at Labour's Conference, he will certainIY recall with satisfaction his own political Pedigree. By Attlee, out of Herbert Morrison, he combines a strain of moderation and toughness with a talent for wheeling and dealing. When Harold Laski tried to tell Attlee on behalf of Labour's National Executive Committee not to go to the Potsdam Conference with Churchill, Attlee gave him a Magisterial snub which determined the relationship of a Labour government and the NEC for thirty years. Callaghan handled the current pardians of the Manifesto more circumspectly. Mikardo and Benn have a national political constituency which the perky Laski never had. C,,allaghan's pragmatic settlement with the 'NEC over the demarcation lines in peripheral /natters like Simonstown was reached without Political mayhem, and Eric Heffer, Joan Lestor and Judith Hart are all sitting as comfortably With Jim on the party platform as they do on their governmental occasions. But behind Callaghan's smile•there must be a ew anxieties about his relationship with k;onference, not so much as Party Chairman Since he knows the trade unions and the constituency parties like the back of his hand, but as Foreign Secretary. Will he be acclaimed

for h. . Is painstaking negotiations in Paris and u,russels and Bonn? Will his friend, Helmut 'ehmidt, be applauded as a socialist Chancellor a,nd booed as a foreign Marketeer? Will the "°reign Secretary be thanked for the beef deals

the sugar deals that the anti-Marketeer, Fred Peart, has wrested from the willing hands Of the French? j The answer depends on the enigma of Jack r.c'h, es, the General Secretary of the T&GW. For ;-allaghan learnt the lesson from Attlee that no Labour leader can survive without the Wholehearted consent of the trade unions.

ttlee had Bevin to sustain him. Sir Stafford

riOris tried a palace revolution, and Bevin said, 'Won't have it," and that was that. Callaghan i'n°ws that however skilful his handling of the ASt conference's mandate to renegotiate the arket terms and then to put them to the IPte°Ple through a ballot, the man who holds the eY to the outcome is Jack Jones. u For it was primarily the ardent speech of 0"farrY Urwin, the assistant General Secretary ,4 the T&GW, at the first Party Conference ilebate on the Common Market that trans,?rrned Labour's support into opposition. hu,rwin made an effective comparison of the

igh

COS t of food in the Market with Britain's , prices at home. The unions led, and the ,,rarliatnentary Labour Party followed. The ProsMarketeers in the Parliamentary Party

'ere isolated, and the gut-reaction of the abour Conference became the accepted wisdom of the constituencies.

a Except for one thing. The differences of proNr41u anti-Marketeers were composed in the

arlifesto declaration that renegotiated terms ,.

°I.Ild be submitted to the country through the call°t-hox. I don't think that anyone at voriference doubts that this must be by means ,La referendum since a party, split between the e'°3 and the antis, could scarcely go to the 1IntrY on a united platform without enduring

e,charge of hypocrisy. 'or most people, a referendum implies a free ationai vote. That isn't to say that the

sTveroment which has renegotiated the terms th°I.Ildn't give the country its advice. Equally, e Government has the job of formulating the

question, and, in fact, a Cabinet Committee is now drafting a model Referendum Bill as a preliminary to composing the question to be put to the people. But at this point Jim Callaghan's smile may well fade as the emergency resolutions on the Market come tumbling in. For the Tribune Group will certainly call for a special Party Conference to discuss the terms before they're put to the country. They will want Conference to pronounce on them before the Cabinet decides whether to recommend them to the electorate. They will want to know what kind of majority will represent, in the present Government's view, the "full hearted consent of the British people." Will a majority of one be enough? Or will there have to be some sort of qualified majority — say, a margin of 10 per cent? And then again, one of the very able dialecticians of the left, like Norman Atkinson or Jack Mendelson or Dennis Skinner, might well get up and ask, "What is the referendum question going to be?" It's at this point that Jim's smile will fade completely because, as he knows, the crux of popular assent must hinge on the meaning of the word, 'renegotiation'. The other members of the Nine insist that the Foreign Secretary's discussions cannot and do not bring into issue matters like the limited cession of national sovereignty which are part of the Treaty of Rome. But those are matters which are of primary concern to Douglas Jay, Michael Foot and Peter Shore. They have not and will not be discussed as substantive questions during Jim Callaghan's renegotiations. What he is talking about to our partners

is Britain's budgetary contribution to the Community, the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Regional Fund — not about Britain's constitutional relationship

with the Treaty of Rome. It could be argued, as some pro-Marketeers do, that the right of veto at the Council of Ministers is, in fact, the ultimate, safeguard of sovereignty, and that the limited cession of sovereignty within the Treaty of Rome is no greater in essence than any other cession of sovereignty within the framework of an international treaty. I doubt whether Jim Callaghan would use such sophisticated arguments, even if he were to abandon his present

agnostic stance on the Common Market. On the other hand, he must be well aware that the Labour movement would feel itself 'conned', if

it weren't told clearly when the question is put in the referendum that a 'Yes' to the renego tiated terms means also 'Yes' to the Community system that they spring from. The dilemma of Jack Jones is even more acute than Callaghan's. Jack Jones has shown himself as staunch an ally of the Labour Government in 1974 as Bevin was in 1945. He has supported the Social Contract, and made a great contribution to industrial peace. His

dedicated opposition to the Common Market has , also set its stamp on the whole Labour

Movement. But Jones is also a realist. He knows that Harry Urwin, his Number 2, couldn't make the same case against the Common Market in

terms of food prices that he did a couple of years ago. The comfortable pattern of World ad, Commonwealth trade has changed. Bri tains position inside the Common Market may be demonstrably better when referendum-time comes than it is today. Jack Jones isn't merely

one of the custodians of the Manifesto. He is also the custodian of several million jobs and the standard of living of even more workers and their families. Will he join in the demand for a pre-referendum conference to decide on a party posture that might thwart the Government's considered judgement of the renegotiation? Will he, as a doctrinal anti-Marketeer, accept that the question to the electors should be limited tts the words, "Are you satisfied with the terms as renegotiated by the Government?" Will the great debate end there?

Jim Callaghan is a pragmatist as brilliant as Harold Wilson himself. He knows that at this Victory Conference he mustn't try to go too far. He will certainly temporise, and try to prevent the left from tying his hands by any kind of anticipatory Resolution, hostile to the renegotiations.

But above all, he will remember Attlee's lesson, and seek to carry the trade unions with him. Without them, his success in Europe would mean paradoxically his rejection in Britain by the movement he has served so well and so long.

Maurice Edelman, the author and journalist, is Labour MP for Coventry North.