Aabour Party Turns Right

Many changes have occurred within the Labour Party in the last four or five years, but easily the most apparent change at its recent Galway conference was the lack of any real political opposition. It is clearly necessary to place this change in the context of the present economic recession.

Why “The Seventies.will be Socialist” slogan?

The expansion of capital in the late sixties gave the working class a chance to make teal, if temporary, gains, and to build . confidence in its own strength. This was reflected in particular by an influx of socialist youth into the Labour Party and also in a leftward swing by the leadership. The slogan “The seventies will be socialist”’ was a social democratic reaction to the optimism which this expansion brought with it. Social democracy by its very nature is used by the employers in times when it is both necessary and possible to buy off layers of the working class.

A changed party — a changed role The period since 1971 in Ireland has seen the onset of an economic recession with ever-increasing annual inflation rates. This has changed the role envisaged for the Labour Party by certain sections of Irish and foreign capital. The Labour Party linked with the trade union movement has become .a willing pawn in the attempt to make the working class and other oppressed layers, accept cut-backs in their standard of living. In Britain, the strong social democratic tradition of the British labour movement has made this task that much easier for Wilson and Co. Historically, in Ireland ‘Parliament has been a much weaker force than in Britain and the Irish working class has traditional republican sympathies. The trade unions have, in fact, a largely nominal relationship to the Labour Party. This divergence was notable at the-recent THE PLOUGH — PAGE 6 Labour Party conference, where trade union resolutions came out strongly against the government’s deflationary policy (e.g. on unemployment) for revision of the current taxation system and for more workers involvement in industrial decision making. The ITGWU also made a strong criticism of the way the discussion on the North was railroaded.

Leaving aside the success or otherwise of the Labour Party in government in integrating the trade union movement through a social contract, it’s changed role is reflected by its present membership. This was clear at the conference. Five years ago the practice of unanimous voting, bureaucratic stifling of discussion, and opposition in degree but not in method, seemed remote. Yet all three of these were strongly in evidence in Galway this year. Many resolutions began by endorsing the present policies and work of the national coalition or of a particular minister. Most of the resolutions failed to take up the political issues involved. For example, the discussion on education did not raise the question of the recent cutbacks in expenditure or of the sell-out of the community schools. Where have the Labour left gone?

At the Cork conference on coalition in 1971, the vote on participating in coalition was close. It was narrow enough to give the anti-coalitionists over 300 votes out of 800 delegates. At this year’s conference the same notion was defeated by a near-unanimous 860 votes to 40. It seems unlikely, from the record of the National Coalition, that the other 260-300 delegates have changed their minds over the last few years. A much more likely proposition is that they have left ot been expelled. This has been a natural product of the transformation of the Labour Party. Perhaps the most memorable expulsion was that of all the members of the Socialist Labour Alliance on the grounds that this attack the whole social democratic of analysis their critiques lie.

The new labour opposition performs a similar function on the political front. It accepts the form of democracy or dictatorship.

objective need of the working class for government elected on a “‘socialist without — hence the need for a grouping constituted a separate organisation. Members of this Alliance had attempted to analysis used by the Labour Party, and had anticipated its partnership in government with the erstwhile Blueshirts — Fine Gael. It is worthwhile examining the present left in the Labour Party and see along what lines The relationship between social democracy and trade unionism stretches further than the fact that both arise “spontaneously” among the working class. Trade unionism attempts to better the economic lot of the worker within the confines of the labour market i.e. to get better conditions of sale for his/her labour power. Social democracy democracy (i.e. parliamentary) imposed by the bourgeoisie and tries to use Parliament to ease the social hardship of the oppressed. It follows from this that any revolutionary critique of the Labour party must begin from the standpoint of rejecting the question as posed by the bourgeoisie i.e. parliamentary Any analysis must begin from the socialism and must pose a strategy for the seizure of state power by that class. This, the “Trotskyist” Militant group for instance fails completely to do. On the contrary they foster illusions in the capacity of a Labour programme’”’ to change society fundamentally. Their second basic mistake is to suppose that the accumulation of economic struggles will lead the working class to a revolutionary consciousness. In this, they ignore Lenin’s argument that revolutionary political ideas must be brought to the working class from “revolutionary intelligentsia”. It is this of parliament. misunderstanding which leads the Militant group to ignore the National Question and | the sharpening social crisis of the capitalist system, which is posing such questions as the role of the family, the resultant sexual oppression, particularly of women and gay people, the present radicalisation of students and the increased alienation of white-collar workers. { .

These and other misconceptions have led the Militant to take up opportunist positions. For instance, while attacking the IDEA of Coalition no direct attack was made on the Labour Party leadership during the Conference. When a spokesman for the Militant was given time on radio he continuously stressed that the problem with Coalition was that Labour-was in a minority and not that it was in collaboration with a right-wing capitalist party. Militant went even as far as calling on the leadership of the Party to “recognise its mistake” and withdraw from Coalition. As if the Labour Party leadership found itself holding hands with Cosgrave, Cooney, Donegan & Co. by mistake! But the capitulation of Militant went further than this. Numerous resolutions were passed unanimously at the conference supporting certain measure of the Coalition. The Militant group has not denied these reports and so we can only conclude that its members voted support for the Coalition as well. This transgresses one of the most elementary and social principles of the Marxist movement i.e. never give any support to a capitalist government because to do so is to join in in attacking the working class.

The other section of the Labour Left i.e. the Liaison Committee of the Left have fallen into a similar trap. In fact they represent orthodox western social democracy. Hence, their criticisms of the Labour leadership are quantitative rather than qualitative. They think 50,000 houses should or could have been built instead of 25,000. One of their spokesmen, Mattie Merrigan in fact, accepted the idea of the social contract in Britain as unity of the two wings of the labour movement.

So the changeover from a volatile divergent social democratic party to one of bureaucracy, a shrinking opposition and a new type of ‘delegate’, is a function of the economic recession in Irelandy-Five years ago could Conor Cruise O’Brien have got away with his recent speech (in which he denounced several journalists as Provo 7 stoodges), or Jimmy Tully with his bureaucratic threats or Corish’s deliberation that he would not be bound by the decisions of conference? The present role of the Labour Party is clearly a changed one and it becomes increasingly important to extend criticisms beyond those against the leadership. The way forward ‘for the Irish working class and oppressed must be through a revolutionary seizure of state power, not through the “‘gradual” changes