Late last year Callaghan was almost booed off the platform of a central He was booed because thousands of trade unionists realised he had no intention of of fighting the cuts or any of the other His recent performance at the TUC last month merely confirms this.
His sole message to the trade union movement, fighting a desperate battle for jobs, was that they should approach which has created the present upsurge in the party. More and more part! activists are realising that you can't fight the Tories - on cuts or unemployment - by chummy parliamentary debates & promises of what a future Labour government will do CHALLENGE This challenge to the Callaghan leadership - which emerged openly at the last conference - has created major 'splits' in the party. Splits within the PLP and, most significantly, splits between the PLP and the NEC which has been more responsive to the mass pressure building up.
It has been the NEC which has headed the question of party democracy and which has begun to identify with the growing anti-Tory struggles in the country. It was, after all, the NEC which launched the mass anti-cuts rally last ycar, supported the 15,000 strong demonstration against Thatcher's racist proposals, and which is now leading the opposition to the Tories' nuclear plans.
PRESSURE There can be no doubt that this shift to the left in the Party, in response to the growing anti-Tory feeling building up among rank-and-file activists, offers unique possibilities. The question is: will the left (particularly that around Benn) take advantage of them? Will it adopt policies and a course of action to take it forward?
Clearly, the test before it lies, in large measure, in its ability to link up with and lead the real struggles that are now developing against the Tories on issues as diverse as 'cuts' to 'racist laws'. That certain strands in the left are aware of this can be seen I clearly in Peter Hain's comments