Last weekend at a meeting of the right-wing Labour Solidarity Campaign, Leo Abse MP accused Tony Benn of having a 'lust for power' and that he was challenging the sovereignty of parliament. This theme is, of course, amplified by the mass media.
The Observer's political correspondent made a more sober assessment on Sunday. Describing Benn's call for Labour governments to be bound by conference decisions as a 'seductive and appealing message not only to the constituency activists but also to many in the unions', Adam Raphael added that Denis Healey 'looks more and more like a great whale stranded on a hostile beach'.
The Observer's headline asked: 'Is the Benn tide unstoppable?' — a remarkable turnabout from the derision which greeted Benn's decision to challenge Healey announced barely two months ago.
The large majority of socialists have enthusiastically backed Benn's election campaign, without necessarily agreeing with his policies. In an hour-long interview, published on this and the following two pages, PHIL HEARSE and BRIAN HERON questioned Tony Benn on major aspects of these policies. On pages 10 and 11 we publish our critique of Benn's positions.
Socialist Challenge: Why are you standing for deputy leader of the Labour Party? What have the successes of the campaign been so far?
Tony Benn: Officially it is to elect a deputy leader. It's the first election on a wider franchise and people fought very hard to get a wider franchise, to get greater accountability. We arrived on a wider franchise which I personally supported, 40-30-30, and I think that is a good franchise.
It's testing that mechanism, but the real advantage is two or three quite separate things.
First of all it is opening up policy. Policy is being discussed, primarily at union conference, where it isn't always discussed, because they have a choice to make. Secondly, the constituencies now there is a focus for the discussion of principle party policies.
Next, to some extent it anticipates the Clause 5 Manifesto meeting because if the party really does go for implementation of conference policy through its choice of deputy leader, it will be extremely difficult for anyone to veto it.
I would be very surprised if the ripples of this year's democratic exercise within the trade union movement didn't spread far beyond the confines of the deputy leadership.
It has also exposed what many people had suspected, that there is a body of opinion in the upper echelons of the party who actually agreed that there wouldn't be an election, who didn't want an election. Blowing out some of the smoke from the smoke-filled rooms has been a good thing.
Socialist Challenge: Given Clive Jenkins' statement about the leadership battle, you must be very encouraged by the decision of the conference of the Association of Scientific, Technical, Managerial and Supervisory Staff (ASTMS) to support you.
Tony Benn: I am really. It's logical, because ASTMS supports the policies in my election platform. As the union conferences progress, you're getting better decisions on policy as a result of the political agitation and discussion. For example, USDAW came out for unilateral nuclear disarmament and APEX came out for national executive control of the Labour Party election manifesto.
So the union contribution to the debate is being radicalised by the discussions. In some cases, because they have to make a choice on the deputy leadership question.
Socialist Challenge: Trade union militants are thus getting involved in the internal struggles of the Labour Party, particularly to push forward the fight for democracy and to support your campaign. Don't you think that leaders of the Labour Party, particularly leaders of the left, should get involved in supporting the industrial struggles of workers? Don't you think that leaders of the Labour Party should be calling for industrial action to fight the threat of unemployment and redundancy?
Tony Benn: Well, if you say involved in industrial struggles, then I have all my time. I was up in the Lee Jeans factory the other day, I've just sent a message to the Laurence Scott workers — from UCS, to the River Don, right the way through.
I've always regarded that as the function of a Labour MP — I'm a trade unionist as well. But I don't think it's for the parliamentary leadership to tell people what to do.
It's very easy for someone who's not directly involved in a dispute to call on others to make great sacrifices. I think they have to determine that, and the role of the Labour Party is to support them.
Socialist Challenge: As a leader of the movement as a whole, don't you think there is a place to make an appeal for action to take on the government?
Tony Benn: The People's March for Jobs was important because it came out of the North-west; it wasn't even demanded by the TUC General Council — they came in rather late.
I don't think it would have been helpful if the NEC of the Labour Party had issued a call for a People's March for Jobs.
I think the role of leadership is to analyse, to explain, to encourage, to support, but not to order or call in that sense. That has to be done by the people directly involved.
Otherwise if things go wrong, the people who are actually engaged in doing it are doing it under instructions, and they're not doing it out of their own discussion and motivation.
I think that is, dare I say it, an elitist illusion of the left — the idea that you've got to look to the top. On everything else the left says the rank and file has the primary role, but on this question we expect you to give a call. Now there's a certain dilemma here…
Socialist Challenge: Can we put it the other way round? At the base there are many militants who think that a national lead at this time is absolutely essential if they're going to have effective action. For example, at the Rover plant they are prepared to take action, they have decided that officially in their resolutions, but they are very well aware that isolated and alone they don't stand as much chance as if they've a national call…
Tony Benn: Well I agree… but then you have to…
Socialist Challenge: …and then they look to the national leaders…
Tony Benn: Then you have to make connecting links across. The tri-partite arrangement between coal and steel and transport is useful, as are joint shop stewards committees, but if in the end you are saying we should replace the government by industrial action, my own opinion is that without winning the argument you can't build socialism. Because that is done by a coup, and coups can never build support.
So whereas I would be strongly in favour of a general strike to defend a gain, the idea that there is a short-cut to socialism through industrial action is one of the great illusions.
When a Labour government is elected with a radical programme, enormous pressure will be put on it by the international community, by the bankers and so on, and unless you can rely on the overwhelming support of working people, you won't be able to stand the strain.
This short cut to power via industrial action is, I think, revolutionist talk, it's not revolutionary. Here I might disagree with Socialist Challenge, but my own view is that you have to do it by consent, and support people in struggle but not try to establish a leadership role which tells people you go on strike, you defy the government over local government finance — that is quite wrong.
Socialist Challenge: But don't you think people's ideas are changed through action and not just through argument….
Tony Benn: Yes, but I'm not arguing against action.
Socialist Challenge: But the miners' strikes which took place recently had the potential of bringing down the government, if the Tories had stood out against them, that was a real possibility. Do you think that was a good thing or a bad thing, do you think it should be supported? Or put it another way. In 1974 there's no doubt that the miners' strike did bring down the government and created the basis for the government being defeated in the general election. Don't you think that should have been supported by Labour MPs?
Tony Benn: Well, I did support the miners in 1974 and 1972, but I think you are seriously deceiving people if there is revolutionist talk, when only a minority of people in this country have got hold of a socialist analysis.
They get it through action and struggle, that is not the same as telling other people to go into the battle to replace the electoral system, in the hope you could build socialism — you'd end up with Stalinism.
Socialist Challenge: You mentioned that the next Labour government elected on a radical programme should attempt to fulfill the 1974 Manifesto, including a fundamental shift of power and wealth to working people and their families. Surely this is going to put you in massive conflict with the banks, finance houses, IMF and so on. And although we can see the point that you will need massive popular support….
Tony Benn: You sure will.
Socialist Challenge: Surely you will need something else as well, which is your hands on the actual power, the money, the finance the big monopolies, the key levers from that point of view? In other words, surely the first step is to take these things over?
Tony Benn: Then you've got to argue about the policy of the Labour Party. It's no good me saying that it's got to be that way, I've got to persuade the Labour Party.
Socialist Challenge: But you yourself stand for that?
Tony Benn: I support Clause 4. I think that the process by which you bring about Clause 4 has to be first of all the persuasion of the Party of the relevance of socialism, and for thirty years no one has talked about socialism.
On the whole I think socialist ideas are probably stronger now, a lot of socialist agitation has gone on in the country over the last few years.
The experience of office will create the demand for radical change, and if you say, and I think you're right, that the international financial community might try to bring enormous pressure upon a freshly elected Labour government, you then have to rely on the support of the trade unions, the Labour Party and the public who voted for you.
But if you're saying that this is the Allende question, then I wouldn't be bothering about any of this policy making I would be out in the fields at night drilling. I call that revolutionist tittle tattle.
If one abandons persuasion for the pursuit of arms then you're talking about a different ball-game.
The difficulty for the socialist analysts is this: they have to analyse where power is — the banks, landowners, military, civil service, media, multinationals, Brussels.
But you mustn't use their analysis of the centres of power on the other side as an instrument for spreading pessimism and hopelessness among people….
Socialist Challenge: On the contrary…
Tony Benn: …because actually there is the power to win, of course there's the power to win.
Socialist Challenge: But let's take that point. It was a major battle for the 1945-51 Labour government to nationalise steel. It was a major battle that was lost even to nationalise the Tate and Lyle sugar company.
Is it not the case that taking over sections of the commanding heights of industry and finance, to implement your progamme, is going to put you at loggerheads with those people?
Tony Benn: I think it is. But I think a determined government with public support can carry the day. If there was an attempt at a military coup against a military government trying to do what it was elected to do, then I think the case for industrial action to restore democracy would be overwhelming.
This whole argument — are you a reformist or a revolutionary, are you parliamentary or extra-parliamentary is a highly theoretical area, with very little real meaning.
What is presented as revolutionary is really, I think, a critique not of reform having been tried and failed, but reform not having been tried.
Socialist Challenge: But surely the difference between being a revolutionary and a reformist, is that the revolutionaries think that a test of strength between a government which genuinely wants to carry through what you would call reforms, what we call revolutionary measures, and the capitalist class, is inevitable and that the capitalist class won't give up its power, the big monopolies, the finance houses and the banks…
Tony Benn: …without violence
Socialist Challenge: …without violence, without attempting to use its state apparatus.
Tony Benn: I'm not sure about that. Wasn't it Marx who said that the United Kingdom was one country where you might bring about socialism by peaceful means?
Socialist Challenge: Only to reverse it later.
Tony Benn: Maybe, but that was a first stage, and I think the inevitability of violence which is really what you're saying, if I believed it, and I don't for a moment, it would lead me to abandon politics and get out my old tin hat and find a second hand rifle and go out and drill.
If you did that you would enormously strengthen the right. It wouldn't be serious, but it would be serious enough to frighten people.
It would divert the Labour Party and the trade unions from their real task. Where the trade union movement is very strong, as you said before, it played a part, not in destroying the government — this is a great mistake that the far left and the Tories both make — it was the British people who defeated Heath, because they were not prepared to back him in a conflict with the British working class movement.
If Heath had won the election, do you imagine the miners would have been in a strong position — not at all. So it was the electoral process which brought Heath down.
Socialist Challenge: The election of Mitterand in France is tremendously encouraging. One of the things which he's promised is the immediate introduction of a 35-hour week.
Do you think a Labour government should legislate for a 35-hour week, and don't you think that this would again put you into conflict with the bosses?
Tony Benn: Well let's be clear. Everything that we wanted to do in our manifesto is going to bring us into conflict with the Pentagon, with Washington, with the bankers, sections of the civil service and so on, so you can take that for read.
We fudged it in the '79 manifesto; we said we were in favour of a 35-hour week but it would have to be on a European scale, which was another way of saying that we wouldn't do it unless other people did.
The pressure now for the shorter working week, for work sharing, as an element — not the dominant element — in dealing with unemployment is of great importance.
I couldn't tell you with any authority what the next Labour government will do about anything, because so far we haven't succeeded in dealing with the problem of the manifesto.
That's why we're spending so much time on party democracy. Until we've sorted that out there is no knowledge until three weeks before polling day what commitment there is, and there's no certainty that what commitment there is will be implemented.
Socialist Challenge: For us, the 35-hour week is important both from the point of view of solving unemployment, and also as a means of driving against import controls, which imply an alliance between sections of the trade unions and the employers.
Tony Benn: I don't think that import controls would solve the crisis in Britain, any more than devaluation or wage controls. I have never said so. But I don't find any socialist theory which leads me to the belief that the free movement of goods and capital is an integral part of international socialism.
We have import controls at the moment — a poor person can't afford to buy from abroad. And the planning of trade, and production seems to be perfectly logical.
The left critique of import controls, which I fully understand because I'm an internationalist — that you use it to export your unemployment, depends entirely on how you do it. If you plan your trade in such a way that you return to full employment, world trade rises. But if you do it in such a way as to export unemployment, you are damaging the French or the Japanese or the South African working class.
If you have nationalised industry, with workers' control and compensation according to need, some multinational company can bring in cheap goods to destroy that industry under the guise of free trade — and when it's been destroyed it can raise its prices again.
Socialist Challenge: Surely the context that you're talking about is one where there is generalised workers' control — a planned economy — while the context in which many of the trade union leaders and many of the leaders of the CBI are raising the demand is quite different.
Tony Benn: In that case let's talk about what I'm talking about, and not take the view that trade protection will solve the crisis. Some of the critique of the role of trade planning in the Labour socialist industrial strategy seems as if it's just what the CBI might argue, but it's not.
Socialist Challenge: One of the points in the five-point programme you have put forward for your election campaign is the idea that we should not accept Cruise or Trident missiles, and that we should have a non-nuclear policy.
This implies that we should stay in NATO. Do you support the resolution carried at the ASTMS conference that Britain should withdraw from NATO?
Tony Benn: I am basing myself on conference policy. The conference rejected a request to leave NATO, but said that we should have a non-nuclear policy, like Canada's. That is a perfectly possible position. The Labour Party's present position on NATO is that we should aim to dissolve the alliance and the Warsaw Pact and create a European security system.
I don't think that nuclear weapons are really a defence strategy. The Tories are destroying the navy to produce the Trident, so we are seeing defence reduced in order to produce a weapon which could never be used without the destruction of our country. I think the non-nuclear defence strategy and being a non-nuclear member of NATO is a perfectly logical position.
Maybe the Labour Party will go beyond it and say we should leave NATO. I think it's unlikely, because there are a lot of people of my age-group who remember the pre-war years when the attempt by the left to get collective security against fascism led to the attempt to maintain the League of Nations and all the rest of it.
My generation couldn't possibly sit back and say whatever happens anywhere else doesn't concern us any more.
Socialist Challenge: Isn't there a forceful argument that being a non-nuclear part of NATO means that you base yourself on the nuclear part of NATO for Britain's defence — in effect, on the United States?
The Daily Mirror commented on the Labour Party decision that it made no sense; that once you abandon nuclear policy, you abandon the basis on the NATO alliance.
Tony Benn: Rubbish. You could put it to me the other way. If I'm against nuclear weapons, why am I in favour of high explosives which kill thousands of people? That's another argument that's used; that anything short of pacifism is illogical.
We have to try to work out what is the most sensible way of resolving the choices open to us. I am in favour of defence and of the idea of collective defence. I am not in favour of a nuclear defence strategy, and I'm certainly not in favour of the United States power system converting us into a colonial airbase.
I think a lot of people are now coming to this view. If we move towards a nuclear-free zone in Europe we really could turn the tide, which would otherwise lead to nuclear war.
Socialist Challenge: In Britain and internationally over the past few years we've seen a series of attacks on abortion rights. What can we do to stop these attacks?
Do you think that Labour MPs should continue to have an individual right of conscience on the issue, or should they be obliged to support Labour Party policy, which is for free abortion on demand?
Tony Benn: I support the conference policy. I think the women's movement quite rightly puts control of their own bodies very high on their list, and not being dominated by a male parliament on issues which are for them.
I'm not in favour of expelling MPs because they may on individual matters find it hard to go along with party policy. The great characteristic of the left — as compared to the right when it dominated the party — is that it's not always out for blood if everyone doesn't come into line.
I have an element of personal tolerance in these matters towards others with whom I disagree. Ultimately, as on everything else, you've got to win the support of people. The Italian referendum shows that's possible.
Socialist Challenge: Among others, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy argues that in any reselection list a woman and a black candidate should be included among those put forward; that there should be positive discrimination. What is your position on this?
Tony Benn: It's a difficult one. I am interested in socialism and if I were obliged to put a right-wing black and a right-wing woman on the list and select them against a left-wing man, I would find that difficult.
The women's movement and the black movement should affiliate to the Labour Party and have people at every selection conference. They should see that the rights of women and of the black communities are represented in the party when the selection is made.
I think affiliation is what we should go for — just as the miners are affiliated. We don't have a quota for miners. Miners are there in parliament because in areas where the miners are strongest and they have a strong delegation on the general committee they put a miner in. In areas where the blacks are strongest you'd expect a black to come in, and in areas where the women's group is strongly oranised you'd expect a woman to come in.
I don't rule out a quota, but I think it's a by-passing of the real issue, which is how to get a united, autonomous working-class and socialist movement to express itself institutionally through a single political party, linked to the unions, in the House of Commons and elsewhere.
Socialist Challenge: Do you think the far left should be affiliated to the Labour Party, and if so, is there any practical possibility that this could occur?
Tony Benn: They can join the party individually, but I don't think you can affiliate a group that puts up candidates. You can't have people who are in the party but at the same time, if they don't like a person who has been put up as a candidate, fight an election.
The rule about non-candidatures is an important one, but there are a mass of groups and tendencies in the Labour Party and there's no problem about it. There's not even a problem about their having their own papers. Look at the ILP; once they abandoned their role as a political party and came under Labour publications, they reaffiliated.
Many of the far left groups came into being and grew in strength because of the manifest failure of the non-socialist years of the Labour Party, from 1951. It was a judgement by a generation of socialists on the Parliamentary Labour Party during the years of revisionism.
I think it's significant now that there is a coming together. If the left joins the Labour Party, as it were, then the influence of the left for socialism within the Labour Party is stronger, and I think that is the right way of doing it.
Socialist Challenge: Why haven't you come out in support of the struggle of the prisoners in H Block? After all, the fundamental thing they say — that they are engaged in a political struggle — is manifestly true, even if one doesn't always agree with the methods they use.
What do you think of Don Concannon's action in going to see Bobby Sands when he was dying, to tell him to abandon his hunger strike?
Tony Benn: I won't comment on another colleague. My argument on the prison issue is that it is a way of narrowing the argument.
If all that we are allowed to discuss on Northern Ireland at the moment is the prison regime, the supposition is that the future of Northern Ireland will continue to be one where the prison population will continue in its present form, and that the key question is how they dress and what their status is.
My own opinion is that it's a political question and that one of the incredible tragedies of the present situation is that the labour movement has not really been allowed to vote on Ireland.
The Labour Cabinet hardly ever discussed Ireland — I think it discussed it during the Ulster workers' strike. I tried to get a discussion on Ireland in the Cabinet, including the prisoners question, without success. When we discussed the manifesto we were told it was too late for us to say anything, so it wasn't in.
When we set up a study group, we had a small preliminary group of members of the NEC, and I and others got an agreement that the objective was to bring about a united and independent Ireland. That was ruled out in favour of a whole range of solutions. When Tony Saunois (the Labour Party Young Socialists representative on the NEC) brought his resolutions on prison conditions, which were not limited simply to the IRA prisoners, it was defeated.
I think we now have to go for the whole thing; that the Six Counties were born out of violence — 75 of the 105 MPs elected in 1918 were in favour of independence, and partition was brought about by violence. I've always concentrated on this aspect. I think the rest is too narrow. It doesn't get to the real guts of the problem.
Socialist Challenge: Yet the prison issue is the focal point of the campaign to establish that it is a political struggle.
Tony Benn: I understand that, but my job is to transmit that message; not to get involved in the trigger to get that message understood.
I did strongly urge the policy. I didn't make much of it publicly, but I put it forward in the Shadow Cabinet and in the Tribune group, and got no support. At that stage, when the man was dying, it didn't seem to me to offer anything immediately, but it did highlight the fact that the British policy was totally inadequate.
We say to them you can't shoot. You shouldn't starve yourself to death. You shouldn't stand, and if you do stand in an election you can't serve. The whole blanketing out of a political breakthrough was highlighted.
I pointed out that the whole of British imperial history was littered with people who began in British prisons and ended up as prime ministers having tea with the Queen, including Mugabe, the most recent example, who went from terrorism to statesman via an election.
That argument didn't carry much weight with colleagues because they didn't want to face the real question, which is how do you break out of a situation of which at least a major part is caused by the presence of British troops who are alleged to be there to solve the situation.
Socialist Challenge: Perhaps the first step in breaking out, as you put it, is to break from bi-partisanship, at least at the level of suggesting that there is an alternative policy. The leadership of the Labour Party rapidly moved to shore up the bi-partisan policy.
Tony Benn: I don't want to comment on other people. Undoubtedly the election of Sands was extremely significant, apart from anything else because it was intelligible internationally. People saw it as the death of a British MP in protest against his prison conditions.
The fact that the secretary general of the United Nations, Mrs Ghandi, the Pope, and the European Commission of Human Rights came in began the process. I think my interview, my speeches, and the Labour Committee on Ireland meeting helped to break the shell.
One can see the whole thing on the move. It takes a little time for that deep feeling to express itself, not only in the Labour Party. You mustn't think nothing is happening — it is happening. By the end of the year, maybe by this conference, you'll find Labour Party policy totally different.
Socialist Challenge: The struggle which has gone on in the Labour Party has made positive advances and looks like making more. But surely in the end that depends on the organisation and support of millions of working people. Those fighting for democracy have to reach out and identify themselves with the struggles going on.
Tony Benn: If you put it like that, I'm with you 100 per cent of the way.
I don't want my argument about revolutionary language against reformist language to confuse the fact; we cannot build socialism in Britain without the solid support of millions of working class people. When we have that, nothing on earth can stop us.