DELEGATES Blackpool conference face a nasty prospect: a direct attack on them adopted by conference itself.
Constituency Parties then face an awkward should they implement register? Should they accept expulsions? should retuse and disobey ference?
The problem is acute because the democracy campaign has rightly insisted that MPs should obey conference. True, the campaign has not been fully successful. But can the left apply standard to MPs and choice:
the they Workers' conwas followed by and by Bevanites in the fifties.
Party imposed by the by every attempt to do so has failed.
The left has reacted in one of two ways: either it has set up separate organisations outside the Labour Party, or it has stayed in the Labour Party and wound up its organisations.
The first course was followed by the carly British Socialist Party, by the Communist Party after 1929, by the Independent Labour Party, and now by groups such as the Socialist Party. The second course Stafford Cripps Socialist League in the late thirties out of ils own accord in 1901, affiliated again after the war.
The unique character British Labour Party, which is based on its claims to represent all working class currents within its ranks, prompted Lenin and the Third International to advise the Communists to apply for affihation in Britain - as distinct from every other country.
The application was not rejected on constitutional grounds but on hotdisputed political Therefore both the Labour Party conbut then, they have no recognisable grounds. principles at all.
out?
Moreover the union leaders, who The experience of the Nati Left Wing movement in the 1! shows exactly how this problem! be met. The National Left Wing formed, when the Labour Party t to expel the Communist Party, as counterpart of the minority m ment in the unions which organ nearly three quarters of a mil unionists for militant ac against the Tories and employers It fought for socialist policies against expulsions. At one stage u a hundred and fifty CLPstook pa the National Left Wing Movem which numbered disaffili: parties in its ranks. It did two • Through its links with the Min Movement and the Commu direct action for policies which s blocked by the Labour right neither walked out of Labour Party, nor disbanded u threat from the leadership. It ne walked away from a fight, capitulated. Disaffiliated parties tinued in existence, promoted t candidates, and fought for admission the Party, prevented the Labour leader bypassing the local labour mover by setting up rump 'official' parl The tragedy of the National Wing was that in 1928 the Commi Party changed its line and called to leave the Labour Party to for HICH DULLY The vast majority could no cept and went back with their between their legs. Two years Ramsay MacDonald committed La coalition government. NLWM had remained in existen a militant fighting body, it could spearheaded the struggle agains betrayal and against MacDon austerity policies, serving as focu a left-wing revival in the Labour It did not do so: and the -saw mass unemployn poverty and eventually war, background of gigantic Labour Bon accas Could such experience repeated? Could the left wing in unions and the left in the party lin through extraparliamentary ac a sup and so dos