WE ALL know how opposed Michael Foot is to tightly knit groups within the Labour Party. But Foot the party leader has conveniently forgotten what Foot the biographer wrote in 1962 about the rise of his mentor Nye Bevan (Aneurin Bevan, Vol. 1: 1897-1945).
Bevan's home town, Tredegar, was run by the local mining company. No real challenge came from the Labour Party. So Bevan and : some friends started something callsed the Query Club in the winter of 1921-22.
Foot notes that, Membership : was open only to those who had been strictly vetted'. That alone would have kept them off today's register. But there's worse to come.
*If we go to meetings and we know what we want, we'll get our way", he (Bevan) urged. Secret signs were arranged so that tactics could be changed and one Query Club member could indicate to another when a resolution should be moved or a barren argument adjourned. Soon their ciders were complaining ot these youths who pushed and talked and argued to such purpose Secret signs, indeed. Even Militant have never been accused of that!
The Query Club - 'enlarged to some twenty members on the same strict selective basis enforced from didn't confine itself to the Labour Party but also carried mula root cals us purposive in filtrations' into the 1 Trades Council and miners' lodge meetings.
"Its existence was not secret, although many of its particular ob Jectives might be. "The people sitdescribed the older Labour leaders, were often outraged by the pressures of the youthful activists. But it never occurred or scemed possible to the older men and women to outlaw them and forbid their manoeuvres.
One reason why it never seemed possible was because, as Foot points out, Bevan's base remained the union: Which leads us on to another interesting little episode.
How was it that Bevan came to enter the House of Commons in 19292 Yes, you've guessed — he ousted the sitting MP in a reselec tion process! Worse still, it didn't even come about through the local party machinery DOYLINES SID ly imposed on the Ebbw Vale party by the miners. It makes Barnsley NUM seem most restrained Not that it was at all undemocratic. The sitting MP, Evan Davies, was the nominee of the South Wales Miners Federation: and inder pressure the agreed to ballot he miners to see if his nomination should be renewed. The result was a triumph for Bevan - and for workers democracy. The nomination was his on the third ballot with 5,097 votes against 4,336 for the other two remaining candidates.
If it was good enough for the young Bevan — and his biographer it should be good enough for us. But then Sitting in the best pews gives one a different outlook on life. As Foor will no doubt explain.
Socialist Chailenge THE ference Blackpool was not the Labour Party conference you about in the delegate who seconded the vote of thanks summed it up.
*1 attended one conference:
then I read The press reported a conference in which Michacl Foot Labour's true leader. The Conference delegates went to was the one at which he lost any shred of credibility he retained with the left, and surrendered himself finally and irrevocably to the right.
The press reported a conference threw chances to the winds by voting for unilateral disarmament only to be rescued by Roy Hattersley rushing to the television cameras and explaining that the NEC could ignore what conference had decided.
Delegates attended a conference in which Labour adopted the most popular clection policy going in Britain today. It committed Lahour to a gigantic mobilisation of the unions, the party and CND to stop Cruise in "83. The left in particular are determined to impose this commitment on their leaders come Hattersley or high water.
The press reported the quiet and efficient removal of the Militant. Delegates sat aghast as their leaders launched a purge capable of destroying the party. majority then determined to get their unions The press reported a recalcitrant constituency left line with union from CLPs and unions alike, conference fixed by a handful of block-vote mongers: and left with the intention of taking the campaign for democracy to the union rank and file.
What really happened? The progress of understood in the context of the crisis through which the TUC and Labour icaders are passing.
The contradiction which ran right through the proceedings was this: on the one hand, all factors combined to Torce the bureaucracy to put up a battle against Thatcher and Thatcherism yet on the other, they were scared stiff of arriving in office committed to the policies which they knew were needed Thatcher,