Trade Unions and the Labour Party Since 1945, by M. Harrison

[p022] ‘trade Unions and the Labour Party Since 1945, by Martin Harrison. Allen & Unwin. 32s. There is some promise, here and there, that the author is getting close to one of the problems of the Labour Party—the interconnection between the Labour Party leadership and the trade union bureaucracy. But alas, the author’s obvious inexperience of the living movement, his opposition to Left-wing ideas and his contempt for the ‘militant’ constituency party delegate, for the ‘communist’ and ‘Trotskyist’, ensures that the essence of the problem escapes him just when he appears to grasp it. Almost a third of the book is taken up with a statistical survey. But are 100 pages and 50,000 words necessary to inform us that the trade unions pay considerable amounts of money to the Labour Party? Or that a number of trade union branches do not send delegates to the constitu- ency parties and that even in those that do, only a minority of members participate? It is the remaining two-thirds of the book which are of interest. The formulae the National Union of General and Municipal Workers’ Right wing use for example: ‘Really important questions are usually de- bated under Executive Committee Special Motions. Clad in impeccable sentiments they seem to the casual observer to do no more than extol the unexceptional virtues of, say, “Peace”. In fact they help the Ex- ive outwit the opposition. Tucked away in these long motions are phrases like “effective and perman- ent inspection”, “securing inter- national agreement on atomic weapons” (rejecting unilateralism by implication). The ‘ opposition’ — mainly Left-centre and Stalinist in this union—is not analyzed, other- wise the reasons why these trick resolutions get carried, usually with- out a fight, could be given (which would be of considerable value to the student of the Labour movement). Harrison goes on to show how in this same union ‘proposals to adopt “progressive” (the author puts quo- tation marks round this word, which underlines his attitude) resolutions on nationalization, colonial affairs, wages and defence are invariably de- feated’. (The 1959 congress decision cn the H-bomb the author attributes to abstentions and missing, tea-drink- ing delegates. With such explana- tions, we see bow simple complex phenomena are!) Then there are the unions which have no conferences at all, like BISAKTA and the National Society of Metal Mechanics; and the selection of Labour Party and TUC delega- tions in most unions. And when the delegation is Left-wing, the author shows us how the executive commit- tee (e.g. of the AEU) flouts their viewpoint. Thus the AEU’s elected delegation to the TUC was prevented from voting against Deakin for the General Council of the TUC and its Labour Party delegation prevented from voting against Gaitskell and for Bevan as treasurer in 1955. And these bureaucratic actions Mr. Harri- son justifies. Having been a delegate to Labour Party conferences myself, I was more than amused to read how the con- stituency party delegates dominate the debates. ‘Up to the rostrum come the constituency militants demanding red-blooded socialism, joined by speakers from the handful of extreme Left unions. .. . Poor Mr. Phillips. He handles the rota of speakers so carefully, helping the chairman so altruistically (and I thought so suc- cessfully). First the NEC, then MPs and parliamentary candidates or trade union officials and finally the constituency delegate—if the latter bas put up a hell of a fight in the compositing conference and manages to be a mover, seconder (or occasion- ally supporting speaker}—but Mr. Harrison’s slide-rule shows that too many reds are getting through. The author’s bias is expressed in his support for proscription and the ‘moderates’ in the Labour Party. 101 Dealing with the 1954 Conference he justifies the ASW delegation’s break- ing their own conference mandate on German rearmament; he shows his satisfaction at the endorsement of SEATO and justifies the proscription of the Socialist Outlook, saying; ‘a majority of constituencies had enough acquaintance with the RCP to give the NEC their support’, (Incident- ally the Revolutionary Communist Party was dissolved in 1949—to be revived in 1954 by the Labour Party NEC! And the ex-members of the RCP were in no more than 40 Labour Party constituencies out of 630, a peculiar ‘majority’.) Although the reasons for the diffi- culties the Gaitskell-Williamson wing have in smashing the party constitu- tion and selling the bomb and im- perialism to the ranks are not dealt with, the book does implicitly expose the growing division between Right and Left in the Labour Party and the unions and in consequence how the Right wing will defy party con- ferences ‘should they carry Left-wing decisions. The growing schism is rooted in the continuously narrowing basis for British imperialism and therefore for reformism. The logic of the situation guarantees that a large section of the Right wing must eventually break completely with the working-class movement. The direction the Left wing takes—to the Cousins-Foot sec- tion, to the Stalinists or to the Marx- ists—will depend in large part on the intervention in the party and the unions that the Marxists undertake in the next period. D. FENCH. Loyal Outsider