AROUND CLAUSE FOUR

IT IS TIME TO ORGANIZE THE FIGHT THERE is really no end to the crisis inside the Labour Party. As Mr. Gaitskell tours the country assuring the faithful that everything is all right and from now on people will shut their mouths and get back to work in the constituencies, the opposite is happening.

The decision of the Transport and General Workers’ Union to put forward Mr. Nicholas for the position of Labour Party treasurer is not unrelated to their opposition to Mr. Gaitskell’s abandonment of Clause 4 and his continued devotion to the H-bomb. Of course everyone knows that Mr. Nicholas is also a right-winger but he is not Mr. Gaitskell’s nominee. Although Mr. George Brown, an MP representing the TGWU, would appear to be the most likely choice for such a job so far as the union is concerned, he has been brushed aside by the TGWU executive. Mr. Brown is separated from the Tories by a hairsbreadth. On matters of defence he is more vocal and more enthusiastice about the armed forces. It is quite clear that having to choose between Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Brown, the TGWU decided on what they thought was the lesser evil. , Thus we have looming up at the Labour Party conference next October a conflict of policy in relation to Clause 4 and a conflict on the organization field in relation to the treasurer.

These issues will be strengthened by at least two others; South Africa and the problem of defence. Gaitskell’s sympathetic telegram to Verwoerd is an example of the nauseating outlook of this right-wing clique. After the massacre of Sharpeville the only question that came into his head was to enquire in Parliament if -any damage had been done to British property and lives. Now he sympathizes with the gangster responsible. He has not uttered the slightest protest at the arrest without trial or charges of hundreds of the leading representatives of the Pan-Africanist Congress. His lips are sealed when it comes to youthful Philip Kgosane, 21-year-old student who has been exiled to an island which was formerly a leper colony. The Rt. Hon. Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell, MP, PC, is truly a man of the bulldog breed.

But wait, the noise is considerable! At last a parliamentary row. This Thames-side home for political Rip Van Winkles has suddenly been rent asunder by shrieks over the Blue Streak rocket. We haven’t got value for money, is the theme. Our banger won't work. We want rockets that will bring bigger and more substantial destruction. Labour’s protest is against Tory expenditure not against the rockets as the instruments of war, death and destruction. Had the Tories produced the goods, that is to say, had the Blue Streak rocket streaked to destruction faster than any other sinister instrument of this kind, then Labour would have been happy, there would have been no prothe Labour Party. The opposition of such unions as the TGWU must be joined by hundreds of constituency Labour Parties all over the country. Now is the time for constituency parties to take the initiative and call upon such unions to organize conferences throughout the country for the purpose of the showdown which is coming. Gaitskell can be defeated but only if the movement is alerted and mobilized on the terrible dangers to which his policies can lead. As part of the left wing of the Labour Party, the Socialist Labour League and its members will continue to fight unrelentingly towards this end.

A New Pamphlet on Clause Four From MacDonald to Gaitskell Price 3d. from 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4

APRIL 16, 1960