Political commentary

The great acquiescer

Ferdinand Mount

Neurologist is a first-rate word. Sir Henry Irving would have rolled his tongue round it, dispatching every syllable to the gallery, heavy with top spin: from the insidious sneer of the 'neur', through the mocking echo of the 'olo' tO the derisive hiss of the 'gist'. In the sentence, 'Mr Benn is being treated by a consultant neurologist', it reaches a perfection of innuendo.

Simple glee suffused Labour MPs, Left and Right alike, on hearing that Mr Benn had been confined to bed, at least for a few days. The hope that he might have finally cracked up hovered not too far from the surface. But relief, I think, was uppermost. The legend of Mr Benn's unstoppableness has become so alarming.

But now we know he is mortal. He has legs which have pains in them. He retires to bed. And Michael tore into him, didn't he, cut him down to size, just flayed him alive; Tony never knew what hit him, couldn't take it, slunk away without a word; Denis is in with a chance now, Denis is over the moon, all the lads are over the moon, Michael and Denis make a fantastic team.

Hm, ye-es. Or rather, yes and no. Perhaps we had better have another look at Mr Foot's '24-page Challenge to Benn'.

Now, as a personal attack, Mr Foot's statement works very well, Mr Benn is a tricky customer. He does bend the evidence and quote selectively. He too stayed quiet inside Labour Cabinets which were flouting Labour conference decisions. He asserts that Mr Callaghan left things out of the 1979 Manifesto which in fact Mr Callaghan put in. So far, so good. Foot Puts Boot In.

But Mr Foot can make this case stick only by explicitly contrasting all this with what he himself believes party policy is and ought to be. He has to 'come out'. He has to discard the flannel which he uses when being interviewed on television.

And so it is that Mr Foot's 24-pager adds up to something rather different from what It purports to be. It is certainly a sharp personal prosecution of Mr Benn; but it is not a 'boost for the Right'. Far from halting the party's drift to the left aInd away from parliamentary democracy, it shows however unwittingly, signs of being part of that drift. Mr Foot's challenge to Mr Benn to stand against him for the leadership was easy to side-step. The costs of launching that challenge may turn out rather nasty.

To prove himself more Bennist than Benn, Mr Foot first has to display the strands of his earlier life: 'As a longstanding opponent of Britain's entry into the Common Market. . as an old CNDer'. To maintain his socialist credentials, he has in this argument to come out quite specifi cally for the abolition of the House of Lords and withdrawal from the Common Market. He has to accept the new system for electing the leader of the party. Only on the single constitutional point not yet gained by the Left — control of the party's election manifesto — does he give even a semblance of standing firm.

'The idea that elected Labour members of Parliament should have no effective influence in devising the manifesto they are charged to carry out is offensive to any idea of party democracy known to me.' Sounds good, in fact sounds so good that some people have started talking about a UDI by Labour MPs and a split between the Parliamentary Party and the Conference Party: I'll believe that when I see it.

For Mr Foot has been drifting in entirely the opposite direction. At Bishops Stortford along with Mr Callaghan, he reluctantly surrendered to an electoral college the principle of electing the leader by Labour MPs alone.

There is no reason to suppose that he will not surrender, no doubt equally reluctantly, to whatever arrangements this year's conference may choose to make for drawing up the manifesto.

Logically, he could not do anything else. For Mr Foot accepts the ultimate authority of the Labour Party conference. He may find It obnoxious but he accepts it. For Mr Foot, the Parliamentary Party's duty is to 'carry forward' the decisions of the conference — 'intelligently and unitedly' and taking account of 'legal and economic implications', but carry them forward, nonetheless.

Take Northern Ireland. Mr Foot resolutely holds the view that Northern Ireland cannot be expelled from the UK against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants. Yet when he rebukes Tony Benn for demanding the withdravyal of British troops, it is not primarily because that is a foolish or treacherous course, it is because the Labour Party's study group set up by conference has not yet reported with a new policy and Mr Benn is opposing conference decisions 'whereas the rest of the Shadow Cabinet and myself have faithfully followed them'. True, he adds a promise that nothing in that new policy will 'condone or assist or excuse the resort to terrorism and violence and intimidation.' In which case, it sounds as if it must be just the old policy dolled up, because I can scarcely imagine a new policy which does not give some encouragement to the IRA.

Only in cases where conference decisions are unclear or conflicting — as on incomes policy or NATO — does he assert the right of MPs to exercise 'their own independent powers of judgment on the great complex issues of the age.' This right must therefore be a residual or shrinking one.

The cases where Mr Foot appears to be defying conference dissolve on closer in spection. He purports to keep alive 'the awkward question' of whether a referendum ought to be held before a Labour government withdrew from the EEC. This question is not settled, because the TUC Congress 'carried a resolution different on this aspect of the matter from that passed at the party conference.' The TUC votes for a referendum. So the implication is that the Labour conference voted against one; but it didn't. The resolution, carried by 5 million votes to 2 million did not mention a referendum one way or the other. And if it had, you can bet Mr Foot would not have defined it.

In retrospect, nothing is more significant than Mr Foot's decision not to speak until after the crucial vote at the special conference at Wembley last January. It's not so much the failure to influence the conference or to forecast the result which counts; it's the way he clearly saw his role as the loyal servant of the conference.

This is in contrast to previous leaders who saw themselves as its master — or perhaps better as its Visitor — a benevolent dignitary from another sphere, charged with certain vague overriding duties of guidance and arbitration but not intimately involved with daily admin. 'A little still she strove and much repented, and whispering "I will ne'er consent" — consented.' Delayed acquiescence is Mr Foot's style. He is not so much the Great Healer as the Great Acquiescer.

The far Left has always threatened to control the Labour Party conference. The difference was that previous Labour Party leaders either resisted or ignored unwelcome conference decisions. Harold Wilson used to talk of the Shadow Cabinet's 'veto' on conference decisions. This veto was and is to be found nowhere in the party constitution, but it was used, year in and year out, by Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson and Callaghan.

Will Mr Foot use it too? Will he go so far as to discipline Mr Benn? In the immediate excitement caused by the 24-pager, there was even talk of expelling Mr Benn from the Parliamentary Party — a dubious business which would be promptly challenged by the National Executive Committee. Thus halfmartyred, Mr Benn would be even better placed to woo the last couple of union leaders he might need to beat Mr Healey. There's not much point in exerting your authority if you don't have much to exert. It merely draws attention to your weakness. All Mr Foot had to do was to tell Mr Benn to shut, up and obey the decisions of the Parliamentary Party which would • take account of Conference decisions in the traditional way, using its own judgment as a body of elected representatives. Twentyfour pages is 23 pages too long.