Further Thoughts on Morecambe
By The Rt. Hon. HUGH GAITSKELL, M.P.
THE Morecambe Conference and the present situation within the Labour Party illustrate vividly two major problems of modern democracy. The first is the prob- lem of how to settle disputes and differences within, as opposed to between, the parties. This problem is bound to arise from- time to time in a two-party system, when each party must embrace within its ranks a wide range of opinions and attitudes. The different viewpoints are not always easy to reconcile with each other, and of course the conflicts between them are often bound up with the clash of personalities. Disputes within a party tend to be more serious and more open nowadays when a party is in opposition. The restraints of loyalty to their leaders when they are carrying the heavy burden of governing the country no longer apply. People let themselves go and enjoy their new freedom in an outburst of plain speaking. The conference becomes an arena insfead of a demonstration of political solidarity. Looking back, I rather think the long series of " demonstration " conferences from 1945-1951 were harmful to the Labour Party. Criticism was suppressed by loyalty rather than logic. Instead of a real debate on the floor there was a series of mildly critical speeches from delegates followed by a stereotyped reply from the platform. Ministers who were not members of the Execu- tive very seldom took part; M.P.s for the most part kept silent. The debates at Morecambe this year were a great improvement. Critics were mainly answered from the floor, chiefly by ex- Ministers and M.P.s.
Intra-party disputes are, I think, also more likely on the left than on the right. There is more to argue about when you are interested in making changes, than if you are merely concerned to preserve the status quo. Moreover there are more people on the left who are " agin the Government " whether it be the government of the country or their own leaders, than in a Conservative Party which attracts towards it those with a natural respect for authority and discipline. What is happening in the Labour Party today, then, is neither new nor surprising. But how will it develop ? Lord Pakenham last week was principally concerned with the out-" look of the local Labour Parties and the need to present to them a progressive domestic policy. I agree with much that he said. But he hardly touched on the two things which I believe really lie at the root of the trouble—foreign policy (to which I shall come later) and the methods which the Bevanites have adopted to win support. There is a real problem here. In a democratically organised party there must obviously be freedom to discuss party policy. But how can this be recon- ciled with loyalty to party decisions ? In a small group dis- cussions can take place in private, and then, the decisions once taken, everyone is expected to abide by them. But this procedure is impossible for a great political party. Those who wish to change established policy argue that they must be free to put across their views in public. Those who take the opposite view naturally claim the right of public reply. How then do you prevent an argument in public becoming a public row carrying with it all the atmosphere of a split ? It really all turns on the way it is done. In the case of the Labour Party during the past eighteen months it has been done too often in the wrong way.
First of all, the formation of a group within the Parliamen- tary Labour Party designed also to influence the constituency parties, and through them the Annual Conference, has set up a chain of consequences which may not have been fully appreciated by those who started the whole business. It has created suspicions, antagonism and bitterness among Members of Parliament which would never have resulted simply from genuinely held differences on policy. When- a group meets in private—perhaps thirty or forty M.P.s—to determine before- hand the line they will all take at the party meeting and then proceeds to treat the meeting as a battleground for winning victories, it becomes impossible to treat any issue solely on its merits. Everything is subordinated to the internal struggle. Everything said and done' is regarded as a move in the game, with a hidden purpose. The damaging effect this has on personal relationships is not difficult to imagine. Nothing like this happens where groups are formed just to discuss subjects of common interest. The trouble starts when the group concerns itself with major issues of policy. Even so, had the objects of the group in this case been clearly stated and openly avowed and confined to a few points there would have been much less friction. But there never has been any such precision. The fact that it has been impossible to define " Bevanism " purely in policy terms is highly significant.
The second major cause of the trouble has been the Bevanite Press. I have spoken and written of this already. The campaign has been well planned and carried out by men whose capacity in the art of popular journalism should not be under- estimated. It is not really relevant to the controversy inside the Labour Party to say that a number of serious newspapers like The Times have been anti-Bevanite. This, though not surprising, is not much of a help to the rest of the party, who have lacked a good weekly or Sunday paper where the official view of what Labour policy is, or should be, is explained and justified. Since something of this kind has been shown by the Bevanites to be an essential weapon in the struggle within the party, we must expect that, if that struggle continues, their opponents will try and forge one of their own. But again, we must hope that as Mr. Attlee has suggested some more satis- factory solution to this question of group propaganda can be found.
The second problem of democracy which this whole episode illustrates is that of the relationship between the individual party-workers in the constituencies and the leadership at the centre. Party workers tend to take a rather different and more extreme view of policy than their leaders. This has always been so in the Labour Party; and the clamour at Conservative Conferences recently for more right-wing policies (the recent demand for really substantial cuts in public expenditure des- pite the Chancellor's speech, is a good illustration) suggests that the same is,true in their case.
No doubt Lord Pakenham is right when he ascribes the attitude of the local parties at present to general dissatisfaction with the official leadership and the lack of a new programme. But this is not the whole of the story. It is not against our domestic policy that criticism is directed. At meetings of con- stituency parties which I have addressed people usually say. " We are quite satisfied with what the Labour Government did at home : it is their foreign policy which we dislike." We must certainly work out as quickly as possible a programme of domestic policy for the next Labour Government, but I doubt if, when we have done it, the problem of the gap between the local parties and the leadership will really be solved.
The most worrying feature of Morecambe to me was the fact that so many local party delegates seemed to favour a foreign policy which was not just slightly different from the official view, but totally opposed to it. These views were rejected by the Conference as a whole, but the fact remains that there were a great many constituency parties who sided with the defeated minority. Apart from the natural tendency of many Labour people towards pacifism (an inheritance incidentally from nineteenth century liberalism rather than early socialism) this is, I believe, largely due to the failure of the Party leaders —including Members of Parliament—to explain and justify the Labour Government's foreign policy. For the last two years of his life Mr. Bevin was not really well enough both to do-his job at the Foreign Office and put the policy oNer to the Party. His prestige and personality were even an handicap. As one woman complained to me, criticism was flattened not answered. As for the rest of us, I suppose we were just too busy to be able to do the necessary educational job. And of course even at this time there was a very strong undercurrent of hostility to the Foreign Secretary inside the Parliamentary Labour Party. There was the " stab in the back " resolution, the " keep-left " pamphlets and steady criticism from some of the left-wing weeklies. This was Bevanism before Mr. Bevan joined up. More recently the Bevanites have been conducting their propaganda in a much more organised manner. In doing so they have undoubtedly encouraged a fellow-traveller attitude in the local parties, which they themselves—or most of them— would probably repudiate. As Mr. Callaghan said at the Conference, many of those who voted for the Bevanites certainly hold views on foreign policy which go far beyond the Bevanites themselves. It would be foolish too to ignore that the outlook of the local parties on foreign policy has been fertile ground for Communist propaganda. Unhappily there is no difficulty in keeping alight the flames of anti-Americanism. And there are always people willing to listen nowadays to criticisms of rearmament and pleas to " end the war in Korea." No doubt most of the Labour Party members who talk in this vein would vigorously and rightly repudiate any connec- tion with Communism. But the views they express are very much what the Communists would like them to express, and it would be surprising if some at least had not been influenced, perhaps without knowing it, by Communist Party members carrying out Mr. Pollitt's instructions. These, by, the way, are set out quite frankly in Britain Arise—his report to the C.P. Conference this year.
It is for all these reasons that, while I fully concur with Lord Pakenhaiii's remarks about the need to find a home policy and also about the general attitude of the local parties, I do not think he goes far enough. If the Labour Party is to be really united, then private groups must be dissolved and seen to be dissolved, there must be some new arrangement about the left-wing Press and there must also be an energetic campaign of education in the local parties on foreign affairs and defence. If the Bevanites themselves, loyally accepting the decisions of Morecambe, join in this, so much the better.
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