Politics
Kinnock's first fight
Mr Robert Maxwell's Daily Mirror has rushed into a 'campaign'. 'FIGHT FOR THE LABOUR PARTY', it said on its front page on Monday. It began with an honours board of the achievements of past Labour governments. so that you had to turn to page two to discover how this fight could be carried on: '. . . Labour must first win back its lost trust'. This process must begin on Wednesday when 'the party's ruling National Executive can loosen the grip of the lunatic Left' by approving the plan in the name of Mr John Evans to provide for reselection of MPs by all members of each constituency Labour Party, not just the general committee. 'It is essential for Labour and Britain that they [the lunatic Left] do NOT win this battle.'
The next morning, 'KINNOCK FIGHTS TO WIN', according to Terence Lancaster, Mirror Group Political Editor, who said: 'Neil Kinnock put his authority as Labour leader at stake yesterday.' It says much for the Mirror's powers of popular communication that it was able to pitch the matter so high. One short para- graph in the Monday leader explained the extent of the great new reform: 'It would be a small step towards sanity. The local parties won't HAVE to take it. Only if they want to. But,' it added gamely, 'it would be a dramatic beginning.' This is one of those questions which show how sepa- rate politics, and especially Labour poli- tics, can be from life as she is lived. At present, only general committees can re- select; now, with the rule change, if they feel like it, they can ask their comrades to help them do so. This is the 'Right-wing manoeuvre . . . that will cause a quite unnecessary and major split in the party' (Mr Martin Flannery). It is for this that Mr Kinnock has been prepared to run the first major risk of his leadership, and, presum- ably. to signal to the Daily Mirror that the matter is one of high seriousness.
Mr Kinnock's chosen method is epistol- ary, but although he may be a more effective politician he is a less distinguished correspondent than Mr Michael Foot, who, when all else failed, would dash off brilliant letters of complaint to Mr Benn. His letter ('yours fraternally') to Labour MPs who were questioning his support for Mr Evans's proposals rambles about a bit, muddling singulars and plurals, piling up the pronouns: 'They had better admit it. They had better tell the people of the Labour party that it's their membership that is wanted, not their opinion, that they are a respectful audience, not a movement. Such plain, public views of the mass of members might be a little risky and uncom- fortable for some. But it would be the essence of the accountability which I know we all really want.' Still, one can get the gist.
And if I were a Labour MP getting that gist, I should feel every right to be annoyed. I would recall that it was settled at the Wembley conference that one man, one vote was what the crypto-Tories wanted – David Owen called for it loudly — and that when they didn't get it, they left the party. And Neil did rather well out of that conference. The reselection changes and the new method of electing the leader moved power to the Left, but not so absolutely that the Bennites were in control. The Right still had strength, but now only in combination with the soft Left. That combination got Mr Kinnock the leadership.
Now Mr Kinnock waxes high-minded: 'Those who oppose the change have to explain how in the name of democracy they can deny the chance to vote to the people who make up the party.' Perhaps they do if they insist on justifying their opposition 'in the name of democracy', but why should they? No organisation can or should be democratic in everything it does. All organ- isations contain some hierarchies; all have to be run by someone, and whoever runs them is bound to have more power than whoever is no more than an ordinary member. Such power has to be controlled, but is not always wicked. What is the point of general committees if they cannot be trusted to enact rules? Why was reselection all right in 1981, but all wrong now that it is actually reselecting some people?
Besides, Mr Kinnock takes the name of democracy, but he takes it more or less in vain. The original selection of MPs will still not be open to all the local party members. The new rule for reselection will not guarantee the rights of such people, only give them weak encouragement. If I were a left-wing Labour MP, I would recognise Mr Kinnock's move as a hostile act, the more odious for being the more canting.
What of right-wing and no-particular- wing Labour MPs? Since Mr Kinnock has chosen to treat the matter as one of confidence, most of them think that they have to support him. No doubt if you are about to be reselected you are pleased at least to be able to embarrass your persecu- tors by demanding 'democracy'. But will the new rule baulk people who have been thoroughly unbaulked by years of opposi- tion? Despite the Mirror's description, the Left is not 'lunatic'. The militants of Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr Peter Shore's seat) will not suddenly start con- sulting the people whom they have spent so long trying to overthrow. If they react at all, they will do so by still more assiduous recruiting. The Left has proved itself better at recruiting than the Right. If it can get a majority of the whole local party, it will be stronger than ever. Mr Kinnock's letter says: 'This procedure is not designed to "protect" any individual MP.' Many mod- erates must be reflecting sadly that this is little more than the truth. The one good reason for them to support the change is that the Left is against it.
This leaves us looking for an explanation for Mr Kinnock's conduct. For the first time he has been politically brave. He has risked defeat at the National Executive and ensured a row at the party conference. He has reopened the wound, and not, it appears, as a master surgeon but as some- one who cannot stop himself picking at a scab. Perhaps Mr Kinnock has chosen this issue because he is confident of his author- ity in only one respect: his high standing with the average Labour activist. He must know that he is still weak as a Parliament- ary performer, uncertain with a trade union movement which is more and more uncertain of itself; he must sometimes doubt whether he has the makings of a minister, let alone a prime minister. But what he does have, in a unique degree, is rapport with the Labour Party in its worka- day manifestations. And so he reasons that since he must, sooner or later, fight, he must do so on his own ground. If he proposes to spread power in the dear old Labour Party, how can the dear old Labour Party refuse him? He must win something, and if he cannot win this, he cannot win anything.
Strengthened by his three vote majority on Wednesday, he probably can win this, and of course, one victory makes another more likely. But a man with so unsteady and so small a ground to stand on is not a powerful leader. The fact that Mr Kinnock makes much of an issue of such a reform shows how little he leads. The policy seems to be a sophistication of that pursued by Mr Foot to so little effect – a weedy sort of tagging along with the rough crowd, occa- sionally broken by little protests ('I say, Tony, that's a bit off) and, when the bullies' backs are turned, timorous and abortive plots to stab them. Where, for example, is the lesser half of the Dream Ticket, Mr Hattersley? It seems that he and Mr Healey have now worked them- selves round to accepting an unequivocally non-nuclear defence policy. They have been appalled, apparently, by new evi- dence about the 'nuclear winter' which would follow the dropping of the Bomb ('The bombing of millions of people is one thing, comrade, but this nuclear winter business really is going rather too far'). It is all so limp. One sometimes feels that Mrs Thatcher is the only person in Britain who is really determined that Labour should remain the alternative party of govern- ment.
Charles Moore
Previous page
