Lynn Walsh: A Warning to Labour

[Militant No. 25, April 1967, p. 1 and 3]

Pollock, Rhonda West, Nuneaton, Honiton

A Warning to Labour

Attack Capital to Regain Support

The recent by-elections in Rhondda West, Pollock Nuneaton and Honiton have each registered a sharp rejection of the policies of the Labour Government. Neither the Liberals nor the Tories made any significant gains. In Nuneaton the Liberals and Tories lost as many votes as Labour, and the working class showed their lack of confidence in the government by abstention.

But in Rhondda West and Pollock (gained by the Tories) Labour was hit by a swing to Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Protest Vote

The results show that the so-called “Communist Party” had nothing to offer – in Rhondda it gained a mere 125 votes more than in the General election (1728 in all). But because the . worst-hit areas of the country coincide with quasi-nationalistic minorities (for historical reasons: the disastrous decline of the heavy mining and metal industries which were the backbone of British Capitalism in its heyday), there has been a protest vote against the pro-capitalist policies of the Labour Government. Unemployment nationally has topped the 650.000 mark: but unemployment in Wales and Scotland has been much higher than the National average since the war, where as national unemployment is now about 2½%, in Rhondda it is 9%, and in Scotland 8% The main industries in these areas, mining, steel, heavy engineering, have all been suffering from chronic backwardness resulting from a lack of reinvestment of profits in modernisation. In Wales average earnings are 3s. per week less than nationally, while in Scotland average earnings were the lowest in Britain, £4 a week lower than in the South-East. House-building nationally fell 15% last year, but Scotland and Wales have long been behind the rest of the country in any case, Scotland is now building fewer houses than in the ‘30’s. As far as the workers of Wales and Scotland are concerned the Labour Government seems to offer them a miserable alternative: either join the growing dole-queues or emigrate. Nine of the 13 Welsh counties are losing population. and 500 people leave Scotland every week, mainly for Canada.

Callaghan recently triumphantly announced that he had finally got Britain’s Trade figures to balance. This, however, will not be much consolation to the voters of Wales and Scotland. On the contrary, the trade-gap has been closed at the expense of a total stand-still in production, which will leave British Capitalism still more backward than before.

The figures given by the “London & Cambridge Economic Survey” (Times” 13-3-67) are a devastating condemnation of the Government’s policies. It reveals a 34% fall in industrial production last year. More significant in the long run; however, was the drop, for the fifth year in succession, of investment in manufacturing below the 1961 ‘peak’. It quotes the Board of Trade as predicting a further 10%, drop by 1968! Even with increased government investment (of the tax-payers’ money in industries such as electricity, gas, coal, steel etc. which add to the profits of the private sector) the total increase in investment by 1968 will be 2%!

Investment

Under such conditions the economy will drift further and further into crisis. Even in the last year, imports in fuels and manufactures rose by 10% and 8% respectively. “It is clearly a disturbing fact that despite the emergence of excess capacity in many important competing British industries, and the retention of the surcharge for most of the year there should have been a further upward shift in the economy’s propensity to use a wide range of imported manufactures” (Lon. & Cam. Survey) The inability of British industry to compete with overseas competition is self-evident. Further cuts in the level of investment will undermine the position still further. With a slowing up of the economies of the U.S. and the E.E.C. all the conditions for a serious economic upheaval are being prepared.

The National Plan as a means of achieving “socialist” planning without any attempt to change the structure of society has been shown up to be a pipe-dream. Measured from 1965, the annual growth will be 14% p.a. by 1968. At the same time through the Prices and Incomes Policy the working class has been made to pay the price for the failure of private industry. While wages and earnings have remained static during the last year, prices have gone up over 4%. Some of the hardship caused by this (quite apart from unemployment!) is revealed by the 18% drop in the sale of consumer goods. This is what the Labour Government offered its supporters last month.

The bourgeois economist have no illusions in the “plan”. “In spite of protestations to the contrary, we see no evidence that the existing policies have yet achieved any significant effect on the underlying rate of growth of productivity.” (Lon. & Cam. Survey) In very restrained language they go on to say that the Government must begin (begin!) “the very difficult task of cutting back some types of expenditure in order to make room for necessary recovery and expansion of private investment.” As we already know, “some types of expenditure” means schools, universities, social services, hospitals and housing.

Not Apathy

Capitalism is based on profits, and capitalists invest not for the “national interest” but for their own increased profit. No profit, no investment. This is the basic contradiction in the Labour Government’s Utopian idea, to “reorganise” society on the basis of private ownership! Big Business will use the Labour Government so long as it is prepared to act in its interests, but will stop at nothing to protect its power and profits. This is the background to the protest by back-bench labour MP’s about the lack of democracy in the Parliamentary Party, the dictatorial attitude of Wilson who, in his bowing and scraping to the real masters takes no notice of conference decisions & those of the N.E.C. The real issues are ignored by attacking Wilson, Crossman etc. over their attitude to discipline in the Parliamentary Labour Party. They have already claimed to have relaxed discipline; and they can afford to, since there has been no really massive opposition from M.P.’s, especially the new ones– a high proportion of whom are middle-class academics with no roots in the Labour Movement. And even those in revolt against the Wilson regime have not put forward a clear political alternative to the anti working class policies of the Government.

The by-elections indicate not that people are apathetic about politics (the poll was 2% up on the general election in Rhondda) but that they are looking for an alternative to the policies that have brought them unemployment and depression.

Mandate & Lefts

The only answer is a socialist programme. So far, the left MP’s have confined their opposition to isolated issues, not challenging the whole basis of the Government’s policy. Demanding cuts in military expenditure as a means of providing social reforms ignores the fact that there is a direct connection between massive defence spending and a home policy based on conciliating big business.

A real plan of production is needed – now. This would be entirely possible provided the mechanism of the market economy and profit motive were swept away and replaced by a nationalised economy under the democratic control of the Labour Movement.

Even the “Lefts” in Parliament oppose this on the grounds that the Labour Government has no mandate to take sweeping measures of nationalisation etc. But neither has it a mandate for unemployment, cuts in real wages and slashing of expenditure on essential social services. The voters of Pollock and Rhondda have made this clear.