[Militant No. 375, 30th September 1977, p. 5]
A secret and very revealing document has come to light.
It throws considerable light on the clandestine approach and methods of the outside right-wing elements who have involved themselves in the fight to get Reg Prentice readopted as Newham North East Constituency’s parliamentary candidate.
The document takes the form of a “Memorandum on the constitution and organisation of a campaign and campaign fund for securing the re-nomination of the Rt. Hon. Reg Prentice as parliamentary candidate for Newham N.E. Constituency “ by P.M. McCormick, who has been closely associated with Julian Lewis.
We have already fully reported (‘Militant’, 22nd July) the legal manoeuvres which was used by Lewis and McCormick to block the Labour Party’s normal democratic procedures and overturn decisions. As a result the Courts, and not elected General Management Committee delegates, have decided on a number of crucial issues. Officers of Newham N.E. Labour Party have also been personally saddled with substantial courts costs (over £6,000).
Dossiers
The memorandum shows that this outcome was quite consistent with the methods they set out to use. It was drawn up for a meeting of Lewis and McCormack’s supporters on 28th January this year. As a note at the end make clear, it was intended to remain highly secret:
“I have given Mr Lewis permission to duplicate copies of this memorandum…,” writes McCormack, “but – for reasons that should be obvious in the light of the foregoing – I must ask that all copies be returned before the meeting ends.”
Although Lewis and McCormick have taken up the anti-trade union, anti-socialist views which led Newham NE to replace Reg Prentice as candidate in the first place, the blatantly underhand tactics reflected in this document have led Prentice to disassociate himself form his self-appointed supporters. (At one point the document slips into the first person, and says “Your cause…”, clearly addressing Prentice directly.)
The Memorandum speaks of “an unprecedented influx of professional conspirators” in Newham. But this is a description that seems in every respect to fit the approach of the document and those behind it.
To defeat the left and reinstate Prentice, “the ordinary efforts of Labour Party stalwarts and old timers are not enough…” The secret Memorandum therefore proposes the creation of a well-organised machine which will be able to pursue these ends with ruthless efficiency.
“It is necessary to create a formal organisation in which responsibilities are clearly defined and delimited. A comprehensive set of dossiers should be kept on personnel supporting the campaign and also on the opponents of it. An operational headquarters should be established…”
Among the methods of “Mobilisation” proposed are: “…hiring coaches and bringing up coachloads of sympathisers for regular lightning weekend canvassing ventures.” And: “New affiliated organisations must be set up and coups attempted at those currently under hostile control. In all this, speed, secrecy, surprise and organisation are crucial.”
“Finance: Money is the key to the whole strategy… A special fund should be set up to provide the finance necessary.”
The Memorandum then goes on to discuss details of the proposed organisation’s constitution.
The recommendations are (in part) that “the posts of Secretary and Treasurer be combined” and that “the Co-ordinator” [which should be a “full-time… stipendary post”] “should serve as Secretary-Treasurer.”
“The Chairman,” the Memorandum proposes, “should be a person with adequate legal expertise.”
It is not hard to guess for whom these positions are tailored. It shows great restraint to have refrained from actually proposing names!
The structure of the proposed organisation, as far as it can be deduced from the legal jargon, would appear to be far from democratic. The document proposes the “non-creation of a class of ordinary members,” but the “creation of a Committee to act as the agent of the aggregate of Campaign supporters.”
When Sir Harold Wilson attacked the “bed-sitter infiltrators”, the capitalist media immediately took this to be aimed against the left. But this secret Memorandum, which reads like something out of a military intelligence manual, fits Wilson’s indictment in every respect.
Links?
Julian Lewis, who is studying at St Anthony’s College Oxford, moved into Newham NE last October when the Constituency’s fight to exercise its right of a reselection was under way. He literally set up in a bedsitter in Shrewsbury Road, East Ham, and began his campaign in St Stephen’s Ward, from which Prentice still drew support.
Lewis seems to have first become involved in the campaign to defend Prentice after Prentice had spoken to the ultra right-wing Democratic Labour Club at Oxford.
He had previously been active in the Young Conservatives and resigned as their local branch treasurer to join the Labour Party.
Lewis graduated in international politics, and was active in the Oxford University Strategic Studies Group which made regular visits to NATO and security bases and establishments.
As the Newham Recorder said recently: “The question that members of the Labour Party would now like answered, particularly in view of the secret Memorandum is:
“ ‘Do his [Lewis’s] links extend beyond mere acquaintances through the study group or his tutor, the military expert, Professor Michael Howard?’ “
Michael Howard is one of the founder members of the Institute of Strategic Studies for the setting up which in 1957/58 Denis Healey has related that he was given $150,000 from the Ford Foundation through contact with Shepard Stone. (Stone had a long association with the CIA and various CIA-backed organisations.)
Another important question on which the Memorandum throws no light and on which Lewis and McCormack have been noticeably silent, is: Where is the money coming from?
The legal actions that they have taken to overturn the democratic procedures and decisions of Newham NE Party must have involved considerable expenses. In one case, they spent about £700 just on telegrams informing GMC delegates of the injunction prohibiting their meeting.
“The language used in the document,” reports the Newham Recorder, “has increased the suspicions of some party members over links with security services. ‘The language and phrasing could have come directly out of a security agent’s manual, ‘ said a former executive member. ‘Even if there are no direct links, the influence is there.’”
What is happening in Newham North-East is now a matter of concern for the whole party. The NEC must urgently take every possible step to defend the labour movement from interference by the courts and to uphold internal Party democracy. The antics of Lewis and McCormick have undoubtedly played into the hands of the worst enemies of the Labour Party, and there are understandably demands from the rank and file for the appropriate disciplinary measures to be taken against them.
But the issues raised now go beyond the question of re-selection and internal democracy. The appearance of the secret Memorandum underlies the burning question: who is really behind these attempts to infiltrate and disrupt the Labour Party?
On 14th July The Guardian, in an article on Lewis and McCormick headed: “The bed-sitter battlers of Newham North-East” asked: “What would be the public reaction if Lewis and McCormick carried a different political label? The Militant tendency for example?”
Inquiry
Well, we know that The Guardian made its own contribution to the recent witch-hunt against Marxists in the Labour Party, and has been little better than the rest of the capitalist press in reporting, let alone investigating, developments in Newham.
But the rank and file of the Party, who are extremely alarmed at these damaging developments, have a right to know what is going on. It is high time that the NEC began a thorough investigation of the extent of infiltration of the Party by agents of the CIA and other security services and the possible extent of their involvement with disruption such as that in Newham
By Lynn Walsh
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