La fervour, devotion and ruthlessness second to none. Unlike the timid and equivocating that it is not a question of personalities but a question of the collective responsibility of a whole group of people for disastrous anti-working class policies.
WILLIAMS - OUT! not you?' Such an attitude was hardly likely to enthuse people to join in the anti-EEC campaign. If you want to lead real armies in battle, you have to convince them you are prepared to fight right through to the bitter end. capitalism.
Benn has shown a similar lack of resolution.
During the EEC campaign he attracted large working class audiences, and received great applause every time he implicitly struck out at Wilson and his policies. But implicit criticism was not nearly enough. What was needed - and what most workers wanted to hear - was an explanation that Wilson's EEC pol1 icies were only a small part of his entire range Now Wilson can cynically use Benn as a "left' cover. He and his colleagues answer protests about the pay norms by saying: "Well, you may not like it, but Jack Jones, Len Murray and even Tony Benn stomach it - why The argument that it is necessary to stay in the Cabinet and fight does not hold water. The Cabinet is nothing but the Wilson team. They are hand-picked for their loyalties to Their implacable support for Wilson's anti-working class policies demon HEALEY - OUT!
strates where they stand.
The only real path for Benn is resignation and open organisation of a challenge to Wilson's policies and his leadership. If he did this, openly rejecting the Healey measures and the other policies, every socialist would support this campaign. The fact that he doesn't only shows that he too, like Heffer, cannot be relied on to adopt policies which really mobilise people to deal with the situation.
The reality of the situation is very clear:
the burning necessity is to smash the policies of the Government and replace Wilson and his supporters at every level of the movement.
Eventually it is probable that even Benn and the Tribunites will be forced, kicking and screaming, to take up the gauntlet and it will be absolutely correct to unite in action with them for this goal. But by their cowardice, their reformism, their indecision on this as on every other issue, they show that they cannot be relied on really to defend the inter ests of the working class.
and King