better for the nation as a whole... The Labour of a generalised offensive against Phase 3 and all the unforgivable sin of questioning the state The Labour Party leaders are sending their supporters into battle with both hands tied behind their backs by trying to fight an entinely traditional Labour campaign in the midst of an unprecedented class confrontation.
While Heath provides confident dass leader-and their families! ship, Wilson mumbles about the relativities report and tho need for the nation as a whole to pull together. Of course some capitalists have lately had second thoughts about Heath's tough and uncompromising stance: but the vigorous political expression of ruling class interests often diverges from the individual attitudes of members of that cliss. Meanwhile, Wilson and the Labour leaders seek to make themselves the spokesmen for the more timid und vacillating layers of the bourgeoisie.
The only way Labour could win a convincing large capitalist fans, the implementation of victory in the present election would be to make workers control over production, the building the miners'strike, and the launching of mass struggle on every front, the heart of the campaige. Such an approach is quite alen to Labour's whole electoralist and reformist conception of politics-moreover it would threaten their own bureaucratic hold over the labour movement, Wilson and the politics he represents are a recipe for demobilisation and deleat for the working class.
Labour's manifesto is a charler for cringing class collaboration. It is full of such stirring appeals as the following: *The sooner Labour gets the chance to beal the savage wounds inflicted upon our society in recent years, and to turn the hopes and exertions of our people in a new direction, the Party is proud of the contribution we made to the nation's salvation at critical temes in our history, and it is in the same mood that we approach the interlocking crises.
Patriotic cant of this sort is complemented by complete vagueness as to the real nature and roots of the present crisis. In the old days social the Greenwich Labour Party which helped to democrats might distinguish themselves from the nun of bourgeois politicians by a certain leftish talk, using the langnage of class warfare while avoiding its reality, Today it is the Tory politicians who talk about 'capitalism" and its problems. The class struggle and the swing to recession throughout the capitalist world are beginning to call in question the nature of capitalist society as a whole. But all Labour can propose is measures for transforming British In the Tory election programme it is proposed industry into a responsible economic system Very litile even of Labour's conference thetoric has survived, save for the bare assertion that the programme will hring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people If this was really to be Labour's goal then its campaign and its whole reiation to the class struggle should reflect the fact. It should openly support and encourape every working class struggle; if should take up every issue affecting the living conditions of working people in mass campaigns It should follow the example of the Clay Cross counciliors and use its great resources and its positions in local government to combat the effects of capitalist crisis and build a workers movement that could implement socialist solutions. The expropriation of the of a rational, planned socialist cconomy must be prepared for. This can only be done by a massive movement outside Parliament that chailenges: both the immediate power of the capitalst class and the operation of the capitalist state machine.
If the leaders of the working class movement fail to pose a socialist solution to all the symptoms of capitalist crisis, then the more consistent capitalist politicians will call their bluff This is why Heath can openly taunt Wilson tor representing no alternative to the established The working class now faces a combined assault on its living standards and on its forms. of organisation. All workers organisations should unite to support the miners as the spearhead incomes policies under capitalism. Equally they should unite in support of the jailed Shrewsbury pickets.
best to pretend that the class struggle does not exist. There are some exceptions for example organise a demonstration in support of the miners last Saturday-but generally strikes. pickets, and any sign of mass struggle are being treated by Labour as an embarrassment. The shameless abandonment of the Clay Cross councillors by the Labour Party nationally is Ine most notorious example of this The only time that Labour's national leadership is to be heard on such issues is in their calls for 'moderation', Indeed, the only occasion