"LABOUR ISN'T WORKING": THE STATE OF THE BRITISH LABOUR MOVEMENT
Jones, D. A. N.
The Present State of the British Labour Movement There are prominent members of the Labour party, both on the left and on the right, who don't seem to recognize the severity of the beating we...
...Many are labeled in this way...
...It had, of course, more than one meaning...
...However, during my 30-odd years as a Labour party member and trade unionist, we have maintained a sort of unity, a national fraternity, a coalition based on the power and authority of "labour" as a human and economic fact of life...
...It has won few seats but has helped Labour to lose many...
...At downmarket level, he was nicknamed "Worzel Gummidge," after a comic scarecrow in children's books and (thereby) television...
...Anyone who has worked in factories will have seen these jolly, nonpolitical fellows pushing a keen and serious lad into being their shop steward, their union representative...
...I torture myself with a vision of our two-party system developing in the American manner (as I see that system, perhaps naively), with our Conservatives getting to be even more like the U.S...
...she became an engineer partly because she thought there were too many lecturers on the Labour benches in Parliament...
...But the trap of televisionstyle talk works also against Labour-party orators...
...Some on the right haven't wanted to win...
...Serious conversations during the general election would run: "What will our money be worth, if Labour gets in . . . ?" "Well, 432 what's it worth now . . . ?" "With Labour, it would get even worse...
...We say he's British...
...But if the men of property do not need that majority (except as consumers), if the working class is not working, if "labour" is being turned away forever, then its party has lost both authority and power—and we don't know what democracy means anymore...
...Of course, I reminded him how small a proportion of Britain's unemployed he was talking about...
...As viewers and listeners, we may feel that the producers, interviewers, and hosts of the programs are somehow "above" party politics, trying to be fair and independent...
...They added: "Thank goodness we've got a third choice...
...This nickname was devised by Private Eye, an influential, large-circulation satirical magazine that many young people mistakenly think to be radical and independent...
...They first put it out in 1979, against the then Labour government, underneath a poster photograph of mournful movie extras (Saatchi & Saatchi employees in real life), lined up as if in search of work...
...Are you selfappointed...
...The haves are certainly not to be despised...
...We are many, ye are few...
...so they choose journalists, as they see it, impartially, based on their idea of "the right" and "the left...
...It also, of course, takes time and money...
...Then we return to the studio talkers—so independent, quizzical, skeptical—and the viewers begin to find the orator's style and content abnormal and old-fashioned, his proposals extremist and out-of-date...
...What does the Labour Theory of Surplus Value mean when Labour isn't working...
...The younger Labour party members, canvassing voters in this last election, were dismayed by the prevalence of that quick, dismissive response: "Yes, yes, we're following it all on television...
...There is a story put about that the election was lost through public distaste for the "left-wing extremists" in the Labour party...
...There isn't much encouragement to study Marx's work in this country...
...Republican party, and our Social Democrats playing the role of the U.S...
...Trade union leaders know this sort of thing from experience...
...Since they are compelled by law to attempt to maintain the standards of the BBC, these media acquire a sort of authority...
...The lad spoke with friendly mockery of his brothers, who had attended more "selective" schools than he, and of their "bureaucratic" (that is, white-collar) mentality...
...In our most pessimistic moments, we ordinary members of the Labour party now can imagine our representation in Parliament and local councils dwindling to insignificance and our trade unions losing all political authority...
...It is at large in the world, distributing violence without earning respect...
...He wears gorblimey trousers and he lives in a council flat...
...Michael Foot traveled the country during the general election, winning real acclamation from working-class audiences at crowded meetings for his eloquent discussion of the real issues...
...In the Labour movement now, the image-choosers are concentrating on Neil Kinnock (believed to be as "left" as Michael Foot) and Roy Hattersley (rather lonely on the moderate right, now that his old comrades all have defected to the Social Democrats...
...The second lead story in that same paper is about the more "moderate" left-winger Moss Evans, leader of the Transport and General Workers Union (of which I am a former member...
...I suppose that was pretty firmly tongue-in-cheek, eh, Tom...
...That is my authority, my justification, like that of a member of Parliament...
...The root cause of our insecurity is our ever-increasing unemployment—and the ever-increasing belief that it is unavoidable, structural unemployment...
...Last month I took a job as a motorcycle courier—feeling that I was part of the chimerical "information-technology" economy, as I sped with Dean Martin's work permit from a government office to his London agent...
...Some may then call themselves Marxists —or even Trotskyists, or Marxist-Leninists...
...The "Real Labour" comedian sang a song...
...They know what it feels like to be "labour"—in all the details of the doubletimeand-a-quarter, clocking-in, piecework, time-and-motion study, searching of a person at the factory gate or washing-up time...
...Unconvincingly, like amateur actors, they mumble their monosyllabic rant: "Yet again Red Ken shoots his big mouth off...
...is the old cry of democrats to the men of property...
...But if the minorities are too stridently organized, under shiny new American names, by an Americanized politician like Tony Benn, then they can be offputting...
...Much more crafty are Saatchi & Saatchi, whose most recent Conservative poster showed a conservative-looking "black" man, with the caption: "Labour says he's black...
...This is the first time I have used here that word, "socialism," since it seems to mean something different in America—if I may judge by Marshall Berman's broad definition in the first paragraph of his article in the Spring Dissent...
...The so-called working class isn't doing as much work as it makes out...
...If our elections have become television events, perhaps that is another aspect of our particular kind of Americanization...
...What the "Marxists" in the Labour movement need to do, surely, is to avoid the temptation to treat Marx's work as Bibliolaters treat their Bible, searching for the appropriate text for all occasions —when they ought to be thinking like Marx, how he would argue against the Theory of Structural Unemployment...
...The slogans were: "If she only had a heart" and "If he only had a brain...
...A11 this may sound too abstract and philosophical to mean anything to us "ordinary" trade unionists and voters as we cast our ballots...
...She told me that she used to be a university lecturer...
...On British television, bold statements forcibly made are self-destructive...
...And millions of electors who usually vote Labour have found this SDP credible...
...The Labour candidate, however, was alleged to be not only left-wing but homosexual and connected with gay politics...
...Or they may be right-to-moderate, like the outdated Denis Healey (more popular with voters than within the party) or the shrewd Gerald Kaufman, whom I admire...
...although I wouldn't have chosen him, I was glad that at last we had an early school-leaver again...
...t is not my purpose here to argue for the detailed policy the Labour party presented at the general election...
...This sort of extraparliamentary experience and knowledge is vital to the Labour party, especially now that so many of our members of Parliament (lawyers, lecturers, and teachers) lack personal experience of the "labour" they represent...
...But I am one of those (self-styled) moderates who welcome trade union authority in our political establishment, since I hold that these extrapar427 liamentary leaders lend a democratic authority to party and government decisions—that they represent the will of the people in our character as workers, apart from our character as voters in parliamentary elections...
...Keep Britain British"—they expect you to see the rhyme: for "British" read "white...
...But it must be admitted that in recent years these hopeful "Marxists" have organized too offensively...
...So there is now a third party, led by rightwing defectors from the Labour party, which makes no claim to represent "labour...
...Then he is interviewed...
...Three of the popular leaders of the breakaway Social Democratic party were my Oxford contemporaries—Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers, and Dick Taverne...
...They are all, of course, victimized by the Conservative media and labeled "Red Robbo" or the "Red Mole...
...Each of these, curiously, has some of Michael Foot's old attractions as a vote-winner...
...The trade unions are not rich or strong when "Labour Isn't Working," and the Labour party isn't in power...
...So do the gutter-press editors of the right...
...argument, I don't believe that the "Marxist" left has been a vote-loser...
...Then there is an embarrassed pause and they start talking normal bourgeois studio talk again...
...They have no intention of identifying or even associating themselves with trade unions (so much 428 weakened by Conservative political policies and the concomitant unemployment...
...The sort of authority he means is something like moral authority, justification...
...There is a conservative philosopher, Roger Scruton, whose conclusions I deplore but whose formulations I admire...
...Michael Foot gained this nickname through attending a Remembrance Day ceremony (shown on television) while wearing a coat that many would think too shabby and informal...
...So is the now conventional use of the word "gay"—which brings in some votes but loses others...
...They won't be long in coming...
...One of my colleagues—something of a young conservative—was arguing with me about unemployment...
...But the armchair democrats at their television screens knew only the images and the nicknames devised by his enemies in the media...
...This rather ghastly section of my article reflects one aspect of our Americanization...
...The Present State of the British Labour Movement There are prominent members of the Labour party, both on the left and on the right, who don't seem to recognize the severity of the beating we suffered in the general election of June 1983...
...The newspapers printed this song, with gleeful hypocrisy: "What's so wrong with being an Aussie...
...A man sings a passionate, rebellious rock song...
...Accepting that there would be an outcry over "my refusal to accept the democratic will of the people," he went on: "Faced with possible parliamentary destruction of all that is good and compassionate in our society, extra-parliamentary action will be the only course open to the working class and the Labour Movement...
...The arguments in every little branch of every trade union, every little local ward of the Labour party, tend to divide members between groups calling themselves "left" or "moderate" (rarely calling themselves "right," only their opponents...
...Our Oxford-educated leaders may adopt a left-wing stance, like the famous Tony Benn and the up-and-coming Michael Meacher...
...The retiring Labour MP, a right-wing defector, did not want the gay left-winger to be elected...
...In cold blood, we must accept that this tendency has been, electorally, good for our opponents—who call it "the Loony Left"—and has weakened our will to win...
...When they decided their failed leader, Lord Home, had too aristocratic a television image to contend with the more populist-seeming Harold Wilson, they not unsuccessfully pitched on Ted Heath, who wasn't quite so classy...
...But the connection between Labour-party hegemony and the Oxford Union debating chamber is too tight to be healthy: it is almost exclusive...
...They are trying to steamroller it through...
...Before we leave this silliness of nicknames and images, consider the treatment of Michael Foot, our retiring leader...
...But in fact all our political discussions nowadays are focused on what democracy means when "Labour Isn't Working...
...The Queen Mother, sensing this embarrassment, was quick to congratulate him on his good, warm coat...
...The extreme right, the racist, near-fascist groups that hover around the fringes of the Conservative party are practiced in innuendo...
...But his enemies in the upmarket press (and therefore and thereby television) decided to nickname him "the Old Bibliophile"—and everything was done to caricature him as an absent-minded professor, too old, too bookish...
...Bermondsey was, until recently, populated by waterfront workers, but now they are only consumers —downmarket...
...There is the beginning of a great division of the working class, largely regional, between haves and have-nots, that is, have jobs and have-no-jobs...
...Their severe unemployment led them to vote Labour, hoping to get Labour in power: they are used to Labour being in power, locally...
...They will ignore all his boring meetings, leaflets, and instructions—until there is some sudden conflict with the employers that affects them personally...
...Our party began as the Labour Representation Committee and, 50 years ago, it was normal for "labour" to be represented in Parliament by men and women who were experienced in manual work...
...It is the Disneyland tendency—sheer Mickey Mouse...
...It was a parody of a popular ditty in the selfmocking working-class style: "My old man's a dustman, he wears a dustman's hat...
...Such groups have generally been properly welcomed in the Labour movement, except by people like George Orwell who growled about "cranks" and "the dictatorship of prigs," complaining that they drove away the "ordinary working class...
...There are many others...
...This is not the kind of Americanization we require...
...These heartlands are not as safe for the party as they might look...
...When their newspaper workers are on strike, these editors appear on the screen, talking laid-back television talk...
...We are not yet in the American position, where a national party's leader has to be a millionaire...
...but they are not hampered by the ageism that rejects years of service, nor by skilfully honed vote-losing nicknames...
...All this is customary in the Labour movement and probably good for it...
...What's wrong with living in a council flat...
...and that is why we lost the election...
...This makes life harder for our immigrants, whose English is simpler, more straightforward...
...The most farcical effort came from the pathetic advertising firm hired by the Social Democrats...
...Their game was to pose as "real working-class," in the style of Bermondsey's famous Cockney entertainers Tommy Steele and Max Bygraves...
...How many lads are there in London, with motorbikes, who just sit back and say they're unemployed...
...but we Londoners are still better off for work than the people to our north...
...For he felt himself to be a worker, working-class, true Labour in every sense...
...Among the native English (especially the working class), such wordplay is a natural means of communication...
...At this point their tempers flare up and they will push their shop steward into militant confrontation, while he struggles to explain to them the complexities of the issue, the tactics and strategy required...
...More off-putting, perhaps, has been the organization of minority movements in what we, here in Britain, think of as "Kennedy-style" women's, gay, and black liberation movements...
...This supposedly "democratic" stratagem is designed as a blow against more militant and leftwing members, since it ensures that the least politically conscious unionists will put their votes in, at home in their armchairs, influenced by their cautious families and the right-wing media, rather than by their workmates at meetings...
...But it is...
...Power without authority is unhappy power...
...Thatcher's policies because she was elected by only 40 percent of voters...
...Workers who might vote Conservative, who talk against unionism and avoid union meetings, are not always the slowest to call for a strike...
...This Social Democratic party has been presented by the media as a credible alternative to the Conservatives...
...Though I am gratified by Oxford's connection with the Labour movement (from Ruskin and William Morris onward), there are too many Oxford graduates in the party leadership...
...they don't always see the point of the slogans...
...If they put up a poster—"Mosley was right...
...In a speech which will divide the Labour Movement, he said he was not prepared to accept Mrs...
...Well, Tom, we had to include that because of its bizarre charm, if I may say so...
...When will he learn to belt up...
...I agreed with most of it but accept the view that the proposals may have been too many and too bold—not for the people but for the media we have to use in communication...
...We see film of a man at a public meeting, working up enthusiasm for some bold policy—nationalization of banks, public investment in "declining" industries, unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Common Market, and so on...
...They showed Margaret Thatcher ("the Iron Lady") as the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz with Michael Foot, of course, as the Scarecrow...
...Democratic party—liberal capitalists kindly looking down upon "labour" and "the minorities...
...The working class, seen as "labour," has always claimed a similar moral authority—but it is the authority of a downgraded underdog majority, seeking the power it justly deserves in order to create an establishment that may be counted democratic—by weight of numbers...
...TV also favors right-wing, upmarket journalists, since it draws its opinion suppliers from the national upmarket press...
...We identify with the interviewer, not with the contenders...
...These words are on every Labour party member's card— whether they call themselves left, right, or moderate...
...There have been only two political parties that can form a national government: one represents "labour," the other property, "capital...
...Labour government doesn't work, is inefficient...
...Television favors the Liberals and the Social Democrats, since they are media personalities, liked by the broadcasting people...
...Since Churchill's time, every British prime minister has been an Oxford man or woman— apart from the brief interregnum of James Callaghan...
...Roy Jenkins...
...But I have to say something pessimistic about the regional breakdown of our failure—starting with the total loss of the south of England and our reliance on our heartlands in Wales (Neil Kinnock's homeground) and northern England (Roy Hattersley's) and Scotland...
...And you know laid-off miners and steelworkers can't all ride round London with Dean Martin's work permit...
...This union, the biggest in the United Kingdom, has a 1.25-million block vote at the conference of the Labour party—one-eighth of the total...
...In the 1980s our confidence has gone...
...As a local councillor in an inner-city area, 426 when I have been badgered by "community leaders" I have always been able to retort, crudely: "What's your authority...
...The defeat of June 1983 demonstrates that the place of "labour," the working class, in the life and economy and the political establishment of the nation is thought to be unsure...
...I once suggested that he was well-loved, at all levels of education, as "everyone's favorite English mas429 ter...
...When Labour is out of power, it lacks its old authority, and our former voters may draw in their horns, accepting the Conservative contention that Britain has ceased to be a productive industrial nation— that there is no more need for "labour," that all they can hope for is dole money from the taxes paid by the better-educated minority employed in our forthcoming "information-technology" economy...
...Some are young men and women in a hurry—"Nationalize the Banks Tomorrow...
...They did not point out that the last two lines were even more vicious if you remember the English expression—"He don't know his arse from his elbow"—and you alter the last line to rhyme with "front...
...We are not all "Real Labour" clowns, like those two idiots in Bermondsey...
...Afterward I consoled one of the unsuccessful candidates, remarking that still, it was good to see a female engineer on the shortlist...
...Their search is the process of politics, while establishment is the condition which their meeting creates...
...Look at the adverts for dispatch riders in the motorcycle press...
...protests Peter Shore, one of the best of the contenders...
...As a self-employed writer, when needing more money, I have in the past got work at a local engineering factory, making things with lathes and cutting steel, or packing in a Central London warehouse...
...The British Labour movement sees itself as a coalition of coalitions...
...Their performance helped to result in victory for the Liberal candidate (strengthened by formal alliance with the new Social Democrats...
...somewhere to our right is the Guardian (Liberal and Social Democratic), then comes the staunchly Conservative Daily Telegraph, and finally the extreme-right racist press (we combat it in real 430 life, but it is properly ignored, when possible, by all reputable media...
...It's not a political beauty contest...
...Moss Evans told delegates at his union conference that he wanted them to give this large vote to Neil Kinnock, one of the more left-wing candidates for the leadership of the Labour party, now that Michael Foot is retiring from that position...
...So extraparliamentary action can be seen as more democratic than the established, if flawed, process of vote-counting...
...I've never been out of a job," he said, "even if only selling papers in the street...
...This is summed up in the triumphant slogan of the Conservative party, the party of capital: "Labour Isn't Working...
...You come from Lancashire," I said, "you were brought up in the Midlands...
...The vicious parody offered by "Real Labour" ran: "Tatchell is an Aussie, he lives in a council flat...
...Under Margaret Thatcher's government, "privatization" in the old American style has become a political reality that I don't believe the people who voted for her really wanted: they really thought that the National Health Service and British Rail were safe—but they are not...
...Both accidentally and on purpose, they have driven out "right-wingers"— many to the Social Democrats—and they may righteously claim that they have purified the party, in the cause of socialism...
...But, of course, the last thing I'd want to do is weaken his self-confidence, his belief that he could always get a job...
...Shortly before the general election, there was an important testing-ground by-election at Bermondsey, an inner-London constituency that had been thought "safe" for the Labour party...
...Tribune, the old Labour weekly of Aneurin Bevan, Michael Foot, and George Orwell, wittily mocked the Bermondsey by-election in a cartoon strip, with characters drawn from the American movie On the Waterfront...
...What the Labour party has to do is disseminate a communal self-confidence, a faith that we can so order the economy that we all have a job...
...I must not suggest that all the motives for voting Conservative were mean or stupid...
...Such critics are denying the union leaders' authority, claiming that their power is undemocratic, because it is extraparliamentary...
...This former right-winger became the figurehead on top of an umbrella movement of "the Left"—and was even welcoming a group that expected socialism to come from Outer Space...
...In Britain it is not a vague word like "democratic...
...Soon Tom is talking in that style too...
...They have worked on the membership of local wards and branches where they all parrot the same resolution, and they have bored the "moderate" (and the lazy) elements out of meetings with their very enthusiasm and their late hours...
...But some of us at the grass roots, among the media, fear that we are in danger of being elbowed onto that old "rubbish heap of history," while we witness the Americanization of the British political establishment...
...What it means is this: "common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange...
...He won the post in competition with five Oxford men...
...What does "exploitation" mean to a man looking for employment...
...The union's conference was, said Moss Evans, "the most effective democratic voice in decision-making...
...Such interviewers and hosts have a knowing, above-it-all, "plague-onbothyour-houses" manner when introducing practical politicians, and their style and manner is infectious, making the audience skeptical of all enthusiasm, every bold suggestion...
...I've been elected...
...Moss Evans (who won the conference argument) remarked: "Those who advocate armchair democracy should realize it is an expensive business...
...Ha ha...
...This is low comedy...
...The successes of the "Marxist" left certainly persuaded voters that the Labour party meant this aspiration more seriously and urgently than usual—just as the Conservative party, this time, meant to impose its belief in "competition" and "private enterprise...
...Broadcasting interviewers, talk-show hosts, and producers do not express opinions of their own...
...Well to our left is the Communist and Trotskyite press...
...Power and authority seek each other," he writes...
...Commercial television and (even more so) commercial radio are latecomers to our political establishment...
...That, at least, is one kind of shop steward...
...It is nonsense to pretend that this is democracy...
...All this month, the party managers and trade union leaders of the Labour movement have been arguing about which of the potential successors to Michael Foot has the best television image...
...You lucky few are riding on our backs...
...Then they are asked to read out the leading articles they would have printed, but for the wicked strikers...
...The slogan was devised by Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising firm that works so skilfully for the party of capital...
...An opposing delegate forcefully protested that all the members of the union ought to vote on the choice of the Labour party's leader, by secret, postal ballot...
...Many of us were glad that our troops protected the Falkland islanders from the Argentine dictatorship —and were pleased that Margaret Thatcher kept her nerve: it was natural that many voters hoped that her self-confidence would be as beneficial in the puzzling world of work and money...
...The conventional use of the word "black" is another borrowing from America...
...When they write "muggers" (a word they have joyfully borrowed from America) they expect you to read "niggers...
...There is too much unemployment...
...There are plenty of Labour party members, both left and right, who now deplore the power of trade union leaders to influence the party's political decisions and choices of leadership...
...Those community leaders (who want to be "established," too) may first sneer at my vote count (my small majority) and then justly claim moral authority as the voice for some downgraded underdog group—generally called a "minority...
...Here is the front-page story of the July 4 London Evening Standard (a Conservative paper with a local monopoly): Miners' leader Arthur Scargill today called on all unions to reject the General Election result and take extra-parliamentary action against "this totally undemocratic government...
...To be more personal, let me admit that the fact that I am an Oxford graduate has deterred me from attempting parliamentary candidacy...
...This we have not yet done...
...But Private Eye is no lady (more of a whore, really) and the right-wing press is no gentleman...
...Last month, my local Labour party ward was choosing a parliamentary candidate...
...All became prominent Labour MPs, like their senior colleague Roy Jenkins, who was at Oxford before them...
...and some on the left have anticipated defeat, feeling that their ideas are too advanced for the electorate...
...He wears his trousers back to front, 'cause he don't know this from that...
...Some of them have read some Marx, and they may organize around a small magazine and a pocket Socrates with a weekly column called "Teach Yourself Marxism," 431 which keeps reiterating the Theory of Surplus Value...
...Some have been puzzled by his popularity in the Labour movement —respected (in the working-class phrase) as "a scholar and a gentleman," rather than rejected as "a bloody intellectual...
...This need not be the case...
...Now it so happens that it is Conservative party policy to try and make trade union leaders conduct secret, postal ballots of their members before taking decisions...
...Their position is strengthened by the fact I began with—expressed in that triumphant, gloating Conservative party slogan: "Labour Isn't Working...
...Quite a good song...
...You can imagine the scope this offered to graffito-writers, thinking of the Cowardly Lion and "If he only had the noive...
...Thus television lends its authority to the upmarket (not the downmarket) press, extending those journalists' influence and power...
...How silly all this is, how downmarket...
...The style is reflected, at upmarket level, by hired advertising specialists, cartoonists, and headline writers, rather than by parliamentary speeches and leading articles in the Times...
...Both are closed now...
...She is not the only Labour party member who takes the word "labour" seriously...
...Those I know are indeed inclined to shun the adversary politics of "labour" and "capital": they are by temperament, class, and work experience sympathetic to a "center" party, Liberals or Social Democrats, with no power base of class or local roots—no center, really...
...We Labour party members may fancy ourselves "middle-of-the-road...
...Talk on radio and television has its own style...
...We are following the Conservative pattern...
...They had not recognized that a selection of skilfully chosen highlights, featuring the most interesting politicians on the domestic screen, has an appeal for the armchair democrat that beats talking to some local Labourparty kid or going to a local meeting to hear the local candidate...
...Are those days gone forever—now that "Labour Isn't Working...
...The vote loss in Wales is particularly disheartening, on closer inspection...
...Such are our means of communication at street level, the so-called grass roots...
...They talk about "breaking the mold" of British politics, and they have at least loosened the valuable, if over-tight, rivet that links Oxford leftwing politics with the world of "labour...
...A man has called at my house to fix my telephone and I found, in conversation, that he is the young brother of two men I have known as fiery left-wingers, who still are working successfully as elected members of local councils...
...They have no desire to encourage common ownership of resources on behalf of the working class...
...For the broadcasting companies, however, the Guardian is on the left and the Daily Telegraph on the right—and that is the length of the spectrum, the size of the arena...
...In their contribution to our old private-versus-public * In Labour-movement shorthand, "democracy," to the right, means: "Nothing Like Soviet Russia" (Campaign for Democratic Socialism...
...One other point must be briefly discussed...
...He was transmogrified into Worzel Gummidge, the scarecrow, as well as the Old Bibliophile...
...So he put up another right-wing defector (wellknown locally) as an independent candidate, under the label "Real Labour," to take Labour votes away...
...To the left, it means: "Power to the Rank and File" (Campaign for Labour Party Democracy...
Vol. 30 • September 1983 • No. 4
