Michael Foot's Formidable Task

...In the last elections, easily won by the Conservatives 18 months ago, Labor's share of the vote was the lowest it had garnered since 1931...

...It is really no longer a mass party, its membership having fallen below the level it stood at in 1928, the first year for which a figure was available...

...With Foot chosen, the carpet has been snatched from under Benn's feet...

...insists upon British withdrawal from the European Economic Community...

...Some Labor members of Parliament (it was they who elected the party leader) voted for Foot because they succumbed to pressure from Left-wing activists in their local organizations who warned that their jobs could be at stake if they backed Healey...

...Whether such individuals would join a rival political grouping—the smallish Liberal Party, or a totally new movement—remains an open question...

...It was perhaps as essential for him not to appear to be a divisive influence as it was for Ronald Reagan in the closing days of the U.S...

...It remains to be seen whether he can now stir that passion and overwhelm the bitter antagonisms dividing the movement...

...Maybe, he suggests, some sort of agreement on multilateral disarmament can be reached before Britain finds it necessary to disarm unilaterally and to refuse to install American cruise missiles on British soil—as agreed to by the current Conservative government...

...So pressing is the jobless question that matters related to nationalization and incomes policy can safely be shunted to the back burner for the time being...

...As for the ticklish domestic issues, the immediate thrust has to be against Thatcherite monetarist policies that have led to widespread unemployment, with factory closures or layoffs still reported daily...

...At the same time, his reluctance to mount an assault on the left, and thereby stress party divisions, has cost him the enthusiastic backing of men like Owen and former Labor defense secretary William Rodgers...

...Several have said they are prepared to stay and fight within the party to save it from irresponsible, election-losing stances...

...Nevertheless, people on the Right are sunk in despair...

...Perhaps that purge is about to take place...

...demands vastly increased nationalization of British industry and Norman Gelb, a regular New Leader contributor, reports from London for the Mutual Broadcasting System...

...Il supports unilateral disarmament...

...Other membersof Parliament, notably former Labor ministers, are also contemplating quitting...

...That was a Labor Party politician's judgment on the performance of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, not a cynical comment on the election last month of Michael Foot as Labor's new leader...

...The big question is whether the postmortem will be "the operation was a success but the patient died...

...Tony Benn, titular leader of the far Left, had made clear his intention to step up the in-fighting...

...Conditions in the Party generally are hardly conducive to sustaining the morale and loyalty of those offended by the Left-wing policies...

...commerce...

...I cannot believe that social democrats in the Labor Party have enjoyed their politics at any time in the past few years...

...Foot's convincing victory over moderate Denis Healey confirms the Left-wing's domination of Labor for the first time since the party's early days...

...The Labor Party was in serious trouble even before the latest internal struggleerupted...

...Among his works is a biography of his mentor and hero, the late Welsh Labor politician Nye Bevan whose words were among the first he uttered upon assuming the Labor leadership: "Never underestimate the passion for unity in the party...

...Thatcher and her policies...

...The number of fulltime Labor agents (as the professional local party representatives are called) has fallen from about 300 two decades ago to only 80...

...But former Foreign Secretary David Owen, pressed by a TV inquisitor, conceded that he would not be able to remain in the party if it of-fically adopts the Left's policies...

...Another leadership contest is possible in January, but that may prove unnecessary...

...Jenkins could provide a lead and an impetus...

...Roy Jenkins, an ex-deputy Labor leader, will be returning to Britain from his stint as president of the European Community Commission in Brussels early next year...

...He has already taken on the "Iron Lady" in parliamentary debate and come out ahead...

...He has already said Britain needs a new political force to fill the gap he sees opening where once the Labor Party stood...

...It is hard to tell what it stands for anymore...

...They voted for Healey, but they felt they were left without anyone in the contest who was willing to speak out forthrightly for the policies they support...

...It is a totally new ballgame in the British Labor Party...

...A Healey victory would inevitably have intensified the battle with the Left for party control...

...Realizing what that represented, he did not press the unity slogan very hard...

...Most voted for him because it was the easiest thing to do...

...If so, the Labor Party will have a lot of time to heal its internal divisions...

...Maybe the move to withdraw from the European Community can be fudged by making demands on the Common Market partners so extreme that they will result in expulsion...

...Thatcher may ultimately manage to at least partially salvage the situation, and that a Labor victory in national elections is very remote...

...Dick Taverne, another former Labor minister, who quit the party after being hounded out of his parliamentary seat by Left-wingers, says, "A mere dozen Labor members of parliament could prove to be the catalyst for the emergence of a new grouping of the radical center...

...Though some consider him a fuzzy-minded romantic in the best tradition of futile British Utopians, he is a silver-tongued orator, rivaled in eloquence in the House of Commons perhapsonly by Enoch Powell, that articulate advocate of Right-wing causes...

...election campaign...

...There is no doubt that Foot will be able to mount a trenchant offensive against Mrs...

...His Left-wing credentials are immaculate, except for his refusal to follow the group's current habit of heaping scorn on the last Labor government, of which he was a member...

...Yet several of its policies the Labor Right cannot accept...

...Their horror at the current state of the British economy notwithstanding, some Labor parliamentarians believe Mrs...

...Then it was 215,000...

...Aprominent figure in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the the 1960s, he recently spoke at a London rally for unilateral disarmament . As a Labor government secretary of employment, he was instrumental in winning wider powers of immunity from the law for trade unions and their members engaged in union activity...

...and despite galloping inflation, rejects any government control of pay raises...

...Foot is, in fact, much liked and widely respected as a person of wit, intelligence and imagination...

...With only two years of ministerial experience, Foot is an unlikely future Prime Minister...

...Foot, who had to be talked into running for the leadership, seems to realize that the conflicts over these policies will not now simply fizzle out...

...He is a man of integrity, courtesy and loyalty...

...He is in good health, however,—his limp is the result of a car accident—and would be no older than the American President-elect is by the time the next British elections roll around...

...Unity behind Foot," is the key slogan of the Left at present...

...He has so far been performing in an uncharacteristically diplomatic fashion...

...Although Healey has been chosen for the post of deputy party leader, he has lost much of the support he had when the leadership struggle began...

...now it is 200,000, and this is widely considered an overestimate...

...He is a former editor of Tribune, the Left-wing weekly noted for attacking Labor ministers with as much spleen as it attacks Tory governments...

...It should be pointed out that Taverne's attempt to form a "new grouping of the radical center" a few years ago fell on its face with a resounding thud...

...HOLDING BRITISH LABOR TOGETHER Michael Foot's Formidable Task by norman gelb London ? ? "W" f unemployment gets any I worse over here, we'll win JL the next election even if we're led by Mickey Mouse...

...A Left-winger was picked to save the party from a Lefter-winger...

...But unless he can resolve the fundamental differences within his own party, whatever oratorical points he scores on the floor of Commons will be in vain...

...The selection of Michael Foot as leader may well prove, as the London Times says, "an unmitigated folly" which "will do lasting damage to the party...

...He was damaged by the "unity" theme...

...And the mellowing 67-year-old Foot is more likely to be capable of encouraging this process than the comparatively abrasive Healey...

...But it has become increasingly apparent that the party has reached the point where it must be purged of the confusions that have cost it so much popular support...

...Foot is also an author of repute...