Gambling with British Labor's Future

...After flaunting his independence by not affiliating with the group during his two decades in Parliament, Benn joined it several months ago...

...Although Benn's illness is genuine, it also proved convenient for easing him out of a further confrontation with Foot that he could not win...

...Yet at 3:30 A.M...

...his challenge may be the stimulus for its revitalization and triumph, or the primary cause of its demise as a credible political force...

...While irreverent critics often shorten his aristocratic-sounding name to "Wedgy," he prefers the more proletarian "Tony Benn" employed by his supporters and the Left-wing press...

...Publishers of biographical reference works have been instructed to omit any mention of his having attended the exclusive Westminster Public School and Oxford...

...Most recently, he maneuvered the Labor Party into radically transforming its long-standing procedures for choosing its leaders and framing its policies...

...He persuaded a reluctant Parliament to agree to the unprecedented public referendum confirming British Common Market membership...

...Then he openly opposed Labor's stand on defense, Nor-thernlrelandandotherkeyissues...

...and that he has been treating the far Left of the party as his personal fief...

...He must also know that his crusade has been a boon to Mrs...

...We started the interview, and when he indicated he was finished I checked my stop watch...

...They had gained control of a large number of local party branches as well as some trade union executive committees, and were growing more influential by the day...

...Similarly, he has renounced the title of Lord Stansgate and a seat in the House of Lords, both inherited from a father whose peerage was earned through service to the Labor Party, to show his disdain for the "anachronistic" legislative body he would like to see eliminated...

...The New Statesman and Tribune, Leftist journals which would normally be firmly in the Bennite camp, started running both pro- and anti-Benn articles...

...Benn responded that he was talking about policies not individuals, but few of his colleagues were impressed by this rather facile distinction...

...Benn's membership in the Shadow Cabinet (he filled the opening in the parliamentary Labor leadership committee created by former minister William Rodgers' departure to help launch the Social Democratic Party) gave him a strong position for the pursuit of his goal...

...Benn has emerged as the most exciting figure in British politics, in every sense of the word: He has provoked opponents and many former friends to vigorous denunciation of his objectives and tactics, and moved supporters on the far Left to praise his views, abilities, and good fellowship...

...Moreover, unlike some Leftist politicians whose political or apolitical children are an embarrassment, Benn's four children (and his wife) appear to share his political beliefs and to work on their behalf...

...Many people here are convinced that he is too reckless and headstrong to be a successful politician, that he is driven by righteous furies which blind him to his own best interests and compel him to hurl needless insults at potential allies...

...To begin with, he rejected the tradition of Shadow Cabinet members accepting "collective responsibility" and backing commonly agreed upon policies aimed at tackling the Thatcher government...

...Leftwinger Michael Foot, liked and respected by till, had just been chosen to head the party upon the retirement of former Prime Minister James Callaghan...

...last April 2, reporters still in the press gallery of the House of Commons suddenly found themselves confronted with a far more significant story than the debate on the floor about the future of the British Post Office that had been dragging on soporifically...

...Thatcher...

...The critical pieces embarassingly noted that he had earlier been strongly in favor of Britain joining the Common Market, although he is now vociferously opposed to membership...

...As the son of comfortable parents and husband of a wealthy American woman he met at Oxford (the former Caroline Middleton De Camp) Benn is an uncommon leader for the far left...

...His personal abstemiousness is almost monk-like...

...Now he accused Benn of duplicity and engaging in "the politics of the kindergarten...

...It was widely recalled, too, that Harold Wilson had described Benn, the Minister of Energy in his government, as a man who " immatures with age...

...In class-conscious Britain a privileged education is an affront to many Leftists, most of whom graduated to politics from the school of hard knocks on the factory floor, on the construction site, or down in the coal mine...

...Howmuchdoyouwant...

...Benn was not ready for that yet, and he backed off—albeit not very far...

...There is, for example, considerable anger within the Tribune group of Left-wing Labor parliamentarians...

...Without looking at the clock, he had given me two minutes 58 seconds...

...that he had been an uncomplaining participant in Labor governments he today criticizes with abandon...

...Convinced that the Labor Party under Callaghan and Harold Wilson had betrayed socialist principles, he was determined to wrest the leadership away from the newly chosen team and hand it over to the Left-wing activists, many of whom are Trotskyites...

...Nevertheless, Benn has achieved some remarkable successes...

...But Benn considered the strategy inadequate...

...When he was a government minister a few years back, I tape-recorded an interview with himforradio...

...Early this spring, the Tribunites decided to meet and consider whether one of their clan should challenge Healey for the party's second highest position, even though this would risk splitting the party when all energies should be directed at fighting the Tories...

...The far Left may not be as locked up as the Bennites would like to think, however...

...In many ways, Benn resembles the puritan visionaries who dreamt, in Norman Gelb, a regular New Leader contributor, reports from London for the Mutual Broadcasting System...

...Tony Benn knows exactly what he is doing...

...Peter Shore, a prominent Left-Center personality and a possible successor to Michael Foot, called Benn "acuckoointhenest...

...For instead of taking advantage of her unrelieved failure in coping with Britain's economic and social problems, the I abor Party has been wracked with dissension, recriminations and distrust...

...With his dramatic announcement the already divided Labor Party was further splintered into squabbling factions...

...Benn heard about the proposed discussion on the night of April Lit was clear to him that the gathering scheduled for the following day might preempt his own plans—hence the announcement of his candidacy for Healey s post during the early hours of April 2. To many of the Tribunites it looked like a bad show of bully-boy politics from someone who had just deigned to join their ranks...

...When challenged for defiantly ignoring and upstaging official Labor spokesmen, Benn countered that his primary loyalty was to the party's principles and policies as outlined at the last Left-dominated Party Labor Conference...

...Once considered his most important ally, parliamentarian Eric Heffer increasingly began to distance himself from Benn...

...Meanwhile, Benn has become the bete noire of everyone in Britain, except the far Left...

...For him, socialism has become a religion, the working people of Britain have become heroic in their labor, and the unemployed have become martyrs in their joblessness...

...Still, six months ago the suggestion that Benn—already emerging as something of a messiah for the leaderless militant Left—might become a dominant force in Labor would have been dismissed as far-fetched...

...And it was reported that Barbara Castle, another Leftwinger in Wilson's Cabinet, had called Benn "a maddening mixture of the bogus theoretician and the genuine visionary...

...Not since Richard Nixon's Presidency has a major Western political figure so often been a target of abuse by the press of his country...

...If he meant all the things he said, Foot insisted, it was Benn's duty to face him for the party's top post, not to take on Healey for the deputy leadership...

...Itwouldbeamistaketoview Benn as a wild-eyed, uncontrollable fanatic, as his more extreme critics do...

...A usually courteous, friendly man whose strivings to develop a common touch are sincere, ingenuous, and winning, Benn has managed to make many Labor activists unconscious of the fact that he speaks with a patrician accent and is financially well-off...

...Former Prime Minister James CaUaghan, outraged by Benn's insinuations, announced he would do all he could to stymie Benn's aspirations for himself and the party...

...He had tramped the length and breadth of England visiting local party and trade union meetings, spreading the word that Labor must take a sharp Left turn if the country is to be rescued from the ravages of Thatcherism and the shortcomings of previous Labor governments.' 'Capitalism and democracy are incompatible," he insisted...

...He had remained silent as the skirmishes in Labor developed into a free-for-all, thereby beginning to gain a reputation as the weakest leader the party ever had...

...Aware of his handicap, Benn has over the years tried to strip himself of identification with the upper crust and its trappings...

...Major party figures were disturbed by Benn's lone wolf tactics and objected bitterly to his intimation that current and past leaders, and Labor governments, had been unfaithful to party principles...

...He seems to exist solely on limp cheese or ham sandwiches and endless mugs of tea?in contrast to the new British Social Democrats, reputed by Bennites to revel in French wines and occasional gourmet meals...

...Indeed, some parts of the Labor Party fear he even knows that if he prevails in his attempt to take over, he will reduce the party to a rump of ideological Leftists incapable of winning an election while they wait for the "inevitable" collapse of capitalism in Britain and ready themselves to build socialism...

...Win or lose, he has made an indelible imprint on the troubled British Labor movement...

...Blake's words, of building a new " Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land...

...he asked, after offering me a mug of tea...

...Foot and Healey were to provide the one-two punch that would rattle and ultimately knock out Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in the next elections...

...But a more important result of Benn's press gallery appearance was its prompting Michael Foot to finally lash back...

...He was responsible for getting Parliament to pass a law permitting peers to renounce their titles and become commoners, overturning centuries of tradition...

...For Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Member of Parliament and former Labor government minister, chose the unlikely moment to declare his candidacy for deputy leadership of the Labor Party...

...But his candidacy for deputy leader in this fall's Labor elections still stands, and his advocates are hard at work trying to line up votes by convincing Laborites of the need to cleanse the party of elements that are not sufficiently enthusiastic about full-blooded socialist policies...

...This is not that kind of country...

...Other Leftwingers and members of Parliament, including Dame Judith Hart, Frank Field and Neil Kinnock, openly urged him to get off his high horse before the Party was irreparably splintered...

...Benn's offensive alienated many of his erstwhile supporters as well...

...Though Benn's personal crusade has been slowed (reportedly only until September) by his suffering an acute polyneuritis inflammation, the controversy whirling about the 56-year-old politician has not climinished...

...1 said that only three minutes could be used on the air, but if he spoke longer I would be able to edit it...

...To balance the leadership and keep the party united, the more conservative Denis Healey—once considered Callaghan's heir apparent—had been selected deputy leader...