Ine sput between ine leadersnip or the scotush Lab our Party and tne mainstream or me Labour bureauc racy is not over how to fight for socialism but on how to save their bureaucratic necks in the face of the rise of the Scottish National Party.
The line of the old leadership of the Labour Party in Scotland was simply to bluff it out. They stuck to this line even after the elections in February and October 1974 boosted the SN's seats in Parliament from one to seven to eleven. It took the direct intervention of British Labour Party Secretary Ron Hayward at the 1975 Scottish Labour Party Conference to end the openly suicidal course adopted by the hacks of the Scottish Council of the Labour Party.
Despite the machinations of the bureaucracy, however. the Labour vote remained tairiv firm in 1974. The domination of the SNP by an astute finance capital clique which supplied the party with a viciously anti-working class economic policy for independence (see the exposure of SNP secret documents in Red Weekly, 4 September 1975) was sufficient to scare off most workers. The SNP won eight seats from the Tories and built massive petit-bourgeois support, but it did not break Labour's nOle On WOrKInE CaSS VOLCS. 'DISCRIMINATION' Eighteen months later the situation is very different. The open right-wing policies of the Wilson Government - whose effects are especially vicious in Scotland - have increasingly led sections of Scottish workers to identify them with some form of the SNP believes it car win a massive working class vote, and inflict a 1931style defeat on Labour.
Confronted with the SNP threat the Labour bureaucrats naturally did not come forward with the only policy capable of defending the working class - the struggle for a socialist solution to the crisis in Scotland. Instead it produced its White Paper on devoluton. anis was meant as a sop to namonaus But on that field the SNP holds all the aces - as Scottish miners secretary Bill Maclean commented: 'It gives the SNP a stick to break the back of the Labour Party in Scotland."
The results of this disastrous policy were seen in the Central Regional Council by-election in the of 300 was turned into a Nationalist majority of 1,000. A leading opinion pou a tew days later projected a rise in the SP's poll to 57 per cent, which woule lose Labour abeaster scats contronted wit tne treat or a catastropnic electoral defeat, a section of the Labour bureaucracy in Scotland decided to stop following this suicidal path and do what every other bureaucracy does in similar circumstances - make a demogogic left' turn. This didn't mean the adoption of class struggle politics - Sillars, for example, is noted for having written a centre-spread article for the Scottish Daily Express viciously attacking the 1973 Glasgow firemen's strike-but a turn towards an attempt to combine nationalist demogogy with Bennite economic poncies MOTLEY CREW Around this project a motley collection has assembled - notably John Robertson, MP for Paisley, who is a lone ume associate or Auew dent winee Jonn bove and wno broke abour early discio me to act as a House of Commons sponsor of SNP member Margo MacDonald after she had defeated the Labour Party in the Govan by-election. Also prominent are a collection of journalists, including the Scottish correspondent of the Financial Times and the gossip columnist of the Daily Record.
inese people probably calculate that Labour will be amminiated at me next eecion walle sulars retains his seat, and that they will then be able to dominate a revamped Labour Party which includes a majority of the bureaucracy. Failing this, many of them are quite capable of breaking their links with the workers' movement altogether and joining the SNP. It is this group which dominates the SUP and provided the platform at its founding conference.
The policies which these people are trying to impose on the new organisation are of course reformist, confused, and in some cases reactionary. The membership card of the SLP carries a twofold statement of aims: '(1) The creation of a powerful Scottish Parliament working in full democratic partnership with the rest of the UK and representing Scotland in the EEC. (2) To ensure that the Scottish Parliament is a socialist Parliament applying modern socialist policies in Scotland.
Sillars' main argument is that the Government has not implemented the Labour Party election manifesto - particularly on devolution, unemployment, and social expenditure cuts. But the SLP's only soiution to this is that put forward by Alex Neil, a forbackground to its formation. mer Labour rarty researen omncer, wno nas stated that the core of the party's policy is to secure wide powers for the proposed Scottish Assembly and control over oil revenues.
Such a line in no way marks off the SLP from the SN's radical demagogy: in fact, by suggesting that cuts and unemployment can be solved by controlling the oil resources, they merely reinforce the nanonanst murage or an ol-nen maependent scor But despite tnis retormism and contusion, the development of a political organisation doesn't depend just on what its leadership wants. all these manoeuvres, the formation of the SLP is potentially a positive development.
Scotland is in a massive economic. social and pol itical crisis. The line of the Labour Party leadership is patently bankrupt, and me present une or bur eaucratic threats against the SLP is utterly reactionary and must be strongly condemned in the labour Over 400 people crowded into the founding meeting of the Scottish Labour Party in Glasgow on Sunday. ALAN JONES and JAMES MacALLISTER look at the PLEBIO SLP will be judged by its attitude in practice to such working class struggles as the Glasgow dustcart drivers' strike Many cac wonary scribc.
Despite not ours. acts." movement. Under these circumstances, not only bureaucrats seeking to save their necks but also workers seeking a left alternative will ioin the SEP Most of those attending the founding meeting were undoubtedly opponents of Wilson's right-wing policies rather than supporters of 'nationalism' in The SLP therefore starts as a current with a left social democratic leadership and a centrist membership ranging from abject reformists he evolution or the sar aner is tormanor de pends not just on Sillars and the course of the class struggle in Scotland. It also depends on the intervention of revolutionary socialists. An IMG statement put out at the conference pointed out that: "The essential task of this and future meetings of the SLP is to work out concrete proposals for the widest possible unity in action of the labour movement agalst mass unemployment, agalst be do Hansen. JOHN ROBERTSON MP limit, against the destruction of the welfare state and against attempts to settle in advance the powers of an Assembly.
It is also necessary for the SLP to adopt other crucial policies such as the nationalisation of oil. Here the right approach was shown by a former member of the Communist Party, who said that the chief tasks of the SLP must be to fully implement Clause Four and to oppose bans and proscriptions. This point was also supported by IMG speaker Stew art Maclennan. who pointed out that to work out it policies and break with bureaucratic labourism the SLP had to have the fullest internal democracy.
FIGHT WILSON Once the question of programme is decided, then of course the attitude towards the Labour Party falls into place. The most important thing is to begin to organise for a fight against Wilson. Given the choice of organising for a fight but being forced out of the Labour Party, or being in the Labour Party but unable to organise for the struggle, it is much better to form a group and run the risk of being thrown out. But this is true only if there is no other choice. There is no sense in provoking it.
If it is possible to organise openly for a prog ramme of struggle against Wilson and for the interests of the working class in Scotland and Britain, then the support of the mass of workers for the Lab our Party means that this is the place to be. Here the manoeuvres of Sillars are having a ruinous effect. On 11 January he stated that the SLP had no plans to field candidates in elections. The following day he said he recognised that he would have to fight the next election as an SLP candidate The effect of such behaviour is to convince people that he is a left-wing Prentice. His attitude in refusing to discuss his views with all members of his constituency party can only put people off.
NO MANOEUVRES The only way to win over members of the Labour Party is to take a principled position without any hintor manoeuvres. a nis means saving open v. we intend to organise to fight the policies of Wilson on devolution and everything else, which are leading the working class to a crushing defeat. It is nec essary to organise to fight now, and it is better even to be thrown out than meekly follow the burcaucracy up me road to cisaster sur I we are thrown out that will be the bureaucracy's fault and We prefer for our organisation to be members of the Labour Party. Whether you agree with our policies or not, you should fight with us for our right to be in the Labour Party. It is the bureaucrats, not us, who are splitting the labour movement. We must campaign in every factory and union against their Thousands of Labour Party members will respond to such an appeal. Even if they are thrown out the SLP should still adopt as part of its policy the demand to affiliate to the Labour Party -just Labour Party in the 1930s.
But this is in the future. While remaining within the Labour Party should be a goal of the SLP, the most important question facing it is to get organised ana replace us exisung conrused and rerorist pro gramme with one which is really adequate to the needs or me workine cass. mis is me ureent as: which today faces the militant supporters of the HEALY AS A BUREAUCRATIC COP The political degeneration of the Workers Revolutionary Party proceeds apace. It has now come forward as an advocate of utilising suppression by the bureaucracy to sette portical arouments in une workers movement. The 17 January issue of Workers Press notes the campaign for the formation of the Scottish Labour Party and states: The way has been paved for tomorrow's meeting by the official Labour Party machine which is refusing to take any action against the splitters. This has given them a Tree rein to campaien on them nanonaist ucket In side the Labour Party itself.
A truly magniticent position, it is one thing to oppose the politics of the SLP - anyone in the workers movement is perfectly entitled to do that -but when someone demands that this political fight inside the workers movement be settled by the intervention or the oureaucracy unar is somernine curtt different. Perhaps it is yet another of those interest ing developments of theory for which the WRP renowned. On this Healy shows himself to be not merely in alliance with the right - as happened in the Cowley union elections - but now acting as a cop of the bureaucrats.
NEXT WEEK: Why the WRP slanders Joe
6 Angola The US's record as regards Red Weekly