... The NEC must remember that while they are rightly responsible only for their words and their resolutions, the Government is accountable for its actions. And accountable in a Parlamentary democracy to Parliament.' With these well-chosen words, as well as the usual warning about 'those who seek to infiltrate our Party and use it for their own ends', Callaghan sought to answer the thorny problem of democracy.
At least 43 CLP's had submitted resolutions calling for mandatory reselection of MP's. A further 16 and NUPE put down resolutions calling for those resolutions to be published and debated after the Conference Arrangements Committee had suppressed debate on the issue. ne Committee has used the infamous three-year rule, which resolutions are ruled out of order on the grounds that a topic cannot be debated a second time within three years unless it is of 'immediate importance'.
Two-and-a-quarter million votes were cast against the recommended timetable at the opening of Conference. But the major unions understood well the implications of this vote for their relations with the embodied in the social contract, and led by the Transport and General Workers Union they voted against. have a anti-working sham. the election of the Labour Party leader by Conference cannot be won unless this question is answered.
The whole idea of Parlament is that it is an institution "above' the various 'interest groups' in society. Above the interests of particular sections of society, Parlament must represent the interests of •Britain as a whole'. But Britain is a society in which there are two irreconcilable class interests. Any sugestion that workers and bosses interest is sham, a Cover class measures. And Parlament is tne institution which is the authoritative expression of this