Left Horizons is launching its YouTube channel with a clip about a debate between the right wing of the Labour Party and the Marxist left, held nearly forty years ago.
Long before the Militant Tendency went off on an ultra-left trajectory in the early 1990s, and before it morphed into a little sect known as the ‘Socialist Party’, that newspaper commanded considerable support among Labour’s rank and file.
Thousands of Labour Party members, particularly in its youth wing, the Labour Party Young Socialists, but also dozens of Labour councillors, three Labour MPs and hundreds of trade union reps and stewards, supported the Marxist current represented by that newspaper. Militant was far from perfect, but it was not on account of being ‘organised’ as the right wing suggested, but on account of the ideas it put forward, that it struck a chord with so many Labour members and supporters.
It was because of this growing support among Labour members that Militant was seen as a potential threat to the establishment, and for that reason the Tory-led media pushed the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, into hounding Militant supporters, or at least its leading elements, out of the Party. Neil Kinnock, who, like Starmer today, spent more time attacking his own left-wing than he did attacking the Tories, was only too happy to oblige.
It was a pity that a Labour leader should spend so much time and energy vilifying his own left wing and so little time and effort supporting the British miners in their historic year-long struggle against the Thatcher government’s plans to destroy the industry.
Kinnock was happy to oblige the Tory press.
But before Kinnock was able to carry out a witch-hunt, and at a time when it was recognised that Marxist ideas were gaining ground in the Party, even the national media were obliged to sit up and listen. In 1982, on the prime-time Thames TV-EYE programme, a debate was held to coincide with the Labour Party conference, between spokespersons for Militant and two Labour right-wingers. This was broadcast live.
The protagonists in the debate were: speaking for Militant, its political editor, Peter Taaffe, and Liverpool Labour councillor, Tony Mulhearn, and for Labour’s right wing there were Austin Mitchell, MP for Grimsby, and John Spellar, then Prospective parliament candidate for Birmingham, Northfield. The latter two represented the right-wing faction of the Party, organised at that time under the name of ‘Solidarity’ – but not, like Militant, subject to any form of witch-hunt.
The programme was only 27 minutes long, but the ideas debated are as relevant now as they were then. The discussions going on in the Labour Party today, about the goal and aims of the Party and where it should be headed, echo precisely that debate held nearly forty years ago.
It is the same debate, between on the one hand something that is no better than Tory-lite, and on the other hand, radical, socialist policies in the interests of working people. The right wing then, as they do today, avoid a discussion on policies and focus instead on organisational or constitutional issues.
A major difference, however, is that there is no radio or TV station today that would offer the same platform to the Marxist left that they did at that time. Readers of Left Horizons can watch the broadcast and judge for themselves the clarity of the ideas of Militant in their day.
We hope in the future to be able to show a lot more clips and videos like this. Please take the trouble to look at the video clip here or the full TV EYE programme here and subscribe to the Left Horizons YouTube channel, so you can get alerts to new posts and videos.
