The Labour Party in Crisis by Paul Whiteley

Author:Paul Whiteley [Whiteley, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Political Science, History & Theory, Political Process, Political Parties, Social Science
ISBN: 9780429831843
Google: uF8PEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-12-07T17:42:52+00:00

The socialist resurgence after 1970

The debate following the election defeat in 1970 culminated in Labour’s Programme for Britain which was accepted at the 1973 annual conference (Labour Party, 1973). This document represented a decisive break with revisionism, and represented a greater reorientation of Labour’s policy goals than anything seen since 1918. It was much more comprehensive and far-reaching in its objectives than anything the party had ever produced before. After the silence of the revisionist years the party’s commitment to socialism was once again boldly asserted. Its opening sentence was ‘we are a Democratic Socialist Party, and proud of it’ (p. 7). In a frequently quoted passage it asserted that the aim of the Labour Party was ‘to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families’ (ibid.).

The document covered all aspects of policy including health and welfare, education, homes, transport and the environment, the Common Market, food and agriculture, foreign policy and overseas development. But the most important section which was also the most radical was on economic strategy. This part of the document covered six sections, each relating to different aspects of economic policy; the sections were demand management, economic planning, price controls, the accountability of economic power, the public sector and economic equality. The three sections on economic planning, the accountability of economic power and the public sector were the most radical and controversial.

The economic planning section contained three broad proposals. Firstly, there was a proposal to establish a state holding company which would acquire ‘a major public stake in manufacturing industry’ (p. 17). Secondly, a proposal to establish planning agreements with the top 100 manufacturing firms, in effect the corporate sector. The agreements aimed at monitoring the activities, influencing the policies and holding these firms accountable to the country as a whole. Thirdly, there was the proposal for a new Industry Act to give the government powers of selective intervention to operate if necessary at the level of the individual firm. This was radically different from the ‘hands-off’ intervention envisaged in 1964. For example, in the Industry Act it was proposed to take reserve powers if need be to sack directors of firms with which the government had a planning agreement, and to put in an ‘Official Trustee’ to control a Company ‘which fails to meet its responsibilities to its workers, to its customers, or to the community as a whole’ (p. 19).

These ideas arose out of a specific recognition of the changes which had taken place in British industry associated with the growth of the corporate sector. It stated ‘the economy is now completely dominated by a hundred or so giant companies. Fifty years ago the 100 largest manufacturing companies produced 15 per cent of the net manufacturing output … and their share by 1970 had risen to as much as 50 per cent’ (p. 13). This analysis of corporate power and the threat to democracy which it represents completely reversed the

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