A New Leadership? - Part 8 of 11

The other lesson to be learned from the 1980's, as I also set out in my response to Paul Mason, some months ago, is the unreliable, spineless, and treacherous nature of the soft left. The lack of numbers of the Left itself means that it is forced to make tactical alliances with the soft Left against the Right, but, as I set out in my response to Paul, such tactical alliances can never be on the basis of the Left itself reducing its programme to that of the soft Left, or failing to criticise, and elaborate the true nature of the politics of that soft left. 

I have set out some of the history of the betrayal of that soft Left in Stoke, over the issue of fighting rent rises, and spending cuts and hospital cuts and closures, at the time. I have also described how they used their control of NSLB to provide themselves with left cover for their acts of betrayal. But, it was not just a matter of even just utilising their numbers to achieve this, but also the usual resort to bureaucratic and undemocratic manoeuvres. The issue came to a head over hospital cuts and closures. The events also show how the welfare state itself can be used as a means of attacking class fighters. 

Across the country, hospitals were facing cuts and closures. In a number of places, hospitals threatened with closure were occupied by their workers. Everywhere, members of Socialist Organiser, as well as the National Labour Briefing, and other revolutionary groups supported these actions. But, in Stoke, the soft left, within the Briefing group, refused to back such action. For them, the local Briefing was to be nothing more than an informational magazine. Its response was merely to present, on its front cover, an interview with Michael Meacher, setting out “A Labour Programme for Health”. The problem was that, at this time, in April 1984, Labour was a long way from being in government, to be able to implement any such programme, and such imaginary programmes of what Labour might do, several years into the future, offered no answers for the actual health workers or patients suffering in the here and now from the Tory attacks. 

Socialist Organiser supporters in Stoke, responded to the failure of the now soft left controlled NSLB to engage in the fight, by taking up the cudgels on behalf of health workers ourselves, with whatever resources we could muster. This illustrates the point that the Left can never subordinate its own programme and actions simply to that of the soft left, purely in order to maintain what can only ever be a short-term tactical alliance. 

We produced our own leaflet, which was distributed to health workers, and across the local labour movement. It said, 

• Thousands of doctors, nurses, and other health workers on the dole, whilst waiting lists grow, and patients suffer 

• Geriatric hospitals like Westcliffe closed when there are more old people than ever. Hospitals that need building and repairing whilst thousands of building workers rot on the dole 

• Massive profits for the drug companies, and private medicine whilst the NHS is starved of funds 

• Billions spent on weapons of war whilst people die because there are not enough kidney machines. 

• This is the waste of Tory Britain. This is the logic of the capitalist system based on production for profit rather than production for need. There is an alternative. 

And, it went on, 

“All over the country health workers, patients and supporters have been fighting the Tory cuts. Experience shows that the only way of protecting patients is to occupy threatened hospitals. As long as patients are being cared for in the hospital the Health Authority has to pay the staff wages by law. 

The proposals of Kinnock and the labour leadership of trying to convince the Tories and their henchmen on the Health Authority is whistling in the wind.” 

The leaflet invited people to join a lobby of the DHA that Socialist Organiser had organised for 9th January 1984. It also noted, 

“Socialist Organiser is campaigning in the local Labour Party for it to adopt a serious fight against the NHS cuts. Join the Labour Party and help make them do it.”

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