Trade Unions And The Bevanites

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26729, 13 May 1952, Page 6

Trade Unions And The Bevanites

A resolution passed by delegates of the Amalgamated Engineering Union will strengthen the hopes of Mr Aneurin Bevan and his friends of obtaining trade union backing for their demands for reductions in Britain’s rearmament programme. The resolution, expressing “ grave “ concern at the extent to which the “ arms drive was affecting Britain’s “ economy ”, effectively lines up one of Britain’s most powerful unions behind the- Bevanites’ demands. Backing by the 800,000-strong Amalgamated Engineering Union succeeds backing given at Easter by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the sixth largest union in the Trades Union Congress. Mr Bevan and his friends have, of course, a long way to go before they can hope to secure the support of most trade unions. The Trades Union Congress has a membership of about 8,000,000; the big transport workers’ and miners’ unions are expected to stand firmly in the Bevanites’ way. But the support of two strong unions in what are preliminary skirmishes will encourage the Bevanites for the big battle later in the year when they will, on present showings, try at the Labour Party conference to Use rearmament as the stepping-stone to control of the party. At the annual conference held last September the Bevan group achieved notable successes in elections for constituency members of the National Executive of the party. Four Bevanites were elected among the seven representatives of the constituency parties on the executive. But it remained greatly outnumbered on the executive as a whole, the 27 members of which include 12 representatives of the trade unions. The Trades Union Congress, which had met shortly before the Labour Party conference, roundly condemned the Bevanites’ attitude on rearmament. The chairman (Mr Alfred Roberts) described it as “a grave disservice “ to our people to carry on a cam- “ paign within our movement which “can only have the effect of weak- “ ening the defence effort • .Mr

Roberts added that “ to try to convince our people that our rearm- “ ament is excessive and more than “our economy can sustain' is to

“ play right into the hands of the “Soviet propagandists”. The Bevanites must change this attitude if they are to obtain the amount of trade union backing necessary to alter Labour Party policy on rearmament Which, essentially, is that Labour in Opposition should stand by the policies advocated and initiated in office. The present leadership of the party could scarcely continue after reversals on such a fundamental issue. Probably, the attitude of some trade unions is symptomatic of the confusion and division in the British Labour movement now that the party is out of office and searching for new ideas. Less rearmament and more welfare—which is what contemporary Bevanism amounts to —are issues upon which dissatisfaction and frustration can centre, even while the objectives sought are vague and uncertain. The " EcohO- “ mist ” has pointed out that this very vagueness is, indeed, the strength and danger of Mr Bevan’s position. Though he can appear to collect a great volume of support by appealing to all those who for any reason at all want anything less than the present amount of rearmament, he is not thereby getting any support for any positive policy. No such policy has been propounded; what has been propounded is merely dissent from the official policy. This is the weakness that the party’s official leaders in both the industrial and political wings should be able to strike at when they think the time is ripe.