THREAT TO GAITSKELL AT LABOUR CONFERENCE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29108, 21 January 1960, Page 13

THREAT TO GAITSKELL AT LABOUR CONFERENCE

(Special Correspondent N.Z.t'.A.) LONDON, January 20. If some members of the Labour Party have their way Mr Gaitskell will not return to London from the annual conference at Scarborough still the party leader.

They do not like his ideas on the refashioning of the party’s constitution nor what they regard as his vacillating on nationalisation.

While a section of the party agrees with him that socialism should be given a more modern look to suit a more affluent society, others are insistent that nationalisation —although it has made no appeal to the electorate in the last three General Elections —must not go overboard. Better, they say, that Mr Gaitskell should wall the plank. The most outspoken in advocating this is Mr Michael Foot, the Left-winger who recently gave up his job as editor of the weekly “Tribune” to become managing director. He has said in the “Tribune” and on television that if Mr Gaitskell is going to give his backing to a modification of the party’s nationalisation policy “he will have to go.” Although Mr Foot is not a member of Parliament and has repeatedly lost the fight for the Devonport constituency which he once represented he has a wide following in the party.

He maintains there is nothing personal in his attack on Mr Gaitskell. But he does believe Mr Gaitskell is a “liability to the party” because he is dividing it.

Mr Foot maintains that Mr Gaitskell split the party in the past on the extent of British rearmament, the health service charges, the decision to support arms for West Germany and the attempt to expel Mr Aneurin Bevan. He is confident that unless Mr Gaitskell makes concessions on nationalisation and there is a showdown he may well be defeated in the national executive and certainly at the annual conference in October. Mr Foot’s criticism of Mr Gaitskell coincides with an opinion expressed by Sir Anthony Eden in his memoirs. Sir Anthony Eden says he had no doubt it was a “national misfortune” when Mr Gaitskell succeeded to the Labour leadership.

“Curiously enough, in all my years of political life I had never met anyone with his cast of mind and approach to problems. We never seemed able to get on terms,” he said.