U.K. Labour Party struggle row

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33904, 25 July 1975, Page 9

U.K. Labour Party struggle row

(N.Z.P. A.Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, July 23. A Cabinet Minister, Mr Reginald Prentice, was told last night by local Labour Party activists to leave his House of Commons seat at the next General Election. The row has reverberated around Britain’s political scene. A majority of the Cabinet l and half the Parliamentary Labour Party have urged the constituency leaders in London’s Newham North East division to reject the no-confidence motion.

The vote by the 50-strong general management committee. comprising Newham party officers, trade union branch delegates, and young socialists, went against him after a stormy meeting in the local headquarters. The widely-publicised struggle by the 52-year-old Overseas Development Minister is considered significant because it revealed how easily a determined hardcore group of Left-wingers, including reputed Marxists, could infiltrate the ruling party at grassroots level. Mr Prentice is an acknowledged militant moderate. His blunt speaking has upset many

[colleagues. Critics call him [arrogant and smug and sug;gest that he has lost touch (with his local party, leaving too much to an 82-year-old secretary. Mr Prentice has said that if Left-winger militants succeeded in ousting him then [this would signal the [break-up of the ruling Labour [ Party. ' The Minister, who has been [an M.P. for 18 years and won |a 13,451 majority at the last i election in October, 1974. [told journalists that he intended to appeal against the Newham decision to the policy-making national executive committee. “I shall carry on as their M.P. — I shall go on fighting,” he said. In an unprecedented step, the Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) had previously given notice that he would support Mr Prentice in any democratic attempt to overturn the Newham verdict. If necessary, observers expect the fight to go on to the annual conference in September, the Labour Party’s supreme authority. The motion calling on Mr Prentice to retire at the next election — which must be held by 1979 at the latest — was passed by 29 votes to 19.