Wilson talks of extremist Left infiltration

Press, 7 December 1976, Page 9

Wilson talks of extremist Left infiltration

NZPA-Reuter London An accusation by the former British Labour Prime Minister, Sir Harold Wilson, that the party has been infiltrated by Left-wing extremists has provoked a mixed reaction within the Labour movement.

His comments have been given immediate backing by a Cabinet member, Mr Reginald Prentice, the Minister of Overseas Development, who has been virtually disowned by his own local constituency party, Newham, North-East, in London, after its take-over by extreme Left-wingers. Mr Prentice has welcomed Sir Harold’s suggestion that the party’s rules should be changed to involve more people in the selection of candidates for Parliament, thus weakening the grip of small, but well-organised, groups of militants. “The great weakness in British politics is that too few people are joining political parties, and democracy is conisequently suffering.” Mr Prentice said. Other Labour members of Parliament, however, are furious. Mr Martin Flannery has I accused the party’s former I leader of “witch hunting, and | trying to divert the party away from the reality that the international monetary 'fund is now dictating what the Government should do. and that the United States Central Intelligence Agency has now deeply infiltrated British political life.” Alan Harvey, an NZPA- : Reuter correspondent in London writes: Epithets were flying across the ideological

divide before Mr Wilson’s comments, in a crisis which could well seriously damage the Labour Party.

Angry charges abound that red-hot revolutionaries are secretly and systematically infiltrating the party, bent on destroying parliamentary democracy-

“Labour has been penetrated to a terrifying degree by fifth columnists who call themselves Socialists,” one Conservative member of Parliament, Mr lan Sproat, has said.

“Disgraceful character asassination,” retorted Labour’s Left-wingers. It is all symptomatic of Labour’s perennial “splitting headache,” a political malady which strikes at roughly 20year intervals: the symptoms take the form of an agonising split between Left and Right, moderates and militants, reformers and revolutionaries, but this time it has wider significance than usual because it could kill Labour’s chances of winning the next General Election likely within 15 months but not mandatory until late 1979.

One school of thought holds that Socialist respectability offers ideal cover to infiltrators, providing a privileged sanctuary for sniping at society. Government Ministers privately express misgivings over extremist penetration, but they maintain publicly that the infiltrators are a tiny minority. The Leftists’ lung power is certainly great, they are highly dedicated and they revel in tedious committee

work while the party moderates prefer a quiet life. In modern times, the LeftRight division between more socialism and less socialism afflicted Labour most acutely in the 30s, leaving painful memories. The quarrel flared again in the early ’sos over nuclear disarmament, and now the ideological daggers are flashing again. The moderates level three main accusations:

That ultra-Left groups, spearheaded by Trotskyists, are systematically campaigning to oust moderate Labour politicians from their parliamentary constituencies and replace them with hard-liners.

That Leftists and their sympathisers are manoeuvring to make sure somebody acceptable to them is chosen as party chief in any new leadership contest. That Left-wing Socialists extend a warmer welcome to Soviet Union and East European visitors than to Western politicians.

On the leadership issue, a working party weighted four to two in favour of the Left has been appointed to study new ways of choosing a party chief. This is expected to give the constituency parties, many of them dominated bv Left-wing activists, a greater say in selection.

Observers predict that the main beneficiary may be the Secretary of State for Energy (Mr Anthony Wedg-

wood Benn), regarded as a man with Prime Ministerial ambitions. He would probably be the Left-wing choice for the leadership when Mr James Callaghan, who is 64, retires.

Signs of Labour disarray on ideological issues have already had an impact on the electorate. Recent byelections showing a sharp swing from Labour back to the Opposition Conservatives are thought to have reflected disenchantment among voters over extremist tendencies, though Britain's economic weakness may also have been a factor.

A turn-around of 22.5 per cent in one constituency marked a psychological break-through for the Conservatives, who have been struggling to counter Labour claims that only Socialists can cope with the potent hew weapon of trade-union power. The Conservatives, after an uneasy period, are now clear favourites in opinion polls and in betting forecasts to win the next election.

Paradoxically, the change in sentiment might make life a shade easier for Mr Callaghan, a conservativeminded man who has little sympathy with the radical Left: in seeking the kind of economic policies likely to win orthodox sanction for international loans, Mr Callaghan can use the threat of electoral disaster to quell Left-wing opposition to spending cuts — a prime necessity for Britain’s recovery, according to con-

ventional economic thought. International fears about Labour slipping into an allout, irreversible State socialism have weakened confidence in sterling, causing critics to speak of "a crisis of socialism ”

Left-wingers reply that the real problem is a crisis of capitalism. One theory is that the extreme Leftists would like the crisis to worsen, reasoning that this would bring an economic collapse and give the revolutionaries a chance to build a trulv Socialist society. Depending on the angle of vision, the Left-Right division can be seen as a source of creative tension, an energising life force, or a debilitating irrelevance, and even as a death-wish.

Labour has long been admired as a party of moral passion and strong humanitarian bias, and its high ideals and dogged do-good-ing make the party attractive to many devotees of political rallies. But these qualities also make the party alluring to infiltrators who see Labour respectability as highly-desirable “cover,” a privileged sanctuary for sniping at society. Critics claim that the far Left could make no political progress by fighting openly under the Communist Party banner: it is often argued in British politics that power goes to those who command the Centre.

Mr lain Sproat, the Conservative member of Parliament who raised the

infiltration danger in the House of Commons, said that the opinions of the Leftists were totally alien to democratic Labour traditions; and that at least 30 Labour members held views which were virtually the same as those of the Communists, assorted Trotskyist groups, Marxists, and the New Left. Others have added the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and the International, Socialists to the list.

Veteran Labour politicians say they feel that the most striking characteristic of the extremists today is that they form a hard Left, much more militant and aggressive than the old soft Left that was motivated mainly by pacifism and international idealism.

The present-day Lett is more formidable because it can combine with powerful trade union leaders, making them a potent ally of likeminded politicians."

A call to union leaders to stop the “creeping Marxism ’! in the Labour Party lias been sounded in "The Times.” Mr Douglas Eden, a local government politician! and lecturer in politics, says in a letter to the editor that, failing such union action, anti-Marxists in the Labour Party should consider whether they can still hope to defeat the extreme within the party, or whether the r continued membership “serves only to reinforce thej cloak of respectability that disguises the growth ofi totalitarianism.”

Issuing a warning of extremist dangers some years

'ago, a Conservative Governs ment Minister, Lord HailI sham, said: “In every muddy ' pool of industrial dispute. I today the Communist and I Trotskyist will be sitting on the bank with their rods, and fishing in the dirty ■ water, but that does not I mean that they created the ' pond, or put the fish in it, or that there are no other i fishermen."