Labour dissident quits executive

Press, 11 February 1981, Page 9

Labour dissident quits executive

NZPA London A former Labour Cabinet Minister, Mrs Shirley Williams, has ended two weeks of speculation, by announcing her resignation from the party’s national executive. “The party I loved and worked for over many years ■ no longer exists,” she said in her letter of resignation to the party’s general secretary, Mr Ron Hayward. Mrs Williams, who was Minister of Education in the last Labour Government, lost her seat in the General Election and has already said she would not stand again for Labour in the next election.

She is one of the “gang of three” dissident former Labour Ministers — with the former Foreign Secretary, David Owen, and the former Transport Minister, William Rodgers — which has now become the “gang of four” with the addition of Roy Jenkins, the party’s one-time deputy leader who until recently was president of the European Economic Community. They formed the Council for Social Democracy after the Labour Party conference decision last month to give trade unions the biggest single say in electing the party leader. Mrs Williams was last year re-elected as a member of the party’s ruling national executive, now

dominated by Left-wing-ers. Since the formation of the Council for Social Democracy, she has been under increasing pressure to quit the national executive and the party. But neither Mrs Williams nor the other members of the “gang” have yet left the party, although Dr Owen, has announced he will not be contesting his Plymouth seat for Labour at the next election. The party leader, Michael Foot has urged them to stay. But there is increasing speculation they will quit soon to form a new

party based on the Council for Social Democracy. A poll commissioned by “The Times” and published this week showed that a new Centre party of Liberals and breakaways Labour supporters attracted 39 per cent of electors questioned, compared with 27 per cent for Labour and 21 per cent for the Conservatives. The Liberal leader, David Steel, was top choice as leader of a new party, with 29 per cent, compared with 24 per cent for Mrs Williams, 15 per cent for Dr Owen, and 11 per cent for Mr Jenkins. But Mr Steel and leading social democrats favour an electoral alliance rather than a merged party. Mrs Williams, in her resignation letter, said the Labour Party was no longer a democratic socialist party “but a party intent on controlling those of its members who are elected to public office by the people of Britain.” To suggestions that she should stay and fight for her views within the party — something she has been urged to do by Labour’s deputy leader, Denis Healey— Mrs Williams replied: “I have done my share of fighting over the last decade . . . We have almost always been defeated, and we have been defeated by larger and larger majorities as the years have gono by.”