Benn defiant

Press, 14 November 1981, Page 8

Benn defiant

NZPA London Tony Benn, doyen of the Left-wing of Britain’s Opposition Labour Party, yesterday refused an ultimatum from the party’s leader, Michael Foot, to back his senior parliamentary colleagues.

.After conferring privately with Mr Foot at the House of Commons, Mr Benn issued a statement which stopped well short of agreeing to toe the moderate socialist line favoured by the majority of Labour members of Parliament.

Mr Foot, party officials reported, responded by again asking Mr Benn to state categorically he accepted collective responsibility for policy laid down by the party’s senior parliamentarians.

Mr Foot set no deadline, but wants .a'clear statement from Mr Benn “soon," preferably within days, according to aides who asked not to be identified.

The inconclusive result left the party wresting with yet more Left-Right feuding over the basic issue of whether policy is laid down by the Left-leaning party conferences or its moderate members of Parliament.