As forecast by International Bulletin, the Common Market and Inner- Party Democracy were the issues dominating the Brighton Conference of the Labour Party. The anticipated fight on POLS nationalisation failed to materialise, the sharp resolutions on I.C.I. having atly shunted into a large and woolly composite; Callaghan and Dai Davies, for the N.£.C., got by with reiterated pledges on steel and road transport and a plea that the Party could not be committed in advance of the economic: situation it would face on resuming office. Gaitskell emerged for the first time at this Conference as a skilled tactician. Gene are the days of impulsive right-wing honesty symbolised by the notorious campaign to jettison Clause 4} Instead the N.5.C. succeeded in isolating its critics on the far Right and the far Left, presenting the image of a Party uniting everyone from Jack Cooper to Michael Foot, with Bill Rodgers and the Marxist Left as the dissident but negligible lunatic fringes of Right and Left.
This "unity", however, is unlikely to survive unshattered., The iarl of Longford (Sunday Pictorial, 7-10.62) has already fired the opening volley from the pro-marketeers, who with few exceptions (such as Bob iidwards and Hugh Delargy) are all former Gaitskellite "hards". The speeches of Roy Jenkins and Jeremy Bray and, more significantly, those of Bill Carron and Jack Cooper, indicate that the C.D.5S. boys intend to hit back at their former idol. It is now up to left to exploit this division within the Right by seeking to drive the people around the Labour Common Market Committee into their true homes: the Liberal Party. The mood of the Party is overwhelmingly against these elements, as Gaitskell was astute enough to sense.
The broad Left, unfortunately, shows every sign of having risen, at least momentarily, to Gaitskell's bait. They have failed to see how cleverly he left the road open for a last-minute retreat ("Our final decision must still depend upon the ultimate terms which the Government has been able to negotiate") ard have voted for a document which describes the U.C.lM. as "a great and imaginative conception." It would be wrong, however, to imagine that the situation within the Party is ontirely as it was before Brighton. The Left must now drive home the fact that the declin sing British economy, deprived of the lifeline of entry, must be rotten— ripe for bold socialist planning; and seek to commit the Party to this course. The contradictions and illogicalities in the N.3.C. statement must be exposed, and the demand raised for the Socialist United States of Gurope.
The rejection of the notorious "guilt by association" clause represents, on the other hand, a clearcut defeat for the Right. It was another humiliating defeat for George Brown, for whom this was a very embarrassing conference indeeds This is not to say that the Organisation Sub-Committee will cease its MeCarthyite campaign, or fail to think up some snide backdoor way to achieve its purpose. But it certainly received a sound slap in the face and will need to tread more warily, taking note of widespread alarm and disgust with which its recent activities have been regarded by many people in the Centre of the Party.
To judge by Conference, there is an undoubted pre-election mood of unity in the Party, and any head-on attack by the Left on the N.#.C. will not be well received by the Party durin, the next few months. These attacks must, of course, still be delivered, and will be made all the more sharply in that, for the next period, it will be only the Marxists who will be manning the guns. The tactical opportunity, however, must not be lost by the Left to deal a stunning blow at the enemy of its enemy -- that is, the pro-Marketeers of the Far Right. livery opport— unity must be seized to drive a wedge between the Brown-CVooper and Gaitskell-Jay wings of the bureaucracy, using Gaitskell's anti-Market eloquence as a startingpoint for demanding policies of socialist nationalisation, workers! control and socialist internationalism as the Labour Movement's only real alternative to the Common Markete