Socialists and the Labour Party: A Reappraisal

Abstract

In the 1973 Socialist Register, Ken Coates produced a timely and brilliant defence of socialists working within the Labour Party. The argument was largely cast in terms of the absence of any alternative agency capable of maintaining a full scale political presence outside the Labour Party. But at the same time Ken Coates provided a positive case for working within the Party, stressing the critical role it plays in defensive struggles, the importance of parliamentary activity, and the possibilities for change in the Party contained in the radicalization of the unions in the late sixties and early seventies. The article was notably free of illusions on the radicalization of the Parliamentary leadership of the Party, but it contended that the 'cardinal tenets of late fabianism have been refuted by events' and therefore that the ideas of the leadership could no longer dominate the labour movement, 'since the integrating force of their dogma has rotted away'. The changing balance of forces in the movement would come to be reflected in its political councils: the Parliamentary Party would have to elect a new leader acceptable to the unions or face a 'shattering rift', indeed, 'a candidate with 'the insight and skill to present a platform of socialist change [was] very likely to win'. The idea that the status quo pragmatism of Wilsonism 'might be botched along for another parliamentary term [was] not completely absurd', but the consequences of this for Labour would be immense: