Splitting at the Seams

By Jay D. Palmer

Labor's right-wingers threaten to bolt the party

After months of fierce ideological battles between left and right, Britain's Labor Party started to split at the seams.

Last week, following a new row, several senior, right-of-center Laborites all but quit the party to form a new, potentially powerful alliance of the center. The immediate provocation: a naked, and successful, power grab by Labor's radical left that gives it control over the selection of the party leader--potential Prime Minister--and effectively over future Labor government policies.

The latest in the left's stunning victories pushed Labor closer to a number of extremist positions. Among them: unilateral nuclear disarmament, the banning of U.S. nuclear weapons from Britain, sweeping nationalization of industry, withdrawal from ties with NATO and the European Community and the abolition of the House of Lords. "Today," said left-wing Standard-Bearer Tony Benn, 55, "we have changed the course of British history." The radical platform seemed certain to frighten many of Labor's moderate voters, and the strengthened left in power could transform Britain's relations with the U.S. Warned Kingman Brewster, retiring American Ambassador to London: "Britain can't have it both ways.

It runs the risk of thinking it can withdraw from Europe and still attract American investments, or that it can abdicate its defense responsibilities and still count on American protection."

The main beneficiary of Benn's triumph was Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. With the parliamentary opposition and the press preoccupied by Labor's battles, Thatcher's unpopular economic policies temporarily receded from public attention, despite news last week that unemployment had soared to a new 45-year record of 10%.

The fight, which occurred at a special Labor Party meeting held in London's Wembley Conference Center, was intense and bitter, but in the end it was a rout. By a margin of 54% to 46%, the conference of Members of Parliament, labor unions and grass-roots party organizers voted to strip M.P.s of their traditional right to elect their own leader. That responsibility will go in the future to a new electoral college in which the more militant unions and the radical local party organizers will hold 70% of the power against only 30% for the M.P.s. Party Leader Michael Foot tried to head off disaster with a compromise proposal--50% control by the M.P.s and 50% split between the unions and grass roots--but he was overwhelmed by the left-wing juggernaut.

The result proved too much for irate right-wing M.P.s, and within hours of the Wembley vote, the exodus had started.

The move toward a breakaway was led by a trio of former Cabinet Ministers --Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers--who created a new "Council for Social Democracy" to protest radical policies and eventually form the basis of a new centrist party. They immediately became known as the "Gang of Three," but were quickly joined by a fourth, former Deputy Leader Roy Jenkins. By week's end, nine more Labor M.P.s had joined the rebel ranks.

For the moment, all remain officially within Labor, but a formal split seems inevitable. Said Williams, 50, who was seen as the most likely leader of the breakaway group: "The Labor Party was born out of the secret ballot and universal suffrage. To go back to selection by the barons is unthinkable. It is a return to Tammany Hall politics." Owen, 42, a former Labor Foreign Secretary, insisted that "only a miracle" could now prevent the birth of a Social Democratic Party. In fact, late last week he told his Devonport constituency that he would not seek reelection as a Labor candidate.

When the open split conies, it will not be a full-scale cleavage of Labor but a defection by just a small number. The group could quickly become a formidable political force if allied with other dissidents. Last week, Conservative M.P. Robert Hicks suggested that as many as ten to 20 Tories "who are very uneasy about the present strategy being pursued by the [Thatcher] government" might be attracted to a new "third grouping." Liberal Party Leader David Steel, 41, called for the right-wingers to "abandon Labor" and predicted that a new party "could prove an unstoppable combination." The early polls supported him. One survey suggests that a new centrist coalition could win nearly 40% of the popular vote, vs. 31% for the hard-line Tories and 29% for left-leaning Labor.

Many Labor moderates are opting --for now--to remain with the party. More than 100 M.P.s have openly pledged to stay and fight the left. But fears are high; 34 Labor peers in the House of Lords sent a letter to Foot expressing their concern over Labor's lurch to the left. Some unions are now afraid that they have played into the hands of the militants.

And several party elders, including Foot, Deputy Leader Denis Healey and Shadow Home Secretary Roy Hattersley, are committed to reversing the Wembley ruling.

Even former Prime Minister Sir Harold Wilson joined the fight, dismissing the Wembley vote as "a shambles" and heaping scorn on Benn's devotion to "the divine right of shop stewards."

The counterattack by Labor's moderate loyalists is unlikely to halt the momentum toward a new political alignment. Labor's right wing has been increasingly unhappy for some time, and, led by the popular Williams, the dissident Social Democrats could eventually attract a wide range of voters. That would seriously disrupt the country's two-party system. Said Brian Walden, a respected TV commentator and former Labor M.P.: "Nothing will ever be the same again in British politics." --By Jay D. Palmer, Reported by Bonnie Angela/London

With reporting by Bonnie Angela/London

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