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THE POST WAR GOVERNMENT CONSENSUS
The reforms passed by the Labour Government from 1945-50 were not seriously contested by the Conservative Opposition. The sections of the ruling class who were most affected - the coal-owners, the doctors - were kept in line precisely by the lack of serious opposition by their political representatives. The return to power of the Conservative Party in 1951 meant that Parliamentary politics had been clearly re-established in a post-war world that otherwise seemed so changed. The Conservative Party had shown that it could adapt to the changing culture and use egalitarianism and classlessness as effectively as the Labour Party. Towards the economic struggle the Conservatives were, if anything, more anxious than Labour had been to avoid escalation. The Left of the Labour Party followed its petty bourgeois utopianism into pacificism: there ought to be no conflict between Communism and capitalism, and if there must be then Britain as a sovereign nation could be above it. The trade unions had no need to pressurise the Labour Party as there were no moves to threaten the established position of the working class or impede it in the economic struggle.
Labour’s return to power in 1964 coincided with the economic need of the ruling class to hit at the working class organisation in production which was demanding technological change at too high a price for the employers and at the level of subsistence of the working class. [or 'to hit at the working class organisation and at the level of subsistence of the working class at a time when the development of the productive forces was demanding technological change at too high a price for the employers' - PB]. As in 1931, the PLP was faced with hitting the working class. This time they had to hit the class not only materially hut also organisationally - to curtail the "rights" of the trade unions established during World War II. As in 1931 the Labour Government went determinedly at its tasks. Even the Left was enthusiastic - fired by a rebirth of Fabianism, a progressive capitalism which could bring qualitative change in its wake. Again it was the trade unions which stood out against the Labour Government. The reversal of Labour’s policies (Prices and Incomes Policy and Industrial Relations Bill) was brought about not by the Left but by the "realists" or centrists of the party. (For the Labour Party, centrist means identification with neither the ideology of the Left or Right.) To preserve the Labour party as a political party, it must retreat. [2] (National Government was mooted by some mavericks at this time, notably IPC's [International Publishing Corporation, publishers of the Mirror and Sunday Pictorial] Cecil King, but rejected as being too major a departure from political normalcy). [3] The Left, belatedly, took up the Union’s case with all its passionate rhetoric - but little else. It did not put forward any alternate course for Labour to follow which would further the interests of the working class.
[2] In fact, according to the later development of this line of thought, trade union opposition to the 1960s Industrial Relations Bill and Prices and Incomes policy was an error. Rather than smashing capitalism first, as demanded by the revolutionary left, both mainstream Communist and Trotskyist, it is by developing the ability to govern under the conditions imposed by capitalism that the working class could develop the skills necessary to transcend capitalism and advance towards socialism. In the 1960s it was the old Labour left, personified by Barbara Castle, implicitly criticised here, who had the best understanding of how Socialist politics could develop.
[3] 'He was involved in, and probably instigated, a bizarre 1968 meeting with Louis Mountbatten among others, in which he proposed that Harold Wilson's government be overthrown and replaced with a temporary administration headed by Mountbatten. He had no support from them for this, so he decided to override the Editorial independence of the Mirror and wrote and instructed to be published a front page article calling on Wilson to be removed by some sort of extra parliamentary action. As Chairman of the IPC the Board met and demanded his resignation for this breach of procedure and damaging the interests of IPC as a public company. He refused, so was dismissed by the Board on 30 May.' - Wikipedia
The Conservative Government took up the tasks to be done where Labour had left off. It had fought the election on the need for trade union reform and the Labour Party Opposition had been anything but determined (the trade unions' opposition to the Industrial Relations Bill was defensive; the Left did not arm the trade unions with anything more than this). The new Government attempted to sneak Prices and Incomes policy through the back door to save trade union leaders' face while meeting the economic struggle head on and allowing escalation in order to defeat wage demands. (Because Government intervention is to avert escalation of the economic struggle, some ground is always given to wage demands. The Government intervenes as an arbitrator, for neither side, so each must gain. This has been recognised by the trade unions, hence the protests that this Government has abdicated its claim to independence by not seriously attempting to settle disputes.)
The Conservative Government put the Industrial Relations Bill into the statute book. But the opposition from the trade unions has been more determined than most bourgeois commentators had expected. The trade unions have not registered to claim the traditional "rights" and accept the new "responsibilities" required in return. The Government was forced to use the cooling-off provisions against the railwaymen sooner than it hoped for (it had hoped the Act could remain in the background, thereby winding down concerted TU opposition. The success of the Miners’ Strike and the fact that the Government could not have used the Act against the miners as it would simply have been disobeyed meant that if it had not been used against the railwaymen it would have been seen to be inoperable). The trade unions have acknowledged now that the law of the land must be obeyed. But this is a mixed victory. It ensures that the Act will continue to be seen as anti-trade union, and that the trade unions will insist that the Labour Party repeal it when next in power or else betray its first function as representative of the organised working class. In the economic struggle (engineering notably), the working class has forced its leaders to take on serious trials of strength with the employers for which they have had little liking. So far, the working class has not sustained a defeat on the economic front. Indeed the procedure agreements recently worked out strengthen working class organisation on the shop floor.
The pressure from the working class and its organised expression - the trade unions - has continued to operate on the Labour Party in opposition. It has been unable to let its Left and Right join battle on ideological issues to their hearts' content, because it is being called on to perform its first function - representing the working class in Parliament. This pressure is made worse by the fact that the PLP must oppose in the name of the working class those policies which it espoused and defended when in Government.
In fact, the PLP funked the Industrial Relations Bill fight. Instead of either forcing the Government to withdraw the Bill or forcing a General Election on the issue, the PLP settled for vociferous and passionate token opposition. On Incomes Policy, the party healed the rift by re-opening "discussions and consultations" with the trade union leaders which should conveniently grind on until the next election when a face-saving formula involving the hoary myth of a "vital and developing national economy with more for all" can just about be credibly resurrected. It will have to be. The Left certainly have provided no alternative.