Mass action
Britain towards nuclear disarmament. The drift is clear.
The point was made more forcibly in a paper presented to the autumn national council of CND. It said: 'Our over-riding goal is to convince the the way forward for the peace movement of the public by the next general election of the case for complete nuclear disarmament by Britain, and the adoption of a credible defence policy which does not rely on nuclear weapons.
The same paper gave the first pointer about how this twin-track policy will be
The re-election of the Thatcher government in arrival of the at the end of that year, has witnessed the beginnings of a new debate within the British peace movement. Despite evidence to tbe contrary, the Kinnockite Eurocommunist leadership of the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND) is convinced that on the wane. Lacking confidence in the movement's ability to mobilise to win its demands, peace movement leaders campaign away from disarmament and toward polite lobbying and cosy discussion among like minded 'experts' which offer little threat to the established order. So far this has not proved easy.
Annie BRADY
The anti-missiles radicalisation which swept Western Europe at the end of the
1970s woke a slumbering Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) from its 15-year doze. Hundreds of thousands of new activists poured onto the streets of Britain to protest America's project of forcing them to participate in a
European theatre of "limited' nuclear war.
The radicalisation found a direct reflection - and a ready response — among the ranks of the Labour Party.
Campaigners believed Labour to be the only party capable of forming a government prepared to ban the nukes. They were further encouraged to throw their hat into Labour's ring by the accelerating trend the leftward within party.
The demand to rid Britain of nuclear weapons was equally strong making conference committed Labour to next election on a profighting the gramme of unilateral abandonment of all
That poliey has been nuclear weapons.
at every subsequent conferconfirmed ence.
activists expected Labour to
Many enter the 1983 election campaigning hard on a unilateralist ticket. It would, they thought, be carried to power on an four years' anti-Tory vote built from experience of Thatcher's war-mongering policies. Such expectations were naive.
During the election, several prominent
Labour spokespeople publicly attacked the party's unilateralist policy, while the
Tories made hay with the threat of
Britain's
Russian hoards over-running shores. Labour was resoundingly defeated.
The internal disarray of the party carried no assurances that Labour had - or, more importantly, would implementany alternative to the Tory hard line.
26 the anti-missiles movement is want to reorient the politics of mass protest
But neither was it the case that the Thatcher government was popular. Britain's quirky electoral system meant that Thatcher was returned, with a massive parliamentary majority, by only 43 per cent of all those who voted.
This defeat created a huge debate both within the peace movement and party itself. The leadership of the interpretation. They argued - and many believed them - that Labour lost because its unilateralist policies were profoundly unpopular. Now it was necessary reorient the campaign, to take account
*British public's fear of defence-
First they tried for a freeze policy, in counterposition to proposals for a mass mobilisation. Delegates to CND's annual conference at the end of 1983 threw the idea out. Chastened by that experience, during 1984 they have pursued a twin-track course of fighting ideological high-ground while eously playing down mass actions.
First they have upped the ideological anti against the "fundamentalists' - so labelled by the British peace movement's chief theorist Edward Thompson, who argues that the peace movement must reclaim "defence' because it makes us think of various good things, like liberties' and our traditions' and our "way of life. Now they are cautiously introducing the idea movement must adopt a policy in favour of non-nuclear defence, in order to persuade public opinion that getting rid of nuclear weapons will not leave this country bare in front of its so-called enemies.
At the last annual conference of CND, in November 1984, a resolution was adopted which, while saying CND would take no positions on specific non-nuclear defence policies, argued for a 'national security policy'. This would be based on 'mutual East-West security' and would not exclude independent steps' by pursued. Recognising that CND is a 'broad church', with a wide variety of interests, it called on national CND to identify central campaigns for the moveothers can be supported where appropriate. confrontations with the rank and file, just a gradual realignment of what CND is
The idea of adopting a non-nuclear defence platform is more advanced at the level of the leadership. Last year saw the circulation (in secret, to the chosen few) of papers by prominent CND members
La non-nuclear alliance to take the peace movement into the next general election. So far the only such proposal to see the light of day was a resolution to annual conference on the formation of a 'national defence charter'.
didn't make the final agenda. Such proposals rest on the popular front
Eurocommunists, retheorised for the 1980s as the anti-Tory alliance'.
The leadership of the British peace movement has not, of course, plucked this debate from thin air. The whole discussion has been given a massive boost by the publication last year of Labour's new defence policy, Defence and Security
The document argues that Labour will abandon all nuclear weapons (with a few clever let-out clauses for a future Labour government), but will continuing British membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation'. (NATO) Labour will defend Britain by non-nuclear means - strengthening the navy and increasing forces on the Central European Front (Germany) - and argue from the inside that NATO should relinquish its nukes.
Pigs would fly first. If Labour were elected committed to such platform there would be a simple choice: NATO or unilateralism. Since the new statement was overwhelmingly adopted at the 1984 conference, many party members have had time to reflect. There is evidence of growing concern with the knotty question of NATO membership.
This debate was fuelled recently by a discussion paper presented to the Labour Party national executive by members of parliament (MPs) Tony Benn and Eric Heffer, which argues for
International Viewpoint 1 July 1985
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a discussion in the ranks of the labour movement about whether Britain should withdraw from the American alliance. Commitment to NATO membership is a rather important cornerstone in making Labour safe to govern in an increasingly turbulent Britain. This paper has caused a storm of protest from Labour's leadership. As yet there is little support within the unions for NATO withdrawal. It is unlikely to become a party policy.
The discussion on non-nuclear defence fired a similar debate traditional that, in December, the women of the Greenham Common peace camp call a mass action to commemorate the anniversary of the date when NATO first announced its intention in Britain. This year (1984) the CND leadership called same time, at the Warsaw Pact embassies. The movement gave its verdict: only a handful turned out at the Russian embassy. CND General Secretary Bruce was forced to admit it was a complete flop. By the same token, a resolution to CND conference calling for a campaign against the Russian bomb was pushed off the agenda by
There is little prospect of the leadership being able to ditch the campaign's commitment to NATO withdrawal this way. These new debates within the British peace movement make it essential to up the profile on NATO at an educational and propagandistic level, but debates which have begun within sections of the peace movement about the need to centre the campaign on this question are thoroughly misguided. There is no possibility of mass demonstrations in Britain against the alliance. To pose NATO as the central question for the peace movement in Britain today would de facto play into the hands of the leadership.
The main question to be tackled is still that of mass mobilisations versus polite lobbying. In a recent interview entitled CD'S new era CND chairperson Joan Ruddock argued ne need lor the peace campaign to ecome respectable. The emphasis should she argued, from cruise Trident - where many believe there is more possibility for a popular front. This would be, she said, 'a different kind of campaign, it would involve a lot of intense lobbying, a tremendous amont of direct contact with MPs who are essentially very hostile to CND ... (but) it's not easy for a mass campaign that Greenham and direct action to make the adjustment.?' that the leadership of the peace movement fundamentally lacks confidence in the capacity of the activists to mobilise. This is especially difficult to argue, however, in Britain.
The membership of CND continues to grow rapidly. At the beginning of this were. 110,000 December's annual conference was up 13 per cent on the previous year. If the people in local groups is taken into account, that puts CND's membership around the 400,000 mark.
The peace movement is still the single biggest social movement that Britain has for more than 50 years. campaigners in Britain too have the shining of Greenham Common every woman active in Britain calls herself a Greenham woman. Their determination to endure any hardship for the cause dearest to their hearts has been a constant source of strength and inspiration to the rest of the movement. More, they have conclusively shown that not only is the peace movement in business to challenge the status quo — but that it can be done.
There is still an absolute majority in the opinion polls for getting rid of cruise missiles from British territory.
Of course the arrival in Britain of the first flight of cruise has created confusion among the ranks of the peace movement. Many currents - radical proponents of civil disobedience, and so on - believed that it was entirely possible for the peace movement their arrival. They failed to alliance with the organised labour movement and the need for a solution at the
That debate must now be had again. Especially after the experience historic year-long miners' apposite to explain that the institutions of the state are not neutral.
For the first time in many years the repressive role of the civil and military apparatus was experienced - directly and on a grand scale - on the British mainland. This matches the experiences of large sections of the peace movement who have already savoured the attentions of those same forces of 'law and order' It is for that reason that the Greenham women were among the first to line up with the miners.
Those who argue that the peace movement across Western Europe is in decline do not understand the modoe force that drives the current campaign At the end of the 1950s CND was formed to campaign against the atom bomb and organised the now-famous Easter manch
Aldermaston. It declined in mid 1960s and remained quiescem the end of the 1970s in an atmosp where nukes were remote and seemed the order of the day.
The new war-fighting strategies NATO itself is the main motivatoe today's campaign. The development sophisticated new generation of fighting nukes, American idea that it will be p to fight a little' nuclear war in Bu
London,
25 October 1981 - 200,000 people demonstrate on Labour Party-backed demonstration (DR)
CONT
International Viewpoint
1 July 1985 backyard, will continue to provoke NATO's new policies won't go away and neither will the anti-missiles
The debates in the British morem are common across West Europe, oni the themes are particular. In Gonzales is redirecting the PSOE 'softer' line on NATO. In the Netherlan the Christian Democrats are pu strings on the commitment not to cruise in the Netherlands. In each the peace movement face the fundamental question: continue tbe mas mobilisations or find a different conse?
The role of socialists within the mone ment is neither to stand aside from partial developments within the missiles campaign, nor to demand adopts a full-blown socialist stra We must fight shoulder to shoulder the hundreds of thousands of campa across West Europe who are as mined as ever to change the nuclear stat quo.
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NO CRUISE MN CRUIS SILE