13.03.2003

Impact on the world

The Weekly Worker asked Tony Benn for his impressions of the assembly

In 1945, I was sitting in this hall as a 21-year-old when Attlee came onto the platform to announce that Labour had won the election and he was prime minister. That led to the end of the British empire, the welfare state, trade union rights, full employment and so on. Then, a few months later, in this hall the general assembly of the United Nations met and that was the world attempting to find an alternative to war. So this is a historic hall. The last few weeks have seen a huge recovery in confidence. History is not made by good leaders who pat you on the head - it's when people have enough confidence to demand things. Then the question is how you focus that public opinion. The movement can't be narrowed down to one ideological analysis, the 'you've got to follow my line or you're out' approach. That's a dead duck. It has to something far broader than that. Nor do you want the movement to degenerate into being about personalities. It's about bigger issues - peace, democracy and parliament, world development. If this meeting concentrates on those themes, then it will have an echo that goes well beyond the ranks of the left or the trade union movement. It can have a really big impact in the world. I don't want to talk about Blair. The Labour Party is an alliance that has the capacity to organise to bring about some change - so that's my reason for being in it. I just don't believe there's any point in talking about personalities in the party. What you see in this period is the Labour Party in the process of recovery, or at least the ideas that gave birth to the Labour Party are. New Labour is long past its sell-by date.