30.03.1995

Opportunists moving right

VETERAN communist Bill Matthews once predicted the political trajectory of a young Party firebrand, Kevin Hughes, who left the CPGB to join the New Communist Party. Bill predicted that the move after that would be into the Labour Party, then on to selection as an MP, and finally settling in as a rightwing parliamentarian. The last piece of the prediction seems to be coming to pass.

Kevin Hughes, sponsored NUM MP for Doncaster North, has rejected NUM policy to stand by clause four and thrown his weight in with the Blair Yuppies’ Tory political vision.

It might be noted, incidentally, that the Webbs did not in fact invent the famous form of words. These came more or less directly from the constitution of the Miners Federation of Great Britain and had been in place at least on paper since 1900.

The power of the miners’ union and the labour movement at large undoubtedly led to their wording being drafted into the new political party’s constitution, albeit with a bit of tarting up by the Webbs.

More particularly was clause four, part five, which was simultaneously drafted to exclude communists and Marxists from the party and to keep it firmly within social democratic bounds.

Hughes’ opportunism does his mining and union past a great discredit, but does go to show the way that parliament and being a bigshot at Westminster totally destroys honest class principle, no matter how much the heart has thumped before setting off to that evil place.

Blair and all those diving into the gravy train for high office are the antithesis of class principle and socialist struggle. Honest members of the Labour Party ought to reflect deep and hard as to whether they really want to share a bed with such people.

The stench coming outside is unbearable, so the reek within that organisation must belie belief.

Dave Douglass