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The Healey side maintains that much of Benn's support comes from Marxists and other radicals who are not bona fide Laborites. They do not accuse Benn of being Marxist himself, a label he rejects, but there is little doubt that he has become a point man for Marxist groups. Benn's left would take Britain out of the European Community, unilaterally scrap all of Britain's nuclear weapons and bar U.S. cruise missiles from British soil. It would abolish the House of Lords, nationalize all important industries and redistribute the nation's wealth. "If we stick to our guns, if we are not diverted," Benn urges his supporters, "we have it in our power in this year 1981 to take the first step forward to bring socialism in our time."
Last week Shadow Cabinet Home Secretary Roy Hattersley, Healey's chief strategist, warned that the left's attempt to take control of the party manifesto "will alienate millions of our supporters, tearing the party into tatters and denying us the electoral victory the country needs." Noted the London Observer: "A fundamental battle about the nature of the Labor movement is now joined, with not only its policies but its whole direction within the body politic at issue."
If Benn wins this year or next, his election will affect not only the Labor Party. Large numbers of Labor voters—as well as some Labor M.P.s—could be expected to defect to the Social Democrats, who are already the most potent new force to arrive on the British political scene since the Labor Party itself was formed in 1900. The S.D.P. was founded last spring by the so-called Gang of Four—former Labor Cabinet Ministers Williams, Roy Jenkins, David Owen and William Rodgers—after longstanding differences between Labor's left and right wings finally seemed irreconcilable. The Social Democrats now have only 16 M.P.s—15 disaffected Laborites and one ex-Tory—but have built up wide public support for their moderate views. Party leaders endorse British membership in the European Community, nuclear defense and a mixed economy. What the fledgling party lacks in grass-roots organization it more than makes up for in political skills. To the surprise of even its own leadership, Jenkins nearly won a traditionally safe Labor seat in a by-election in July.
Last week the S.D.P. made another smart move: party leaders attended the Liberal Party's conference in Wales and there agreed to form an alliance to fight the next election. The Liberals, who have not held power alone since 1915, have only eleven M.P.s (out of 635), but they polled 14% of the vote in the general election of 1979. The marriage with the S.D.P. may have been one of convenience rather than passion, but if the two parties had remained separate they would have canceled each other out scrambling for the key centrist vote.
A the meeting with the Liberals, Williams roused the audience with a stirring plea for unity. "We shall never be forgiven—nor should we be," she said, "if we allow struggles over personalities or the pursuit of advantage for one party over the other to deflect us from our purpose." The alliance, she said, would be "nothing less than a new beginning for Britain and our battered and unhappy world."