by Benn, Tony
The theme of anarchy and unmanageability is beginning to emerge now in the Tory press and indicates that they may be thinking of turning this to political advantage. I think Ronald Butt in the Sunday Times began it, and Hailsham and others are on the same tack. The fear of anarchy is something that drives people to the right and this undoubtedly is what Heath wants.
Thursday 17 February
Today we had the vote on the second reading of the European Communities Bill. Heath won by eight votes with four Liberals voting with him. There were fantastic scenes in the House and great rage that some Labour people who had abstained would have carried Heath absolutely to the brink of defeat if they had voted.
I looked in afterwards to see Harold. He was immensely depressed. The fact that he had held the Party together right through to the second reading of the Bill was a great achievement and he couldn’t understand why people weren’t grateful to him. Of course, in practice, the situation is that everyone is thinking of Heath’s humiliation, and nobody thinking of Harold’s success.
But understandably, he being human, the terrible experiences he has had over the last few months on Europe have made him obsessed with his own position and he wanted a boost. I tried to cheer him up.
Monday 28 February
John Davies announced £35 million for Govan Shipbuilders at UCS.
Harold was on television tonight. He is going through a bad patch, though how anyone can tolerate being Leader of the Labour Party I just don’t know. It is an almost impossible position. No one likes leaders, and though Harold seems unattractive, I can’t think of anyone who would be better.
Friday 10 March
Up at 5.45 and flew with Frank McElhone to UCS. Jimmy Reid was away, resting after the strain of the last few months but Jim Airlie was there and so were some of the others. They told me that Marathon, who manufacture oil rigs, wanted about £12 million for Clydebank which would work out at about £4,800 per job. The shop stewards were quite prepared to support the Marathon bid within reason; the men would hold together even if Marathon fell through.
I had coffee with Jerry Ross, who is one of the old Communist shop stewards, Roddy MacKenzie, who has been the Treasurer, Bob Dickie and Willy McInnes who is a Labour Party shop steward. We talked about the next stage and in fact what these great revolutionaries want is simply joint production committees to share decision-making with the management. When I said, ‘Surely you want more than this,’ they replied, ‘No – you must let the workers learn before you give them added responsibilities to carry. You must let them learn.’ And so, far from this being a great Trotskyist plot (not that I ever thought it was), it turns out the most modest demands are being made by these people. I was much impressed to hear Jerry Ross, for example, saying, ‘If we had a joint production committee, we should want to sit down when we made a profit and say “Now look, let’s share some of it out in dividends, some to the state in payment of interest for the money they have loaned us, some in wages and some in investment.”’
This is where you do have to rethink the propaganda that you get poured at you suggesting that the shop floor is irresponsible. In fact, the shop floor is not only responsible but painfully modest in the demands that it makes and I must try to get this point across in future speeches.
While I was with them, they told me that the ‘David Frost Programme’ had invited them to take part but in fact it was all planned to be a punch-up on the air. When they handed around a lot of drinks to the men before they took part, Jim Airlie had said, ‘If anyone has more than a single beer, I won’t let him on the programme.’ Very impressive.
Wednesday 15 March
A big issue today was the Special Branch raids in Liverpool on the International Socialists: some friends of Stan Orme and Eric Heffer have been arrested and there is a great row about it.
Thursday 16 March
This afternoon there was an absolute bombshell: President Pompidou announced there would be a referendum on whether the French wished to have the Community enlarged.
At the PLP I spoke briefly and said that the implications of the French calling a referendum were important. It indicated a complete breakdown of confidence between Heath and Pompidou, since Heath had not been informed in advance. It was a continuing problem and we would have to look at the whole issue again. The Executive would look at it next week and the Parliamentary Committee would have to interpret it. I thought that a referendum would bring about Party unity. There was a general sort of air of congratulation and I was cheerful today.
I came home and worked on a paper on the referendum for the Executive.
Tonight Dick Crossman was fired from the New Statesman. I think they had hoped he wouldn’t recover from his illness over the winter, but he did. They then tried to get him to withdraw on the grounds of health, and he wouldn’t, so they just fired him.
Wednesday 29 March
By 8 to 6, the Shadow Cabinet voted for a referendum: Peter, Michael, Fred, Harold, myself, Jim, Ted, and Bob Mellish for; Roy (though mildly), Shirley, Harold Lever, Tony Crosland, Douglas Houghton, George Thomson against. So it was agreed to put a recommendation to the Party meeting that when the Market was debated again in April, we should vote on a two-line Whip in favour of a referendum.
Well, that was a tremendous victory.
Tuesday 4 April
Stansgate. Went shopping. Worked up in my little office. I was then diverted on to my carpentry. Mary Lou Clarke, my new secretary, started working at home today for the first time and we talked on the telephone getting everything straight.
I phoned Rupert Murdoch about the referendum, thinking it was about time I got some press support. Ian Aitken phoned and I tried to contact Alastair Hetherington of the Guardian to win him over as well.
Friday 7 April
Went to see Rupert Murdoch, who was with Larry Lamb, Editor of the Sun, and the Editor of the News of the World. Murdoch is just a bit younger than me. He is a bright newspaper man who has made a humdinger success of the Sun, which nobody else was able to do anything about, and the News of the World, although it has been declining in circulation, is now fairly stable. He was opposed to the referendum, because he is in favour of entering Europe, so his two Editors were opposed to it as well. But I used all the arguments I could and they asked if I would write about it.
Then I went to the Reform Club to see Hetherington to try to persuade him to change his opinion about a referendum and I said he couldn’t refuse just on the basis that it would embarrass Roy Jenkins and Dick Taverne, as he had told me yesterday.
Monday 10 April
In the afternoon, just as I was leaving a meeting in the House, Peter Carver, the Bristol Evening Post lobby correspondent, caught me, saying ‘Come with me’, and began running through the corridors. I sort of pursued him. ‘It’s urgent,’ he said, as he dashed downstairs and told me the rumour was that Roy Jenkins, George Thomson and Harold Lever were going to resign from the Shadow Cabinet because of the referendum. So I went to see Harold and he said that it was true. I think he was actually quite pleased.
Then we went to the Home Policy Committee and a statement was put out by Roy. As his attitude towards the referendum had been extremely relaxed at the second Shadow Cabinet, I don’t believe it was that, but more the fact that he realised he couldn’t go on as Deputy Leader of a party when he disagreed with a central part of the party’s policy. I think that is really the position. Of course what he has been able to do is put the blame on me for the referendum.
I was interviewed in a hostile way on the ‘News at Ten’ by Douglas Stewart. Then I went on ‘24 Hours’ with Harold Lever: he was most arrogant about the public and denounced the referendum. Although I like Harold personally, he really is a Tory – there is no question about it: a nice, kind, generous, humane, liberal Conservative. Brian Faulkner, the former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, was also there, having been interviewed by Bob MacKenzie. He got entirely brushed aside by this row. I felt it was a bit discour
teous until I remembered that the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland is just like the Chairman of the London County Council, nothing more.
All of a sudden, I realised that the referendum campaign had gone wrong on me because it made me out as a splitter, whereas it had originally been brought forward as a peace move. But you are judged by results and this is the price I’m paying for that.
Tuesday 11 April
The Labour crisis is the main headline news story. I got the blame, as I expected. I had to go off early to Dusseldorf for the International Metalworkers Conference: Olaf Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden was there; Bognar, Minister of Scientific Affairs from Hungary, and Ken Coates of the Institute for Workers’ Control.
I flew home in the afternoon because of the crisis in the Party, cancelling a visit to Lausanne.
Wednesday 12 April
PLP meeting at 10.30. Bob Mellish introduced it and said he wanted to give the background to the Common Market debate next Tuesday. There would be a three-line Whip on our amendment calling for a General Election before entry; and the Shadow Cabinet had decided to have a two-line Whip in support of the amendment by the Conservative MP for Banbury, Neil Marten, calling for a referendum. He recommended support for this course of action. I detected a great deal of coolness by the Party and the general feeling was that the referendum should now be dropped as too divisive.
Tuesday 18 April
Worked all morning on my contribution to the European Communities debate in the Commons this afternoon. First of all we had the amendment on the General Election – a very powerful speech by Michael Foot – then I interposed on the referendum by agreement with Michael and Peter Shore. I made my speech, which was detailed and long, and of course I got the absolute anger and hostility of the pro-Marketeers.
It wasn’t a successful speech because frankly, every time I talk about the Market I just annoy people. The anti-Marketeers don’t trust me because I am not anti-Market on principle, and the pro-Marketeers loathe me because I have pinpointed the thing that they find hardest to get away with, namely that they haven’t got the support of the public for this. I do think I have suffered very much over the referendum argument. Anyway, a number of Labour people abstained on the referendum, enough for Heath to win the day. So once again, the coalition has worked and Labour MPs have saved the Government: everything the Government has done this year has been done with the consent of the pro-Market Europeans in the Labour Party.
Wednesday 3 May
I talked to Frank McElhone this evening. He was very candid and said ‘Frankly at the moment, you have only got two friends in the Parliamentary Party – myself and yourself.’ I think this is probably an accurate account of how things stand.
Thursday 4 May
The solemn conclusion I have reached is that my support for UCS and the shop stewards, and my support for a referendum and my line on the Common Market have really alienated everybody. Put quite crudely, I have got to mend my fences.
Monday 5 June
Went to the House of Commons, where there were tributes paid to the Duke of Windsor. I haven’t referred in my diary to the death of the Duke of Windsor and the odious hypocrisy with which the royal family and the press and the Establishment handled it. Somehow, yesterday, this reached a peak. I didn’t hear the debate but the government motion forgot to offer condolences to the Duchess and it was only as a result of a backbench enquiry that the amendment was made. The Trooping of the Colour was not cancelled and Parliament didn’t adjourn on the day of the funeral of the former King. Tonight on television there was a marvellous programme about the Duke of Windsor which told his whole life story up to his abdication. Really, a lot of people are rediscovering how unattractive the monarchy is through the story of the Duke of Windsor.
Thursday 29 June
Caroline and I went to Number 10 for a dinner given by Heath for a Senegali delegation including musicians. I was standing in for Harold. Caroline liked the music and talked to Heath about it. I find it difficult to talk to him, but I asked him about Sir Francis Chichester, the yachtsman. He told me that Chichester was dying from leukaemia and that was why he had had to come back from his trip. I did make him laugh by saying that at the Labour Conference, we sang ‘The People’s Flag is deepest red . . .’ while the people at the back, the right wing, would sing, ‘The People’s Flag should be forgot, And never brought to mind again.’
Heath made a mad, impassioned speech about Europe and Africa and how now the imperial period was over, Europe was united and it could work with Africa to be an influence in the world. It was nineteenth-century imperialism reborn in his mind through status within the Common Market.
Caroline and I talked to Sir Patrick Reilly, the ex-Ambassador in Paris. He was the man who had written a sensational farewell despatch which was read everywhere in Whitehall and which included some frank comments on George Brown.
Wednesday 6 September
There was an awful massacre yesterday at the Munich Olympic Games – an appalling thing to have happened. Eleven Israeli athletes were killed by Arab terrorists from the Black September organisation.
Monday 11 September
Home Policy Committee. Another row over the Asians expelled from Uganda, although to be fair to him Jim Callaghan does recognise that we must have the Asians but just thinks we should limit the numbers. He was very open about it. I have some sympathy for those who say that it is easy for the people who live in Hampstead and Holland Park to say that the Asians should be admitted, but what are they themselves doing about helping the immigrants.
Saturday 30 September – Labour Party Conference, Blackpool
At 12.30 I went to see Harold. He was pacing up and down in his suite, in shirtsleeves. When I got there Marcia was with him. I hadn’t seen her for ages. Her book has just been sent to me with two or three very friendly pages about me, and I said to her, ‘How nice to see you – I haven’t seen you for a year. Thank you for sending me your book: I must say your references to me in it were much kinder than in Harold’s book,’ pointing at Harold but not looking at him. As a matter of fact, it is a nice book. It recreates the confidence we had in 1964 when we all thought a great deal of each other.
We talked around a bit and then I said, ‘You know, Harold, I have read all these silly things about a row between you and me but I’m the only one of your colleagues who came out publicly in your support in the summer and you know very well that I have never made things difficult. I was looking back over my papers for 1960 . . .’
‘So was I,’ he interrupted. ‘I sent for photocopies of everything that happened in 1960.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I had them in my files and I read your statement when you stood against Gaitskell, and I read my statement when I supported you and we have both been saying the same thing for many years.’ We talked about the Common Market resolutions, and it was altogether a friendly chat.
Monday 2 October
We had the formal opening of the Conference and I made my Chairman’s speech. It was thought to be a slight anti-climax. That is one of the difficulties about press coverage: the press had built it up as a challenge to Harold and were preparing themselves for Harold’s great triumph, in which he would emerge as the man who saved the Party from extremism. So the Conference was worried because it had seen all this and began recalling the 1960 days.
Jim Callaghan, in a long and enormously boring speech, moved ‘Labour’s Programme for Britain’ and took an hour and five minutes – he had been allowed about thirty-five. It was an absolute abuse of Executive privilege.
Went to the Labour Weekly reception and there was a big cake for their first anniversary. I said to Harold, ‘You stick the knife in for a change, Harold.’ Harold laughed, mainly because he thought it was an incredible piece of effrontery to make such a joke. At any rate, he did, and the story appeared in Labour Weekly.
Wednesday 4 October
We had the debate on the Common Market. I formally moved the statement and then
we had Composite 43, moved by Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire, the Boilermakers’ resolution, moved by Danny McGarvey, and the Engineers’ resolution. The debate was thrown open and we got through it very well. I said at the beginning of the debate that I didn’t intend to call many MPs but I knew that the Conference would obviously want to hear from Roy Jenkins and Michael Foot.
I had not actually had a ‘request to speak’ card from Michael Foot but I had had a handwritten note and I had not had a card at all from Roy; indeed, I had heard rumours that Roy didn’t wish to speak. So I asked Gwyn Morgan, who was sitting next to me, whether he’d send a message to Roy. He said he didn’t know whether he wanted to speak, so I said, ‘Well, that’s entirely up to him, but would you send a mesage, to ask him when he would like to speak, and I will call him.’ A message came back saying he didn’t want to speak. I said to the Conference, ‘As Roy has indicated that he doesn’t wish to speak, I will call Willy Hamilton to speak against the resolutions.’
Apparently at that moment people who were sitting near Roy shouted, ‘Chicken, coward,’ and he was absolutely furious. This became quite an issue – had I done it deliberately or not? Well, in fact, I did decide in the morning that I would do this because Roy had been attacking me all week for new levels of censorship, for trying to shut him up and for intolerance. So I decided I would put that to the test by making it clear that I had offered to call him to speak and let him face the consequences of not speaking. I knew his line – the ‘low profile’ which means you are afraid of the mass audience and you just want to talk in private little groups about your principles and integrity. Also Roy has been attacking me for a total failure of leadership. I had failed, he argued, to give leadership to the Conference of the Party; he by contrast was always giving leadership. The plain truth is that he hasn’t spoken at Conference about the Common Market for years, certainly not since he got anywhere near the top, and whatever people may say about me, I have certainly never lacked the guts to say what I thought. So, in fact, it was a prepared manoeuvre if you like; it’s a crude way of putting it but it was a prepared decision – if he refused to be called – to expose the fact that he wouldn’t speak. I wasn’t absolutely sure that he didn’t want to; that is the plain truth for the history books, in case anyone wants to know. And I am not at all sorry.
