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Betrayal after betrayal
II – Chaos, then bloodshed
Betrayal after betrayal
Tony Benn.
The name was enough to infuriate many, those on the right but also those who saw themselves as centralists, even soft-left. When he spoke, what he said, would drive many to distraction and they would rage against him and everything that he stood for in addition to what they misbelieved about him too. He was a polarising figure to rival Thatcher or Tebbit.
After two recounts, Benn had been elected in the constituency of Bristol East. It had been a close-run thing indeed but he had managed it. Time spent on the ground there in his constituency, softening his tone some, along with mistakes from his leading opponent had seen him elected to the Commons. A strong run from the Alliance there in the form of their Liberal candidate could have hurt him but instead votes were taken from the Conservative candidate. The closeness of the vote mattered little in the end: Benn was in the Commons.
During the 70s, Benn had been a minister and learnt some harsh lessons about the business of government. Civil servants, the big industrialists & the banks and the media: they ran things in Britain. The management team – an elected government – would change but things would stay the same with the establishment looking after itself. In 1980, Benn was regarded (fairly or not) as having driven away the Gang of Four and the others that followed them to form the Social Democrats a year later when he spoke of what a Labour government would do in its first days and first weeks in office to change the status quo. That was his hope; though he feared also what he had seen when he was in government would happen again upon Labour being elected with those in the establishment opposing the democratic will of the people.
He warned of betrayals being made.
Benn wasn’t one of Foot’s shadow ministers and neither was he appointed to a ministerial role by the new prime minister. Most of those who held shadow roles kept them with only a few yet key changes made after the election. Those ministers went to their ministries to implement Labour policies laid out in their manifesto and ran into immediate issues.
At the Home Office, Roy Hattersley was made aware of the growing threats to democratic security in the nation from extremist groups arming themselves. He had been made aware of some of this as shadow minister when information was shared with him following Privy Council rules yet he had underappreciated the scale before. Now he was being told about some missing weapons from official stocks but more than that illegal foreign imports of arms and reports of military training being undertaken by those on the far left and the far right. He endeavoured to do something about that. There would be no more watching this happening; something would be done to stop it: these radicals would be combatted. However, a key focus for him was on the changes to be made to policing. In places, the reaction of the police to urban rioting was over the top and unnecessary. The rule of law must be kept but what had been occurring was wrong and the deaths at police hands were to stop. Tebbit had also sent – through his personal intervention with Leon Brittan’s tenure as home secretary – the police against striking workers. There was a right to picket, as long as it was done lawfully. The police hadn’t been acting lawfully. Hattersley wanted to see changes made, reasonable changes. Civil servants had objections and explained how these matters weren’t as simple as portrayed but Hattersley was insistent. He had a fight on his hand at the Home Office.
Denis Healy had retained his foreign affairs brief. At the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, he wanted to start implementing Labour policy when it came to the European Economic Community (EEC): leaving that organisation as per the manifesto with his own personal feelings put aside. The newspapers were calling it ‘British withdrawal’, a clever double entrée. There had been members of the party calling for giving support to the ANC in South Africa and leaving NATO whose demands hadn’t made it into the manifesto but a planned new take on the country’s international relations especially when it came to the United States – the invasion of Grenada late last year was still rather contentious – was what he wanted to see undertaken. Again, it was the civil servants who spoke out in opposition… as Benn had said they would. What about treaties and international agreements with the United States and other allies in the Cold War stand-off? What would all of this cost in terms of trade and jobs when it came to pulling out of the EEC? They were employed to serve the elected government and would do so, but this hadn’t been thought through and the objections were valid.
Peter Shore at the Treasury as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer had more success there yet, again, there were questions asked and objections put as to the practicalities of those tax rises for the rich and the cuts for the poor… the definitions of rich and poor were questioned. The markets had already taken a tumble due to the Labour victory and weren’t going to recover; the flight of capital aboard was another concern. Yet, the Treasury was more adaptable than other ministries to the desires of new ministers. Civil servants nodded their heads rather than argued with the knowledge that their new Chancellor and his ministerial team would learn quick enough the realities of the situation.
At the Ministry of Defence, John Silkin was a man with experience of government. He understood civil servants. The facts from him were laid out clearly for them: the government had new policies and would implement them. Silkin would see the unilateral nuclear disarmament of Britain, the removal of Cruise from the country and a renegotiation when it came to American military presence in the nation more than just their nuclear-armed missiles: he spoke of their multiple air bases and the nuclear submarines in Scotland. The cruise missiles – the road-mobile GLCM weapon which had arrived at Greenham Common in late 1983 – were first on the agenda then everything else. He wanted to see other changes made to the British Armed Forces as well which following manifesto ideas and the will of the Labour Party. Silkin was informed like Hattersley about missing weapons and was more alarmed than the home secretary was especially as they were from Territorial Army stocks because there was the notion of strengthening that reserve force to cut back on regular forces elsewhere, yet his focus remained on the key issue of Cruise. There were agreements, the civil servants said. We’ll make new agreements, the new Defence Secretary told them.
Merlyn Rees had been made Northern Ireland Secretary in a post-election change of responsibilities. The situation in Ulster had been an outrage under Tebbit and Rees’ history there – he was a former Northern Ireland Secretary so he returned to the role he had held from 1976 to 1976 – was well-regarded by Foot. Collusion between the security services and loyalist terrorists would cease and those involved would be prosecuted. All terrorists, all law-breakers, would be treated the same. The Republicans would get nothing from a Labour government unless they respected democracy. There was a manifesto commitment (another late addition) to talking with the Republic of Ireland though again, there was no talk of overriding the will of the people in Ulster despite what many of Rees’ colleagues might have wanted. Civil servants at the Northern Ireland Office were sceptical of how this all might work and let him know. Rees was in-charge though and would make sure that the will of the democratically-elected government trumped the desires and prejudices of civil servants with vested interests.
Neil Kinnock and John Smith had gained new positions from what they held in the shadow cabinet to those they had in government. The former was now the Employment Secretary and the latter held the post of Energy Secretary. The two were seen by many as young modernisers. They had manifesto promises to honour though were not as passionate about them as others would have been. Each was wary of how far the hard left of the party had got such pledges into the manifesto. Kinnock and Smith both met with union leaders like Foot wanted them to. What was regarded as Tebbit’s war on the unions and the working man was over with. Smith had an especially personally unpleasant meeting with Arthur Scargill from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) where Scargill was insistent that Tebbit was due to come after them next and made demands on the Energy Secretary for his members. Kinnock talked with the trade union bosses and they were eager for the roll-back to start of recent legislation first then move to renationalisation of so much which had been privatised under Conservative rule. The two secretaries of state put a lot of blame on their civil servants when things didn’t go as fast as planned. Much of that was true as laws needed changing and agreements needing renegotiation… yet each slowed things down so as to not let matters get out of hand with all that the unions wanted. Kinnock and Smith didn’t see that they were betraying anyone, just thinking of the country.
Overnight, Britain didn’t change too much. There were a lot of people that hoped that it would and others that dreaded the consequences of a Labour government but there were far too many sensible people involved. None of Foot’s senior cabinet members could ever be described as being from the loony left.
The new prime minister was relaxed about the slowness of things. He didn’t want to act too fast, there was plenty of time. He also didn’t want to upset people either. Foot had a minority government propped up by the Alliance whose votes he needed in the Commons to get anything done. He also didn’t want to upset his own party colleagues so didn’t pick fights. A just, fairer Britain was to be built under his leadership. That would take some time though. Where was the rush? Some comments were made about him personally when it came to these actions. There were whispers that he was still affected by the shooting the other year. He had officially only been lightly injured – ‘winged by a coward’s bullets’ – and recovered quickly. Questions were raised on whether he was fit to be a prime minister with the toll that perceived to be taking on him because he wasn’t as active as before he entered Downing Street. Those remarks ignored how busy he was as prime minister though, especially with running a government built upon the need to appease so many as he had to.
Militant hadn’t gone away. They had five allied MPs elected as Labour candidates. Those MPs had friendships and connections as well. They dreamed of a bigger role but were wholly frustrated in being of any importance. At first that was the case. However, things changed.
Owen from the Social Democrats crowed at the ‘moderating’ influence he and his supporters claimed to have over the government. There were those on the right of Labour who did the same. Whispers came that civil servants were to blame from Benn and his allies as well. A narrative started to form that the left was being blocked from doing what it had been elected to do and there were those who were going to stop what the people had voted for. It was a betrayal! There were rumblings of severe discontent and anger was brought forth.
An outlet was needed for this, but where was that to come from?