Left hands across the sea - link between leftist politics in the United Kingdom and the United States - Cover Story

National Review, July 19, 1993 by Dean Godson

ONE OF the more intriguing possibilities arising out of the New World Order is that the contours of British political debate might well revert to something resembling their pre-1945 form, wherein the British Left extolled the American radical tradition, while the Right was profoundly uneasy over her "democratic" and anti-colonial heritage.

These attitudes tended to be obscured during the superpower confrontation. The Vietnam War, the racial upheavals of the 1960s, and the succession of Republican Presidencies made it almost impossible for anyone on the Left to say anything good about American society.

This trend was reinforced by the almost simultaneous rise of the Right in both Britain and America in the late 1970s, which created the perception that the Conservatives were the Atlanticist Party. With a passion even exceeding Winston Churchill's for his mother's homeland, Mrs. Thatcher declared that America "has free enterprise built into her constitution. She has no Socialist Party and no danger of ever having one. She is the land of free enterprise, she is the land of freedom, she is the country of last resort and of safe haven for money." Predictably, socialists such as the miners' leader, Arthur Scargill, reacted bitterly to the kinship between those he described as "President Raygun and the Plutonium blonde."

A confluence of developments within what were the superpowers could well prompt the Left once more to articulate its admiration for America. The aging tribune of the British Left, Mr. Tony Benn, believes that the end of the Cold War is already resulting in the re-establishment of the umbilical cord between American radicals and the "libertarian Left."

Quite apart from his American wife--who in 1948 supported the Progressive Party presidential candidate, Henry Wallace--Mr. Benn has long thought the American Constitution more democratic than Britain's own; indeed, he takes care to justify his calls for root-and-branch change by reference to such U.S. precedents as the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr. Benn derives inspiration from Tom Paine and the co-operative set up in the 1820s by Robert Owen (arguably the first socialist) at New Harmony, Indiana, and was impressed by Malcolm X. "I went into the meeting [with Malcolm X] a white liberal," he recalls, "and I came out transformed."

Indeed. Mr. Benn has written that "being free from the legacy of ancient history, the United States is able to move more quickly then most countries ... if America went socialist it would happen quickly. There would be none of the endless debate by liberal intellectuals which took the steam out of the reform movement here. Campaigns like Jane Fonda's economic democracy and Ralph Nader's attacks on the big cooperations have a socialist flavor about them."

It may be argued that Mr. Benn's concerns are no longer representative of the new, Euro-oriented Labour Party. However, a younger generation of Labour activists has been forging its own kind of trans-Atlantic links. For example, Bernie Grant, the far-Left black MP for Tottenham, has been active in establishing contact with his counterparts in the Congressional Black Caucus and has invited the Reverend Al Sharpton to campaign for pet civil-rights causes in London.

Likewise, Diane Abbott, another black Labour MP from London, acknowledges that Labour's proposals for extending contract compliance do owe a debt to the American experience: indeed, the affirmative-action program to assist Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland--the only part of the United Kingdom where such "positive discrimination" exists--was largely implemented as a result of pressures from the United States.

The election of Bill Clinton as President has reinforced these trends. Indeed, Britain's left-liberal Guardian and the Transport and General Workers' Union co-sponsored a "Clinton Economics Conference" in London. The guests included Elaine Kamarck of the Progressive Policy Institute, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, and representatives of the UAW and the Teamsters. Some on the Left still resent the "Clintonization" of Labour, perceiving it as little more than a code word for a takeover by slick PR men. However, others feel that the Clinton campaign held profound lessons. Thus, the Transport Workers' boss, Bill Morris, declared: "If Clinton is right-wing, I want a part of it."

Disappointing as the Administrations performance has been so far, the British Left can still find much to admire in its goals. The mere sight of a liberal President dispensing patronage to previously marginal groups is consoling to them. Even in foreign policy, the emphasis on human rights--now expanded beyond Jimmy Carter's definition to include women's and minority issues--is attractive compared to the Realpolitik of Douglas Hurd. Indeed, the debate on whether to intervene in Bosnia has thrown the hawk v. dove divide into a confusion akin to that in America, and the Administration's willingness to contemplate air strikes against Serbian nationalists even evokes approval amongst elements of the Left, just as Ronald Reagan's raid on Libya once did on the Right.