Thatcher's five year plan: "Catch 22" for Kinnock

Labour Briefing no. 50, 28 October 1987, p. 6

Transcribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.

By-line as printed: Phil Hearse, Islington North CLP.

What plans does the new Thatcher government have in store for the working class? On these pages, we examine some of the details of the Tory plans for their third term. Here, PHIL HEARSE (Islington North Labour Party) explains that the proposed measures represent a major escalation in the attacks upon us.

In this third term of Thatcherism, the Tories intend to complete the job they initiated eight years ago.

This amounts to nothing less than the destruction of the post-war settlement in British politics, which under the Attlee government reordered British society around the welfare state, a strong nationalised sector of the economy, and government intervention to iron out the worst effects of the market.

This broad consensus is now being swept away. With it the whole panoply of institutions and practices designed to integrate the labour movement, and especially the trade union bureaucracy, into the joint planning and running of the economy is also doomed.

Changes

The changes at a political level will have a profound impact on the lives of ordinary people, and on the structure of our society.

In other words, Thatcher's political "revolution" is going to lead to an economic and social "revolution" as well.

A few examples suffice to give us a whiff of what the next five years have in store:

• • The social security system will be ended. Payments to claimants will be replaced with loans from the "social fund".
• • The health service is intended to complete the transition from the old NHS to an "American" system — private medicine for those who can afford it, and a run down skeleton "public" system for the poor.
• • Housing policy aims to destroy public housing, and to create a private renting market with unrestricted rents. Zooming property prices will drive working class people out of the newly-fashionable inner-city areas threatening Labour's political base.
• • Education will be totally restructured and centralised, with the reintroduction of grammar schools and other forms of elitism, and the end of free schooling.
• • Local government will be progressively dismembered and put into private hands, again attacking an area of Labour influence.
• • Denationalisation will continue with the privatisation of electricity and the introduction of water meters in private homes.
• • The powers of the police, the courts and the judges will be progressively strengthened.
• • New anti-union laws will be introduced.

These are just a few examples. Thatcher has set her face against the policy of the "consolidation" urged by former Leader of the House John Biffen. No, she wants to push her counter-revolution to its logical end.

But what is that end? And what should the socialist response be?

Thatcher's aim, which she has pursued more consistently than her critics like John Biffen, is significantly to alter the relationship of class forces in Britain, by introducing social and economic policies which would weaken the organisations of the working class, divide the working class and create a new social and political "settlement" with the scope and permanence of that of 1945.

Settlement

The post-war settlement lasted for 30 years. Thatcher's settlement is meant to last for the foreseeable future, well into the next century, to enable British capitalism to restore its profitability and overcome its historic crisis. Essentially, she is the executive of British capitalism's make or break survival plan.

Thatcher is not aiming at the destruction of the parliamentary system — fascism or anything like that. The logical end to which she aspires is a free market economy, an authoritarian but not fascist state, and the locking of the working class and the oppressed into a permanently subordinate and powerless position.

If the working class and oppressed can be broken, if they can be rendered defenceless on the factory floor and in social and political life in general, capitalism can weather the current crisis, and survive. This is the reality behind the cunning rhetoric demanding a "leaner, fitter, more competitive British industry".

The boldness and scope of this scheme, breath-taking and far-sighted by comparison with anything the Labour leadership even dreams of, has thrown the labour movement into its worst crisis since the second world war.

The Kinnock leadership is thrashing about trying to work out how the Labour Party can deal with Thatcher by being "moderate". The answer, of course, is that you can't.

The irony of Thatcherism is that the changes being undertaken are so vast. A Labour government would have to embark on a massive programme of nationalisation and restoration of the welfare state — of the same scope as the Tory changes have been — just to return to the situation before 1979, let alone go forwards to socialism. Such action would lead inevitably to sharp conflict with the big business interests which back Thatcher.

Fear

Thus the fear of challenging big business which usually holds Labour back from making real strides out of post-war consensus towards a socialist transformation of society will now act to deter even a challenge to the Thatcher post-'79 changes. A Labour government which accepted the Thatcherite restructuring of society would be colluding in the operation of British capitalism's survival plan.

This is the "Catch 22" that Thatcher has got Kinnock into. She has said to him, effectively, "if you want to be a moderate in politics, then you have to accept the basic changes of my counter-revolution." Bryan Gould eloquently announced the surrender of the Kinnock leadership to this "Catch 22" when he made his speech on wider share ownership at the Labour Party Conference.

Only really radical action both in fighting Thatcher's plans every inch of the way, and at government level in the future (with rank and file labour movement support), can undo the handiwork effected by Thatcher if the new "five year plan" is implemented in full.

There is, then, no alternative, but for the minority who are prepared to resist Thatcher's onslaught and Kinnock's treachery to stand and fight now. The more a tradition of resistance is created now, the easier will be that transformation in the years to come.

transcribed from the page image, 4 Nov 2026 (Hearse/Lloyd follow-up); spelling as printed. Under the section head 'The Tory agenda'; headline printed 'THATCHER'S FIVE YEAR PLAN: "Catch 22" for Kinnock'. The bold standfirst naming 'PHIL HEARSE (Islington North Labour Party)' is given first in bold; the by-line 'By Phil Hearse / Islington North CLP' sits inside the second column and is not repeated in the body. The two opening paragraphs are set in bold and are given in bold, with the italic phrase inside. The bulleted examples are kept as a list. Left out: the photo of Thatcher with its 'RESOLUTE' backdrop, its caption and credit, and the Davy Jones article 'Tory attacks on local government: An erosion of democracy' in the lower part of the page. Fully legible.