A Rake's Painful Progress

It was the first time in his twelve years as Labor Party leader that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson delivered a speech to the party faithful without receiving a standing ovation. The inauspicious occasion was a recent one-day special conference of the Labor Party; the divisive issue was how Labor should vote in the June 5 referendum on Britain's continued participation in the European Common Market. Unimpressed by Wilson's tepid pro-Market address, the 962 delegates (representing some 6 million members of the labor movement) responded by voting almost 2 to 1 for British withdrawal from the EEC.

The conference's rebuff to Wilson was unprecedented but hardly unexpected. During the past month, virtually every institutional body of the labor movement has firmly opposed Wilson on this issue. The powerful Trades Union Congress, the party's National Executive Committee, 145 of Labor's 318 M.P.s and almost a third of the Labor Cabinet have publicly broken ranks with their leader. The split over the EEC coincides with an increasingly bitter party battle over economic policy, and Wilson, a man who has traditionally placed party unity above all, is now presiding over what may prove to be the worst Labor crisis since World War II. Some pro-EEC Labor ministers, notably Home Secretary Roy Jenkins and Consumer Affairs Minister Shirley Wilson, have threatened to resign if the vote should go against the Common Market.

Every Mailbox. The anti-Marketeers argue that EEC membership will lead to more unemployment, higher food prices and less sovereignty for Britain. Pro-Marketeers maintain that membership will reduce unemployment, lower food prices and bolster Britain's world influence. The official referendum campaign pamphlets--which are being delivered at government expense to every mailbox in the land this week--do little to clarify matters. With more drama than cogency, the Why You Should Vote Yes pamphlet argues that "outside [the EEC] we should be alone in a harsh, cold world with none of our friends offering to revive old partnerships."

The pro-Market appeal seems like hardheaded analysis, however, compared with the unabashed Little England jingoism of the Why You Should Vote No brief: "The real aim of the Market is, of course, to become one single country in which Britain would be reduced to a mere province ... This may be acceptable to some Continental countries. In recent times, they have been ruled by dictators, or defeated or occupied. They are more used to abandoning their political institutions than we are."

The campaign to present the EEC as a threat to British sovereignty is being spearheaded by left-wing labor leaders and their staunchest supporters within Wilson's Cabinet, Employment Minister Michael Foot, Trade Minister Peter Shore and Industry Minister Anthony Wedgwood Benn. Some political observers argue that Wilson's left-wing opponents are using the Common Market referendum to challenge his control of the Labor Party for reasons only tangentially connected to the EEC. The politically ambitious Benn, whose campaign to advance public ownership of British industry has made him anathema to the party's right wing, seems particularly intent on driving a wedge between the Prime Minister and Britain's restive labor unions.

For most of his twelve-year steward ship of Labor, Wilson has tried to straddle the ideological divide within the party and has particularly tried to avoid any kind of confrontation with the trade unions. In recent weeks, however, Britain's grim, almost apocalyptic economic situation (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS) has forced him to risk their disfavor. When Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey presented his tightfisted budget in the Commons last month, he candidly blamed Britain's briskly accelerating 25% inflation on union wage-increase settlements, which are now averaging 30% annually.

Knee-Jerk Cycle. "A rake's progress of this nature could not continue for long," warned Healey in spelling out the details of an austerity program that placed stiff taxes on items ranging from cigarettes to sewing machines. "If people insist on paying themselves more than they're earning, somehow or other the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whoever he is, has got to take it away again or the whole thing will blow up." Although he stopped short of advocating statutory wage controls, Healey further outraged the unions by offering a budget that will in effect allow unemployment to rise from its current level of 4% to nearly 8% by 1977.

Picking up the Healey gauntlet, several union leaders responded by asking for even higher wage settlements, the most astronomical being the National Union of Seamen's demand for an 81% increase. The knee-jerk cycle continued last week as an incensed Healey threatened to levy still more taxes--a move that provoked left-wing Labor M.P. Norman Atkinson to call publicly for new party leadership.

Thus Wilson faced the greatest crisis in his career as he returned from meetings with President Ford in Washington last week. Some British commentators have already begun composing his political obituary. Wrote London Sunday Times Columnist Ronald Butt: "Mr. Wilson has lost his raison d'e#233;tre as leader. The qualification that justified his other shortcomings was his success at being all things to all men. He has now lost that knack."

The Houdini of British politics has been cornered before, however, and may yet find a way out of his latest troubles. According to the most recent Gallup poll, British pro-Market sentiment is still strong: 60% plan to vote yes on the referendum, 29% no, and 11% are undecided. Moreover, most Tories will join the Prime Minister in plumping for a vote to stay within the EEC. A referendum victory would strengthen Wilson's hand to the point that most of his Labor adversaries would be forced to close ranks behind him again, if only begrudgingly. But the gravity of Britain's economic crisis demands political courage as well as political expediency. If the divided Labor Party remains too paralyzed to provide strong leadership, the fainthearted cry for a coalition government that was being raised at week's end by top Tories and the press may become an irresistible clamor.

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