Policy Review (Labour Party)

The Policy Review was the name given to the British Labour Party's wide-ranging study to formulate popular policies in the aftermath of its third successive electoral defeat in 1987.

On 14 September 1987 the chairman of Labour's home policy committee, Tom Sawyer, put forward the Policy Review plan in a paper after consultation with Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Sawyer's paper included recommending ways Labour could win back the skilled working class, reviewing Labour's policies on enterprise and wealth creation, taxation and social security. The home policy committee voted overwhelmingly in favour of Sawyer's three-year plan to produce a new statement of Labour policy by 1990. The Labour Party annual conference voted to endorse the Policy Review on 28 September.

However MPs on the left of the Labour Party criticised the Policy Review. At the home police committee meeting that endorsed it, Tony Benn unsuccessfully put forward an alternative paper titled The Aims and Objectives of the Labour Party. This included proposals for leaving NATO, ending nuclear power, abolition of the House of Lords, the democratisation of the magistracy and the introduction of assessors into the High Court to supervise judges. The paper also stated that Labour should support everyone’s right to follow their own conscience, even if this involved breaking the law. Benn claimed "There is a real risk that if we are seen to be abandoning our faith, in the search for media approval, we could be seen as a purely opportunistic party that is prepared to say anything to get into office and is ready to sacrifice good policies when the opinion polls swing against us". At a socialist conference held in Benn's constituency in Chesterfield on 24/25 October, left-wing Labour figures such as Arthur Scargill, Ken Livingstone and Eric Heffer attacked the Policy Review. Scargill said Labour's new realism was "class collaboration" that offered "palliatives not revolutionary change".

...
Wikipedia