Socialist Action No. 122, 22 November 1985
The scan: 122-nov-22-1985-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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No. 122 22 November 1985 30p
SOCiAList Special issue
ACTiON
' An alliance means you're with us - all the way?
Betty Heathfield, page 5
'We will see victory because we can settle for nothing less.'
Diane Abbott, page 2
'Successive Labour governments became
the intensive care units
for capitalism.?
Tony Benn, page 6
'The ANC and the
people of South Africa
Building an alliance for socialism S are natural allies in the
struggle for socialism
throughout the world.'
Ben Turok (ANC), page 9 •The resistance of the nationalist people is so deep that it cannot be crushed.'
Martin Collins, page 10
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ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
«We will see victory-
2 Socialist Action
BUIWAN
ALLIANCE
FOr
SONN
THE ALLIANCE for Socialism' weekend organised by Socialist Action on 16-17 November symbolised the politics of newspaper more than any other single thing it has done.
Speakers represented the most advanced class struggles place in the world today: the Central American revolution represented by the FDR of El Salvador, representative of the ANC of South Alrica.
There were speakers from the NUM Jack Collins, secretary of the Kent NUM, and representatives of the South Wales, Durham, South Yorks, Nottingham, South byshire and Lancashire coalfields.
WaTe speakers Women Against Pit Closures, cluding Betty Heathfield; from the Black Sections including Diane Abbott, Marc Wadsworth and Narendra Makenji; the Campaign Group of MPs Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn; from the Women's Action Committee; from the Labour Committee Ireland; from bians and Gays Support the Miners; and the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights; the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy; as well
a speaker the black community.
There were meetings porters of campaigns in the Labour PUT TWU, NUR, NOT and other and members unions.
theme which together all the diverse strands, and ave them their coherence was the itle of the conterence Alliance for Socialism'. The keynote session was 'Building an alliance for socialism'. It is worth spelling out why this was the crucial question.
socialist transformation British society bears, almost no relation to the models of cither traditional labourism or most of the Marxist left in Britain.
Every great socialist revolution, every achievment
ray to a socialist society ion of the USSR, Yugoslavia, China.
Cuba, Nicaragua were great popular transformations society. They drew together every
strand of struggle
cht of the working class against ex-
loitation, the fight of oppressed na
for liberation, the
romen for their liberation,
peasants for land, the against fascism, against foreign occupation, against war, racism.
It is only by pulling together such forces, in a nationally specific form in an advanced imperialist country, that socialism can be achieved in Britain as well.
Finally to achieve such a society requires an entirely new state, one democratically based organisations of the working class and oppressed and, in the words of Arthur Scargill, a government which is as loyal to our class Thatcher's is to the capitalist class
But socialists must be abjective. Today Britain is far,
naay from that type of society, that
trate of or of a direct strate for
For of a direct struggle for
em. The working class is still only
ting its first steps on the long
ad that will lead to a socialist
ciety in Britain. What then are the
ost basic features of that struggle, its strategic way forward?
First and foremost it is that we are engaged in an international
23 November 1985-use.
CIAL SI ACION
Answering realignment
struggle. It should be stated calmly and coldly that if the struggle for socialism in Britain were a struggle this between the British ruling class and the British working class then the ruling class would undoubtedlv win. Certainly the America, South Africa, and all those
taking fighting imperialism throughout the
world need solidarity in Britain. But
and even socialism in Britain need the victory mOre those
of the struggle of the people of Central America and South Africa. For without their victory we can never achieve socialism.
Secondly it must be constantly remembered the British state still Derhas an 'internal colony of Ireland. Without the struggle to from free Ireland, without an alliance betin- ween the working class in Britain and Ireland, based on the fight for complete independence of Ireland the British working class can itself never be free.
Clay and
British working class come the 'aristocratic' prejudices it Les- acquired from its imperialist past.
organising the without fighting sexism and organisLiverpool ing the mass of women, without in-
of SUD ple, without fighting every aspect of
from the British empire, the working or Ine Num,
class in Britain socialism.
brought
which such alliances can be and sustained. As itself 'An points out, the alliance between the
working class as a whole and women inside and outside class — with blacks, with oppressed nations, those oppressed for their sexual preference, and will bear with a first conditions
respect of the organisation of group in society.
white male workers opening the stand their problems'. - the crea- strict respect for
organise and lead themselves. only on this basis that the necessary of refounding and Labour Party, and the labour move ment, can take place.
Fourthly ally
socialism can only be forged in strug-
fight of gle. The miners forged the
the fight powerful, and
fight alliances seen since World War II. They achieved that because of the
against resolute leadership shown in the
support women's and the black section nd the NUM leadership. y creating the type of leadershi vhich knows, in Tony Benn's words which side you are on social alliances the labour movement can be created. And 'which side you are on' applies not only to the national but to international class struggles. as Margaret
success means to consciously have
strictly the idea of fighting for an alliance of
far the exploited socialism. That strategic alliance is the key one in reply both to Thatcher and the current 'realigners' within the Labour Party.
Led last weekend - some of the main contributions from which we print in this issue -fair. But we hope it can be part of Something much labour movement as a whole.
people of Central
fighting for - the North Thirdly to achieve socialism the
Cover
Without overcoming racism and
black population,
For ganising young pou
which is left
cannot achieve
That also shows the only way in
built Diane Abbott
the working
can only be built being the right of selfevery oppressed
Women or blacks do not need
who 'underThey need their right to It is
reforging of the
alliance for
most active. social
- and decisions like those to
self-organisation by Scargil! it is only of years,
that the necessary for the
see
To bring such a struggle to full British.
British.
and oppressed for
clear
In itself the conference organis-
an was a very modest at-
bigger in the
action. Black people and women, she said, are at the centre of that fight. They know they will see victory, because they know they can settle for nothing less.
THE TITLE of this session is "Alliance for Socialism'. I am going to address myself, relatively briefly, to two questions: what sort of socialism and what
seems to me the key question, and one
country have lost sight of since the 1945
For years and years the Labour Party in this country has seemed to be simply about taking office: a bunch of white union officials, that kind of person -British capitalism more humanely than
to take power as a labour movement, to you address your mind to the issue of empowering the working class certain things become clear. It becomes crystal clear that you're not going to empower tham via a Parliamentary which is all white, all male, and middle class. And it becomes clear that certain
One thing that black
people can bring to your
practice of socialism is a clear and uncompromising
analysis of the role of the
state. That is something
you can learn from us.›
issues have to come higher up the agenda than they have done in the past.
The other thing I want to say about what kind of socialism we're mobilising and organising for. It seems & to me black people and women teach white men in the Labour Party about socialism. The main thing that black people have to teach white men in the Labour Party is not just about racism in the party institutionalised racism, how it works, how it disables both black and white. What we have to teach you is about the state.
One thing that black people, both in this country now and of my parents' generation in the colonies for hundreds
, know about is the nature of British state. It's already touched on in this session: people wringing their hands and saying 'how unBritish to see policemen clubbing down miners at Orgreave, how un-British to
poncemen rusning people's homes and shooting them down'.
Black know ll's not un
know it's intrinsically We know it's the way British state has always operated. there's one thing that black people can bring to your practice of socialism it is a
and uncompromising analysis of stitutions of the state - the police, the courts, the immigration service used not in some objective manner but
Farm ot the state. That something you can learn from us.
At the party conference debate this year about reimbursement of money to the miners I was amazed to hear the top table going on about the 'rule of law'
WHAT SORT of socialism are we fighting for? What sort of alliances do we want? asked DIANE ABBOTT at the main session of the 'Alliance for Socialism' weekend. Her answers were simple: a socialism that empowers the working class and the oppressed in an alliance based on
and how it must be upheld. Black people know that the law in this country post-capitalism has always been an arm of the state and indirectly an arm of the ruling class.
What have women you? You've got to remember first and foremost that the miners' strike would never have lasted as without the support of women. something nobody could have foreseen at the beginning, because the miners are nothing if not the Grenadier Guards of
the labour movement. Who would have thought that women supposedly unpolitical would have beer kept that strike going to the bitter end hul li was women Women have vol about vour Dolaesa of the issues to take seriously and in terms your politics.
The classic British Labour Party is the aristocracs of labour, the white class. Issues like low pay have unti recently never been taken as they should have class womer We are nearly half of the workforc but we are 80 per cent of the low paid Anyone who seriously will take the issue of low pay seriously Another thing that women have to teach you is about how you conduct your politics. Too much energy is wasted in pure posturing, oppositionism for the sake tionism which you associate with men. One of the things that I've gained from being involved in feminist years is learning to getting away from hierarchy, trying to
wanting to ally with people is they have to respect my right as a black person or beer
organise autonomously. 9 save the time you spend on just striking attitudes working with people Black people comine in to me our movemen as ing people to be nice to us, to do us a the favour by putting us on your platform
We have things to teach you I want to go on to alliances. Let's be clear.
are
about an alliance it's not just about some kind of conglomeration of people who can be brought together at a cer-
Rally.
right
groups
for socialism got to teach
long as it That's "Too much time is wasted in pure posturing: machoism,
the sort of stuff you associate with men. One of the things I've gained from being involved in feminist
having had unorganised,
the main edge which makers
something to teach The both in terms allance and Finally, practice your Kinnock became preoccupation of the to the notion male working
as seriously But for working hlack.
women's issues
time and
of opposi-
- machoism, the kind of stuff
politics over the work collectively,
*The first condition for
are forced
my right as a woman to
labour
and use that time actually
and women aren': education. generation
whor row tall
"Having had Kinnock and Hattersley telling us that "their" black people don't want black sections it is really ironic that the minute one of "their" black people does
education system.
apolitical basis. You have to be terribly precise about the terms on which you
For me the first condition for wanting to ally with people is they have to respect my right as a black person or my
woman to organise autonomously. Respect for the right of
organise autonomously crucial for building a serious alliance
I think white people really do find it hard to take on board the issue of black people organising autonomously. The reason you find it hard is that the whole heritage of colonialism tells you that really black people can't do anything unless white people are there first. That is why everytime our young people are in insurrection we read that white outsiders were in the area and set them up
White people really can't believe that black people can even riot without white people telling them what to do
As Narendra Makanji pointed out,
politics is learning to work collectively. 9
Kinnock and Hattersle telling us that 'their' black people don't want black sections - just us trouble
really ironic that the
minute that one of 'their' black ppl
wanis back secuons mnev exoen
other prerequisite for an what sort of socialism.
I'd just like to say a word about the Labour leadership. When Mi
: leader of the party But sometimes it's used in opposition
of black people and women organising autonomously - as if class is a higher good. I do think that a class framework is crucial, and I think that as much as anything because I an
•Kinnock has made a point of coming out openly
against black sections. He
seems to have no idea how
that looks to the wider black community.?
You'll not empower the mass black people, you'll not help them, unless you empower the working class. To put it another way: anti-working class politics are politics against the interests of black people as a whole. It's one of the things which black people bring to labour movement politics, because we
we have no option but te keep going back to a class context
W'eknow that there are opposed in terests in this society, you can take the far. At the end of the day there are the interests of capital and the interests of
- and we as black people know what side we're on.
There is no way you can disentangle issues of race from issues of class. Take
My parents and that whole came to this country to work. For the most part they did pretty shitty jobs. But they believed, with a passion, that it would be better for theis children. They believed that the instrument for making it better would he the
they expel him.s
There's a lot of tragedies about racialism in society, but one of them is the way the British education system
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we can settle for nothing less"
AN
Independent has abused us, set up a whole generation of black children to fail. When you look at the institutional racism in the education system, what happened to our children within it, then you're back to the issue that the British education system was meant for the working class children as a whole to succeed anyway. It's just one of the many elaborate instruments of control that the British state has set up
Take also the Silent Night dispute. There's somebody here on the platform from the Silent Night strikers. It's important to note that 20 per cent of those strikers are black. You cannot disentangle the issue of class from issues of race.
The other criterion for an effective
COLIN ROACH
IS MAN
ED IN
POLICE
alliance for socialism is that when people talk about allying with black people and allying with women what matters are aeeas not woras. Lel me tell you. words come cheap. 6 The other criterion for an never
effective alliance for socialism is that what matters are deeds not words. Let me tell you, words come cheap. 9
T've been to so many meetings in the past 18 months and seen white men on and women Theon agonise and tell o go on about black peopk that they're on your side.
COLIN ROACH
push comes to shove winite men in the party have resistant to letting go of power
forms miners' wives, talk about the struggles in South Africa. (I have always noticed how white people love black people th
easy, it's deeds nitty-gritty interplay of the day-by-day labour movement I have to say that the absence of deeds has been noticeable.
school governors those parties are putting on the schools on their area. Look But when at the
That is a scutuai. al c whatever else they
This worst enemies.
munity. very keenly.
Militant. Again he's
Photo: STEVE MANSFIELD
posed to
because you're run They say to us:
shown they're extremely Liverpool
's easy for people to stand on pla
about the plucky
nost when we're far away.) Words ar
way that matter.
Look at the numbers of black people actually active in parties claiming to be left. Look at the number of black
number of black councillors.
Socialist Action • When I go canvassing people don't sa! "e re nu; ="re in vote for you because vou're run by !...*. They s! He re not going to vote for you because you are ail the
from white men on the left about the importance of more women in parliament, what has been the result?
It's deeds not words that count. We don't want your gifts, we don't want your protestations of solidarity -want practical actions that show white
willing to actually
I've tried to talk about what sort of alliance and what sort of socialism. finally I'd just like to say a word about OUT the Labour leadership. When Mr Kinnock became leader of the party there
might people thought 'at least under him we're going to win the next general election' I must say, as a leadership to win us the next election Kinnock has disappointed even
Kinnock made a point of coming out openly against black sections: two years ago, before conference had even debated it. He seems to have no idea how that looks to the wider black com-
Not everybody in the black community agrees with black sections as a Party. tactic, but everybody knows that the struggle between Labour • Party black sections and the leadership is a struggle between black people trying to make their presence felt and white people. Everybody knows what that struggle is about. The black community follows it
Kinnock's line on black sections, his opposition to black people, and now the expulsion of Amir Khan in Sparkbrook-Birmingham, just to put it in its crudest terms, this on. cannot help the party to win the support of black working people. It's actually standing in the way.
Let's take Neil Kinnock and the
gone out of his * the Militant tendency.
I'm not a supporter of Militant, I'm op
In on the issue of women's organisation.
But when I go canvassing as a Labour councillor in Paddington people don'1 say: 'We're not going to vote for you
by the Militant. 'We're not voting for you because you are all the same.
When Kinnock attacks sections of the party who, at the end of the day, are fighting for socialist policies - when he attacks Militant and the Lambeth and
councils, wien ne puts himself in opposition to some of the most progressive currents in the party above all when he makes a virtue of no being accountable to the party - he is pushing our chances of winning the next election further away. The only
we will convince working people that we're not all the same is if we ac tually implement the policies which we
"Black people don't have the luxury of asking can we
win? We know that not only are we going to win but that
prepared to ally with us on our terms are welcome to
22 November 1985 9
same."
Let's sav what that is. It sonin. next election, and to win it at any price If socialism is that price, he's prepares to pay it.
All I can say is this: as a black person I don't have the luxury of asking that kind of question. Black peopte know that for us nothing will do except the transformation of this society. We don't want a racist society managed more humanely. That still locks us into
position _ as a sub-strata of the working class. We cannot stop short of anything other than a total transforma tion of this society. A transtormatior
"It's easy for people to stand on platforms and
talk about the struggles in
South Africa. I've always notices how white people
love black people the most
when we're far away. 9 economically, a transformation socially, and a transformation of the Labour
We know that not only are we going to win but that we're going to keep on mignting unt we win. Inose wao are prepared to ally with us on our terms -and our terms are respect for us to organise autonomously, our terms are class politics, and our terms most of all are deeds not words — those people are welcome to join in our fight.
It is a fight we canol run awa from. It is a fight we can not equivocate
It is a fight that will continue because we know that we will see vic tory - and not just in electoral terms We will see victory in terms of transfor ming this labour movement, because we can settle for nothing less. we're going to keep on fighting until we do. Those
join our fight.!
Page 4 scan of this page
"An alliance means you with us….. all the way!"
The Miners strike
has politicised
a generation
IF IT WEREN'T for scab organisations there'd be no victimised miners, argued JACK COLLINS, secretary of the Kent NUM. He explained that the Coal Board's aim is breaking the union to pave the way for bigger profits. That's why it's in the interest of the whole working class to keep fighting with the miners.
I THINK in the aftermath of the miners' strike the most important thing to note is that what our leaders
miners' are pushed back, you'll all be
positive things that came out of our
didn't achieve what we intended to achieve, but there are generations begrandchildren who Periceman, and they're only side ars
They know the difference between a miner and a scab. Hopefully they'll always remember the days when they were in a soup kitchen, and later on in
stood many. many vears aco.
but they took it into the
We also look at the effect and the extent or our struggle internanonally.
struggle has had a thought, has laid some seeds, in the mind of the inter-
What the police have done in other major cities in Britain, wouldn't
possible if the working
attack and defeat the El Salvadorean peon e are the same peone who were pouring napalm on the kids in Viet-
same bunch of bastards Welc prepared to starve miners' kids. And we should never forget that. Anybody who didn't support the miners is on the side of the people of that ilk.
that is being organised. The split is being organised by the bosses, by the They're not prepared to negotiate properly with Scargill, Heathfield and
The bosses are doing this not just
to build up the scab outfit. Since they are only concerned about profit, they are doing it for another reason as
nothing. The scab union accept a little take it while it's on offer — they will treat them just like the rest of
perfected. The bosses have got away with giving a little scruffy award, the see that Lynk and his gang are already
closure all over the coalfield. We have only got three pits left in Kent. You'll remember it was one of our nits Snowdown - that was on the original
they've gone down to a lower seam and tound it to Snowdown is about the only safe pit in Kent. That shows you the mad logic of the Coal Board.
needed to get at 37 million tons of coal. In Nottingham, at a pit called Gedling, they've got six million tons
spend £10 million to get at it. So you can see what the Coal Board's came
'Scargillism'. They talk about
when they come to the Hammonds and the Lynks and Brittains, they talk
and McGahey: dig in, and don't let
They want to shift you, not for the benefit of the miners, they want to shift you for the benefit
There's an illusion that if you have a panol and lne workers vole to go on strike, then the bosses will cave in. The bosses will never cave in through
I just want to finish by saying this.
America, in Africa, in the Phillipines
class is winning and we are part of
'DEFEAT' IS a word that women from the mining communities never use explained BETTY HEATHFIELD at the session on lessons of the miners' strike. There's no time to rest, she said. Get up off your behinds and join us again. The message was loud and clear: Women Against Pit Closures are still fighting side by side with the national union.
it's appropriate
from the coalfields are •nere. member of Derbyshire Women's Action Group, I'm quite sure that all the women here from the coalfield today could put up just as good a case as I'm going to. Because they've had a year
I want to take up one issue. There is one word that none of us accept in our vocabulary and none of us use.
We do not accept the word defeat. We don't mention it. We don't talk about
it's that the word defeat une
that's just the type of language that the Tories keep pumping out at us
'Oh isn't it terrible that you've got to go back. It's just what
pessimism, despondency and despair.
6 There is one word that none of us accept and none
accept the word defeat. y
'god isn't it awful that you've been in jail all those years, you've got a great defeat on your hands.' He says: 'I'm still in jail and the struggle is my life? That's what we're saying to you tofor this last 12 months and it still is.
We're saying to you 'don't let us kind of looking back on our last year of struggle that sets some kind of for what we're still doing now, and miners went back to work.
at the positive things that happened during our year of struggle- • we need to look back at those things if we want to continue, if we want to enlarge and strengthen the movement that started
coalfields you don't need your batteries recharging once a year, once a recharging every morning when you
day to make it work better? We've got to convince some more people today.'
election has got to be treated like an
There isn't anytime for you to say 'I'm tired, I'm fed up, despondent'. We've got to say that if we don't get up and go that woman and her government will be back in
ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
another. In doing so, we hope that the National Union of Mineworkers is going to survive and we are going to do everything in our power to help it sur-
from the women then I think you'll have to find out like we found out; in "If you want to learn any
lessons from the women
then I think you'll have to find out like we found out:
We found out several things. We
unorganised women come together in action with a clear purpose and a become a ve kind call
And of oppression against any kind of threats. the kind of attitude we had in the strike, and that we are still trying to
We didn't go round through all the red tape saying to people 'write a letter to the trades council and ask them if we can have a meeting'. We said to them: 'We've got a centre, we food. Come and see us, we're here,
not only in our country, not just in every town, not just in every village, but in every other country as well.
You've got to cast your net wide, and
got to make those liaisons
make very simple demands but we've got a positive attitude, and we learn strike. Not just about ourselves, but that we've got a heritage we have to defend. A lot of those women didn't know anything about that heritage before. We found out that we weren't
before. It's been done for years. every country, by women in the trade
as well. It took the Ford
for not doing what we should have done in a year! I'm telling you look
also learned a lot about
parliament, about local government,
AL UNDOF M
trying to put that to good use now
need to tell you that. we've got a long way to go yet. But we're not giving We're not saying its too hard and we've got to give up'. We're going to keep chipping away at it. We've got to Hake some bedaway somewlicie
say in things. Even if we're only doing it in our communities and areas in a very small way, nevertheless we're do ing it where we didn't do it before After the miners strike, a lot of elected as school governors. They are thinking about local politics, and say ing 'I want to be in on this to the council meeting and listened to all those people talking. I think: I could have said that. they're talking about.' They're think
We've found out also that we're joining hands and linking with a lot of 6 We joined up with the Greenham women. We've linked up with all kinds of women in all kinds of struggle. We've found out that the more people you can unite and the more you spread your net, then you learn it's the same struggle — you're all in it together.9
women from a lot of other areas of the picket line with the NUPE women because their jobs have been privatis They come to our meetings and we go
and the Greenham women We've with al kind women in all kinds of struggle. We've found out that the more people you can unite, and the more you spread your net and the more you find out
that I think the women, more than anyone, created during the strike. We have to answer all the questions about
Page 5 scan of this page
re
AKERS
for the trade union movement. When the miners were discovered that the union work. It was there in our homes and
communities We've got foster that oncept of trade unionism. Everything a trade union fights for is of great concern to every member of yncles, your grandmas, your sens and family your daughters. It's their future. It's the future of your communities.
"They've got the wealth,
the power, the money
but we've got the guts and
we're staying. 9
We've got to get that over to people, that the trade union isn't just at work: A trade union is at work and at home and in your community. everyone's concern together. got to fight for those principles of trade that make unions strong.
We wouldn't have any talk then about how trade unions have much power, because everyone would
it's necessary understand wny trade unions to have that kind of power. So let's get out and preach that concept of trade unionism.
Ivoting al all das changea silice the end of our strike. Indeed every aspect of our struggle has become more acute. The miners are back at
There's tremendous hardship work. still in the coalfield areas. everybodys descending can't DHus
on now. The conditions in the pits are very difficult and the miners now know what it's like to be underground without a strong and eftective trade union. But I can tell seething anger and unrest in every pit.
In Derbyshire, ended, hasn't been a without a strike over something or olner In one pil three pits at a time.
The women are still here. haven't got quite so many people in our groups. But they're there and they're still supporting. Now it is the activists who are keeping the women's groups going, and we need to do this.
I don't think it's out of any kind of benevolence that the police, and the law courts, are dropping all these
strike wasn't at two reasons.
ford their image to communities. have i know this is true
them how community police those kids in the
ths ago. strike it'll bite him again. take any notice of them.
Secondly they can't afford, to have anyone sympathetic this moment their original plans for 1 and the Its We've government trade
cloud cuckoo land. t00
tor NUM's tunas.
back where they started meddley.
6We've
People
because
them
you there's
of this union has since this strike
week November: No and sometimes ribbons, no bills for paper.
We and the other. Because find the money for that, naven t got ally.
pay
about
denied
this cases of miners that are coming up. I think they're having to drop them for task.
The first is they can't afcommunities. They an afred te being spoilt
They afford to peopie think worse about them In our areas they're sending the police with the dogs round to all our schools to tel
"nice and friendly' our local are. We say • to al schools: 'That's the out dog that bit your dad's leg a few mon-
And if your dad comes out or So don't
don't want, and reeling towards 1 time. or the siers the miners If there's anybody in are still betoday who believes that this can't, won't, darer and wouldn't get rid of the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers then I can tell you you're living in
They have now removed the se questration order. But the receiver is still there. He's still in charge of the
if the leaders of the NUM put one foot wrong, or one foot on the side or ine me where this government disagrees, then they'l! be
got 10 get isn't just at work. It's at home and in your community.
We've got to fight for those principles of trade unionism
I can tell you that the receivership
meanl receiver doesn't think it is necessary to pay any bills on behalf of the NUM
which he hasn't done since last
bills for typewriter So don't tell us we should be getting the leaflets out, and we should be doing this, that
we have 1o and
The receiver also doesn't believe that the leaders of the NUM need any
not that it matters because we've got friends who say we'll not
we'll find somelning. receiver doesn't
for those
doesn't want
to me and
That man
that
intimidation
damaging and unnecessary which will
are also
and so are we in
But they • except tell realising it.
with the miners
We have to
- but we've that make trade unions strong.9
for hardship and
organise our own organisation.
need money for the sacked and jailed
miners. And we need effort to keep
their problems in front of everybody's
minds We won't ever forget them
and we hope you're not going to -
because we won't let you.
We. need money to help all those
branches of the NUM which haven't
got any money to operate. There is a
branch set up in every pit in Notts.
We're trying to fund them as well.
In our area, Derbyshire,
women have been out on the picket
line again signing up the Bolsover you
miners and helping them to remember that they voted for the NUM, they've got to stay with the NUM and they've got to fight the breakaway wherever and whenever it pops up its head. Nobody can be complacent about it, because the UDM are recruiting in every area of the coalfield. We have to understand that this is not just like Spencerism, it's Ann dangerous. Spencerism was contained
within Nottinghamshire. trying to spread their net to every area of the NỰM We will be looking to all sorts of help from you kind of people. We are 'our starting the campaign with a national
leaflet this women have got a leaflet out as well. We want every Labour Party branch to send in resolutions to the Labour Party to say tions from the Labour Party conference'. We want the money back that is owed to the NUM.
and we want to know that a Labour government is going to say 'that is the NUM's money'. also, that there will be no support from the TUC, or from the Labour Party, no support whatever breakaway oullil with you on an equal basis
the problems munities. During the strike we kept saying 'your struggle is our struggle'. I think its coming home now. 1 know that in Chestertield we ve got more than 10,000 unemployed in our town already.
byshire.
who ve
We're trying dilu vou
We We
noW
support groups.
We're that's strong.
becaust WC our value. We've
Socialist Action clear purpose.
I'm saying then
ШИСИ MOTE
They • are
If you'd only but you didn't
tell us now. week The Notts If you can't
do it for you show you how. carry out the instruc
we can we still do.
We want a Labour government,
when we say
We want to know,
for
We want socialist solutions to all
"We're a women's movement that's strong.
We know where we're
going. We want to join
because we know we're of
equal value. 9
within our com-
We know that will go up if Welli
cuucallull
This is a matter
campaign, their pits.
We can't af-
La reflex
Broad.' If movement
WAPC
we're of • equal
22 November 1985 5 saying to you: 'You have that same
Join in with us and together we'll be able to win.'
they're saying to us Well you should have when you could have and why didn't you they ask? If you'd thought of when you sort of missed your chances muffed your task.
and why don't you
you must let us lead
And we said to them we're sure we did
Why don't you listen
If you're really our supporters you li be will us all le way And that's what I'm asking you to do now. An alliance means that you're with us — ail tic way.
PAM OLDFIELD Notts WAPC The management at the pits have refused the men access to distribute leaflets. Where the men couldn't get the women could. They couldn't sack
The thing that we had to do in Nottinghamshire was to swap pits. We went to each others pits so tha
The! couldn't say 'that's so and so's wife.
men couldn't put their names to explaining why people should stay in the NUM Where it wasn't being distributed we
Miner through everybody's letter box...
Although things are more quiet.
the is still there. When we organised things such as socials - же campaign and for Silent Night - the women turned up in droves. That proves that the education has gone
They know what it is like for
ANN JONES South Wales WAPC The fight in South Wales is this. Th pressure and blackmail of the NCB i so great the men are closing their ow information on why they should sav They're
There's no informatio given out on what taking redund means. They're left all to themse
very difficult
Against Pit Closures in South
We're fighting the people we're
10 help. "Those interfering
- not of the ordi
and file but of the people n
It's difficult for women!
anything in South Wales. Y
push. And when you
left' ur 'one of those Trot
yUl stand up you're called all the names
there's a lot and they're stre
before. They've got to wi
husbands to stay in the fig
to have to fight agains
Wates executive.
Page 6 scan of this page
"Successive Labour governments care units for capitalism"
Socialist Action
WOULD like (LO Socialist Action on organising this conference. There has been a wide range of contributions. I think everybody here appreciates how serious the situation is for the people of this country:
There is an attack on living standards, on the unions, on women, on the
on the black community, democracy, on civil liberties technique of division is being practiced which is to some extent effective. The apparatus of the state is being used quite ruthlessly and of course the media are being used on a daily basis in order to maintain that division.
• The miners' strike
mobilised the very alliance
that we're talking about at
this conference today.9
1 agree with what has been said, that Britain is the last colony left in the British empire, and that all the techniques repression that elsewhere are now being used against our own people. Anyone who saw that recent TV programme, Brass about the police will know that the colonial policing methods have been applied here.
At the same time we have a large American army here. We are really subject to American foreign policy and defence control. We are also in terms of our domestic legislation integrated with the Treaty of Rome. And the bankers nave enormous buwci economy.
It is against that background that we have to look and see what happened within the Labour Party. And I want to turn to that first.
We have had a very big change in the Labour Party over the last 15 years, beginning when Heath much of it tri eride under hee fist
xperience OTTICe
Vilson government. That was when th
adicalisation began. What I think pec
le began to realise and Diane
bolt touched on it when about power rather than office -that successive Labour governments,
became the intensive, care units for capitalism.
When capitalism got in a real mess and the people who ran longer control it, they invited a Labour government to take over
capacity to win the loyalty of the working class to make the sacrifices to put the system right. That government then lost us the election system back, fully recovered,
people who ran it in the first
That intensive care unit role for Labour
governments is an absolute distortion
of the original function of the Labour
Party.
Thus we had the 1970-74 radicalisa-
Lion, a further Labour
und another defeat in 1979, and th
ampaign (which wa:
rect) to try to deal with that problem by
the parliamentary
ountable to the Labour
back, I think that campaign
needs to be restarted, for it was certain-
ly effective. The SDP left and that was
an indication of the real position: they
22 November 1985 LABOUR GOVERNMENTS must cease being intensive care units for capitalism and choose which side they are on. That was the message TONY BENN put to the 'Alliance for Socialism' weekend. To achieve its goals the labour movement has to be refounded to open it up to the social forces that are going into struggle. The NUM must be defended, black sections must be supported, Women
Against Pit Closures must be built, the new initiatives of the
Women's Action Committee must be championed.
congratulate LIA
on
failed and defected. beginning; and
organs of the Labour Party not at rank and file level. were tried The Labour
Tacks,
falls
where it wallls.
Since 1983,
our was elected,
Absne, talked was
could no
which used its
and handed the to the place.
government.
absolutely cor-
party conference
became the intensive
to do.
problems
cient
the left, indeed.
had tried to run the party from the top,
ward —
But, of course, in the period after 1981 there was a major swing to the right organised by some political and trade unions leaders; the Labour front
supported the Falklands war, which absolutely undermined Labour's peace policy: we had the witch-hunting
we had the election defeat in 1983. From '83 there has been a major swing to the right in the central gollg
- though
conterence ana ine labour movement are now seen in my of opinion, as the first stage of the rocket that fires the front bench into office. AS at Cape Canaveral, the labour movement provides the initial lift and then
harmlessly into the Caribbean while the parliamentary capsule goes
we have seen the downgrading of the national executive, the downgrading of the role of conference, and a downgrading of the role of policy itself. The NEC has decided that well have no Labour programme 1986 which is what we should have. There has also been an upgrading of the role of the shadow cabinet now funded by the government through state aid,
an upgrading of the role of the PLP,
which began ao une doocarance when the radicalisation started the Trade Unions for a Labour Victory, made up of general secretaries who drip feed the national executive with money if they agree with what the NEC wants
Moreover the role of the electorate has been shrunk, and is only perceived to exist now in the statistics produced by the public opinion pollsters. electorate as such. with al its many
and needs, disappears in weighted, balanced samples which are then studied like the omens in an an-
tribal ritual. This polling played a part in the distancing us from the struggle — the miners, of Liverpool, of Bernie Grant, and so on - the repudiation of
and of course the renewed witch-hunting which goes very widely
My fear about that - quite apart from thinking it's not the right way for-
is that every time you read about another repudiation, you find that the party itself is apparently confirming the analysis of Thatcher Owen: namely that Labour is full of nutters and loonie lefts and dangerous people. And now everything is beginning to rotate around what is thought of as a loyalty test to the leaders. Much of the realignment which is supposed to be
is apparently designed realign us around personalities rather than around policies.
The latest charge made against anybody who asks for anything is that
"impossibilism'. don't whether "impossibilism' began with Leon Trotsky or not. But I suppose by that test the eight-hour day was an impossibilist demand, and that the Chartists and the suffragettes made impossibilist demands, and the Tolpuddle martyrs made an impossibilist demand.
If anyone demands more than is currently on offer from the top it means of you are charged with impossibilism, and hence trying to lose the election.
The effect of all this is deliberately to lower expectations, and that is what the Mitterrand example is about. think we'll do what he did. unstuck, so we won't even try it!' Full employment is therefore no longer on the agenda.
The Politics is parliamentary exercise correspondents
has
of
writing up the achievements and the oratory of certain people which has had the effect of taking the socialist analysis off the official agenda. Hugo Young, actually wrote in the Guardian 'obituary' of Arthur Scargill as if Arand thur were dead. It was a supreme example of the arrogance of the political correspondents who, like Bishop Berkeley, believe that we only exist because god notices us, and if god didn't notice us we wouldn't exist.
All this is moving us in the direction to of a hung parliament.
Hough 1n Ireland last 'Labour might have to depend on Shirley Williams to topple Thatcher'.
That was the clearest statement from know the chairman of the Labour Party as to
6 The Labour conference and the labour movement are now seen as the first stage of the rocket that fires the front bench into office. As at Cape Canaveral, the labour movement provides the initial lift and then falls harmlessly into the Caribbean while the parliamentary
capsule goes where it wants.› where all this could lead us.
I remember 1959, when Macmillan won his great socialism was no longer needed because we were so prosperous. film called I'm all right Jack. Petel Sellers was in it, they made fun of trade
welfare capitalism.
'Don't to a new rigni He came
seen increasingly as a — in which lob- terms with the are engaged
The electorate is only perceived to exist in the statistics produced by public opinion pollsters. The electorate as such, with all its many problems and needs, disappears in weighted, balanced samples which are then studied like
an perspectives,
Action about
some arguments And Neville secretaries are in week said
the
analysis.
our society,
created. election, ana
There was a same thing.
right. when the
Photo: GM COOKSON
unionists. It was all old hat, you didn't need it.' Gaitskell then tried to change Clause IV, an early attempt to realign us to meet the demands of a prosperous
Now we're being realigned to fit in-
wing consensus. Mrs Thatcher, in an interview in the Financial Times the other day said in effect, one of the reasons she was staying on was because she didn't want to leave until the Labour Party had come to
fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth
omens in an ancient tribal ritual.? and power in favour of the rich that she was carrying through.
One of the effects of all this on the left is that there has been a crisis of
by which I mean that there is not a shared analysis on the left at the moment of what is going on. The Euro-communists are in conflict with the Morning Star, even with Socialist
there disagreement the meaning COT permanent revolution, and in the WRP there are
about what should happen. Some left trade union general
conflict with other right wing unions of which Roy Lynk is now the leader. The broad left within
are not always united themselves — these are an indication in my opinion of a certain vitality of argument but a disagreement about the
The pyschological effect of this is to create fear, to create division within
and to create suspicion.
When you are in difficulties it's very easy to look over your shoulder and say a black has taken your job, or whatever is the National Front line - because a certain sense of hopelessness has beer
Here I will say something I hope won't give offence. When Thatcher says 'there is no alternative, and it becomes the chorus of the media, we on the left must not respond by saying there will be 'permanent betrayals Reflect for a moment on that. If the left says we're always going to be betrayed and Mrs Thatcher says there are no alternatives — we would be saying the
6 We've got to face the fact
that a hung parliament is a
possibility and a non-socialist majority in the next parliament is a near certainty. 9
. That is a very dangerous line for us to take. It has a paralysing effect on action for it consolidates the
As far as the general public are con cerned, the people we try to represent. the effect of all that I've described is to make the political process increasingly remote from their experience • I don' believe that all these little meetings, as
"cuddly left' was recently born, has any resonance with the public at all. If you're unemployed, if you haven't got a decent home, if your mother's waiting for a hip operation, if your dad can't live on the pension, if you're worried about nuclear weapons and you hear there's another dinner at St Ermines where certain people are go ing to gather together to realign it's just as irrelevant as it could possibly be. It's irrelevant to people's needs.
All that people are being offered
Page 7 scan of this page
anti-Thatcherism
leties, but no real alternative to the
that's being carried
ve got to face the fact that a hung
iliament is a possibi
cialist majority in the a near certainty. ook a bit ahead too.
We may get a defeat of the present rime minister. She may be removed efore the election because the Tories re not very loyal to their leaders when hey fail. I don't rule out the possibility nat, if support for the Tories o decline the Earl of Stockton will find himself sitting next to the Finchley and they can sort it out in orivate word because the Tories will ge periculary. if the tory particularly the lefeated despite everything I've said
ere will be a big surge of expectations. People will say "this is the
They'li have been told it's all about Thatcherism, and when cher goes they'll believe and.
And that presents a danger for us as a socialist movement. For if, following the rising expectations, there was a ter-
•disenchantment, followed by a swing to the right and socialism would go down in the subsequent debacle. Our job is to see that doesn't happen.
Now may I say something about ertain cul-de-sacs which the left must
void - the false trails. First of all the
imptation to respond personally to at-
icks on the left that
onally. don't believe
esonance with the public. I don't think On's the right way forward. Secondly, I Don't think that the right way forward is to try and personalise the argument by a challenge to the because to be quite candid, I think that it that happens, the desire to deteat Thatcher would be so great that the left's strength would not in any way be reflected in the oulconIc O1 challenge.
lies in sectarianism, the idea that somehow you can go on dividing and subdividing till you're on-
with whom you wholly eyewith people agree. I don't believe that splitting the party is right. I don't believe that leaving the party is right.
who say, in ertecl, hope. That's absolutely wrong, in the past who have left, like the ILP, have withered on the bough.
We have got to accept
Labour Party is the vehicle by Illally we're going through.
breaking Africa, ending nuclear power, ting the miners,
and gay rights too.
6 The thing we have surely learned from the last year is
that we don't need permission before we take action. If
Arthur Scargill had written to Len Murray, he would still
be waiting for a letter on House of Lords notepaper
socialism within the party ; continues
Countess of
ment. I think confusion about this.
she goes, and
Party about the parliamentary versus parlamentary, simplest form, end of the ment.
Thatthat it is the
could
Their strength les
made perthat has for their election campaign.
of transformation, unanswerable. leadership
such a alwavs
if by that is mean!
about.
revolution. that we've had
There are people revo not.
there 1s reform.
Those governments
that the
which to make change. If you look at the decisions taken at the '85 'Labour Party conference you will find they are very orations ore South really
South Te LOs supporsupporting the local councillors, supporting women's rights
The Labour con-
telling him to go ahead.?
terence at Bournemouth, if you forget the media hype for a moment, was an excellent indication of the strength of has
There is one other point I want to touch on, because it often features in the left, and that is the role of parlia wner
there is some genuine because The argument exud put in crude and is really a false argu-
"If people say we want black sections or women's rights
cupboard and is used to reject those demands. Class is used in shut off the new social forces and forgotten if you are going to discuss what transformation would be
If you doubt what I say, look at the Tory Party who have never believed that their strength lay in parliament.
outside parliament, but they need people inside parliament to control the statute book, to enrich the people outside parliament who pay
That view of parliament, as the control of the statute book being part of the process
seems to me to be We too need the statute book to control the state, to prevent it from enslaving us, to deal with certain economic questions, to liberate or to enfranchise working people (I've never liked the phrase 'empower the working
thought they had power but didn't use it), but we would have to enfranchise the working people and that is what the statute book is
I also think there's some confusion in arguments about about reform ver-
My complaint is not reform rather but that we haven't had All the periods. of Labour nave manipulated the system, sometimes to our advantage as the in '45, but we have never changed the power structure. And it's that failure to
make the major reforms open to us to make that has led us into some of the difficulties that we're in
The charge is often made that we
want to lose. It is a wholly fraudulent argument. I've never met anybody who actually believes that if,
our conscious decision, Thatcher could be given another term in some way that would strengthen the left. It would not. We have therefore to try to build up from the bottom.
Can I turn now to the role of new social lorces which is the jargon for what we're discussing today? There is
with Professor Hobsbawn, of a declining work-
First of all the working class is always changing its and always
Secondly, Britain had working class of a classic character, we never had socialism. So the theory that you could look back on a golden age
you could have got socialism the working class was enough to give it is not true. never had that.
It also seems to me a very strange — and this is why the miners' strike was so unpopular with the Euro-communists
to be recognised then class comes out of a dusty
about. 9
that such such an argument was launched the beginning of greatest working class struggle in the history of Britain, the miners' That was not supposed to be able ever to happen again. And if it happened, it was supposed to be seen as irrelevant.
"Don't think we'll do what
Mitterrand did. He came
unstuck, so we won't even
try it. Full employment is
therefore no longer on the
agenda.)
Actually, the miners' strike mobilised the very alliance that we're talking about at this conference today. political consciousness, the central role of women in the strike as an independent reinforcing element, the link with the black community, with the struggles, 'and so on, came out of it
Also, as I'm sure must be becoming apparent, the militancy of the so-called white collar workers is rising. Look at the teachers, look at the nurses, look at
GCHO people anyone thinks that because you've moved to a certain level inal somenow excludes
• -320
very store talks abi: =-= electora: manipulation of the new social forces: the idea that if you say the right thing somehow you solve the problem.
This theory argues that you can incorporate women, blacks, incorporate movement, incorporate movement into your party actually changing the party itself. That absolutely failure.
If people say we want black sections or women's rights to be recognised then class comes out of a dusty cupboard and is used to reject the demands of the blacks on the grounds 'it's not about colour it's about class'. So then you look Labour's document, where you'd think that class would be in capital letters disappeared in favour Class is used to shut off the new social forces and then is forgotten if you are big We've the
strike.
The
Irish
who
Socialist Action 22 Minerater 15055 ITS TOTE 7= TEL
"The! can live dict Macis Terre us a tee Ju
live with it dictmama i camera mit Sunday talling stone d true an er man
abie to mana
incorporate the the ocale green
false and destined to
economic women's
of consensus.
KEEP NIGHTM Defend the KEEP FIGHTING
Defend
the NUM LIAISON T
DEFEND
TU.
RIGHTS
6 The Tory Party have never believed their
strength lay in parliament.
But they need people there
to enrich the people outside parliament who pay for their election campaign. 9
framework of a party now dominated by white middle class males.
There is one important initiative here we should support. The Labour
committee, who have now decided to have shadow elections for the national executive. They're going to have elections for all women to take
continued over LIA
LIAISON TIEN
SURPORT
Page 8 scan of this page
ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
8 Socialist Action • continued
part in, culminating in the women's conterence. ur course ut is not in tne constitution, but they will produce an elected siate, wnich l nope tne whole labour movement takes elects them all onto the executive.
We've got affiliations and we've got to recreate the socialist tradition within the labour movenenl. task is about.
When you look at that and ask how do you actually do it, the answer is that we must root it in experience. approach people with a textbook say 'on page 88 this was said in 1883'. That would be bibliolatry, people used to stick a pin in the bible to read their fortune.
"Socialism has got to be rooted in people's experience, it's got to be about whose side you're on. It's got to build solidarity, it's got to
develop internationalism. 9
You can't approach socialism that way. It's got to be people's experience, it's got to be about whose side you're on, miners dr biverpoor or me peopic in Tottenham. Any other basis is going to fail. It's got to build solidarity, it's got to develop internationalism.
My approach to internationalism is very, very simple. They' ve got the same problems in South Africa that we've got here. We were a developing country till a couple ef hundred years ago. After all. the collective what it was like in feudal hasn't changed. England is still a feudal
you just need to see the COunUV opening or parlamen on television co realise that. There was the chief on her ‹too: there were the wise men of the tribe with long hair (they judges); there were the robed as bishops; and there were the tand, tes a sared mays wis mne lords dressed animal land. third world that is going to internationalism real.
We have got to campaign for basic demands and build our broad alliance on the demand for jobs, the demand for homes. the demand tor schools. the demand for health care, for dignity when vOle equality and an end to discrimination, and the demand for peace. We have got 1o approach socialism forms of experience of exploitation.
Believe 1t or not document the Labour executive's home pollev committee last Monday saying that we were going to nave a Dolcv lor diose wno wee nul employed, lilke woman at home, as if those who work to raise a family werc somehow non-employed people. experience of exploitation may come just because you are a woman oi black or gay.
Unleis we onen ourselves to those experiences in the way that the trade union affiliation opens up the party to working experience in factories and pits, we're not going to develop good policies. We've must look again at the concept of the manifesto. vears spent mv time trving to get the manifesto under the control of the national executive, though when 1 look at the executive now I wonder if it was worthwhile.
We cannot have composed of promises public by politicians.
22 November 1985 up and then
national
up new
You can't
and
Wildc SOLu
rooted
whether it's memory of
England
call them wilch-aoclors
make
the demand
old. • LOT
VOS X
through
we had some
national
The well We make them
trom a manitesto of promises
Chesterfield that. There,
For many election and
memoershio nas
electionse, We've defence campaign.
manifesto made to the The manifesto
YSI"
SOL DARN
ANGE has got to be redefined as meaning Is also those demands we make here and now.
when Thatcher's in power, we make them when Labour's there, we make them if Owen's there. A manifesto of demands is quite different of the
oraricnes
I mention this only briefly, but in the
we're trying to do just arising out of the bythe miners' strike our gone un trom 300 t 1500. We got a 12 per cent increase in our the Labour vote at the county council
got community We've got group international committee set up now. (I don't know if other constituencies have done it.) That international committee
TROOT THE ID RIl BL
MARE going work with Apartheid, with the black groups in the area. It's going to be an international commițțee that centre internationalism built into the structure
party. We've got workplace We need plans prepared for future: new local government legislation, and obiective which we're discussing at our own conference in about four weeks' time.
The policies we're demanding
manifesto must be for employment. I know the Million Jobs A Year pamphlet which the Campaign
endorsed not COCHICCL actually at root of most of the questions of black people and women is mass unemployment. Unless we can
ANC
SWARO or NAMIDi
Anti tackle that problem,
seriousiy, you're not going to be able to do more than a cosmetic job.
The manifesto, in my opinion, must include the withdrawal from Ireland All this latest media Fitzgerald and Mrs going to work. The include a policy ot non-angnment ll British foreign policy: to take us out of DeCauSG in being seen more clearly. It must include full common
land and of major companies. But not a common ownership which ends up with a Macuregor OI but one which allows people who make the wealth to make the decisions that influence the
bist os they
DIsnop
of man
establishmen1 accountability:
recall suggestion: that When barracks It's
when
properly.
PymR als wels.
La lancy onrase happening
solicitors properly. earlier happening and do
are learning.
AlEC
hype about
Thatcher is not action.
manifesto must
NATO's nature
Lords ownership of the banks, anete
•a kobens in charge. there
tolbalc and done at all.
enterprises in which they work.
If you look back over the histor the nineteenth century and our wh history, you will find that it is 1 democratic challenge they fear mos They can live with socialist rhetori
can live with the Arel canterour on Easte Sunday talking about the brotherhoa
— so long as nothing happer till next Easter Sunday.
Bishmeri s really threatenineman
accountability ots unions. to their members, of lo government to their own communiti of industry to those who work in 1 accountability in foreign and defen policy and party democracy put back on the agenda. I agree with the right o
and I've gol a ncs radic We should have socialist on every shortlist. We have ge lo prepare lt all now
Can I just say this in conclusion is a very hard time in a way, but it is al a time for action and a time for hope. find that reading labour history is rea encouraging because almost everythi that's happening has happened mat many times before.
Chesterfield 1 remembered that
that government sent the Dublin Fusiliet during the miners' strike of 1893, anc again in 1910. In the 1820s I remember they were hanging Luddites all over th place, literally hanging them. They had
built after the Frenc revolution, which frightened the Britist establishment quite as much as th Russian revolution. . They built militar barracks in all the industrial towns.
GIf anyone demands more
than is currently on offer
from the top it means you
are charged with impossiblism, and hence trying to lose the election.9
all happened before difference between then and now is tha
those people worked for different society they didn't know it was possible. We know they were able to make gains. In that sense we're doin it again, and this time we intend to do it
The system is in crisis and neither Thatcher nor Macmillan, nor Heath
nor Steel, had any rea What gives me the feeling of confidence now — because I do have it verv a—s tat nuc dru ni people are learning what it's all really anour conuca consc oasess side
that's what
I even met lawyers in Chesterfi on Friday who came to complain abo whar's happened to them under tl new Crown Prosecution Service,
wert being 'BICA The nurses came two talking about what them. Capitalism attacking the professions as well as thi manual working class. A lot of peop
we have surely • Icarit something else from the last year. don't need permission betore we take
The Greenham Common women didn't need permission, Arthur Scargill didn't need permission. If he had written to Len Murray, he woukt still be waiting for a letter on House of
COlc-valcl telling him to go
The capacity to take action is vested
are roundo for hope nd grounds hope confidence: so long as we're clear that we either do it ourselves or it won't be
Page 9 scan of this page
COMRADES, I FEEL an enormous sense of responsibility in fitting into this verv rich texture discussion here today. enormously impressed and stimulated by the wealth of ideas.
Even though what I am going to as about a sugae may es away, it is clear that there are certain common themes that face people in struggle across the world, and it is my task today to suggest that the ANC and the people of South indeed very natural allies struggle for socialism, in the alliance for socialism throughout the world. 6 Power is the one thing that will guarantee that people will have civil
The ANC is engaged in a struggle against monopoly capitalism imperialism in its own territory, that is, within South Africa - but also on a world scale.
The ANC is fully conscious that it is fighting not on v racism and white domination, but
alSo monopoly capitalism and imperialism in all its forms.
I say that by way of introduction because the press, very often, will say that the ANC is some kind of civil rights movement engaged in opposing racial prejudice. This is very far from the truth.
We understand that the question of race prejudice and civil liberțies is of course of very great importance. But in a svstem where black people have been deprived of constitutional igns, mere can be mo civil berties. So for that reason alone, the ANC is not simply and solely a movement for civil liberties; it is a movement for constitutional civil rights people in South Africa in a unitary state.
I must emphasise the unitary state, because I was astonished to read the other day President saying that he is in favour of universal suffrage in South Africa. fraud.
What he is talking about is people voting in Dantustars, ana prcichang that thereby they have constitutional
South Africa: the
battle for power
WHY ARE black people in South Africa now ready and willing to sacrifice even life itself in their fight, asked BEN TUROK of the ANC in the 'Alliance for Socialism' session. Because they are no longer just fighting for civil rights, but for power, for the end of the apartheid state and their liberation from white domination.
all in a single unitary state. of political am civil rights lie
people
Africa are have civil liberties. the Power les in
in the economic sphere.
was set 1910, which within South Africa.
rights.9 economic foremost Culic campaigns and South African economy.
press today. question boycott, international
British people that the
are also British people
Africa. campaign with every for the boycott kinds.
situation
all giving in that fight.
year,
Iney This is a
They ICSOIL
from constitutional universal suffrage for
But we cannot stop there. Because we know that behind constitutional
power. pleased that Diane Abbott brought up the question of power so forcefully, because it is really at the centre of what the ANC is about: power. It is unc one wine unal will quaranice lai
will have civil rights, thing that will guarantee that people
the South African system both in the political sphere and
It lies politically in the system that
up by British imperialism ir created a single
The ANC is also conscious of the
dimension and this has LINe force international tens capital to divest, to pull out of the about,
This is something that we have to
of sanctions, of is a toremost issue in the struggle against the apartheid system. It seems to be extraordinarv how the
do not understand corporations which exploit them, which use them,
mechanism for making the val livald exploitation of black labour in South
We and you have a duty to possible energy South African commodities and for sanctions of all
Let me say something about the
itself.
COLDLY
Somehow the black people of South Atrica have come to the view that what they are fighting about is so fundamental that life itself is worth
A change has taken place, in the last few years, but in particular this
in the conception that people have of what they are fighting for.
are fighting for nothing less than power against white domination, for the establishment of a new system. Something as fundamental as that tents.
are not fighting in the last not for wage increases, although that is often placed in the forefront.
They are not fighting for local issues:
Iney are fighting for a new conception. And that is that white power has to be overthrown and replaced by a new șociety, a new non-racial democracy, in which black people will be liberated
white domination and white power of all kinds.
This conception of power appears
every funeral where tens of thousands of people raise the banner of the ANC - an illegal act — where tens of thousands of people call for the release of Nelson Mandela; where
of thousands of people talk and raise slogan, support for Umkhonto We Sizwe, the military wing OTte ANC, a very illegal act indeed. Because the new conception has entered the minds of the people - that revolution is here, revolution is possible, and revolution 1s essennal
Today the ANC's assessment is that there is a mood of uprising in the townships of South Africa. interesting to see that this is no longer a protest here or there, but that they are facing a mood of uprising.
Of course we ask, how can people engage in an uprising when they are not armed; when they are faced with a tremendous phalanx of repression, the military surrounding townships? Nevertheless, the position in South Africa now is no longer Soweto of 1976, no longer Natal of 1973, when something like 100,000 workers began militant
wav. particular circumstance. This is now a nationwide phenomenon people are joining, and risking all for the defeat of white for the smashing of the apartheid state
What is the expected course of the struggle? What kely to happen? I
difficult in
, but what I can say is this: do have simple preconceptions about this kind of struggle or that kind of struggle. Reality has shown
that the attempt to introduce a single model of struggle into South Africa is a mistake because complex society. working class, national different elements combine that to attempt to impose a single model of struggle is a mistake.
There is an unfolding of different levels of action operating in different ways, combining and converging to put une regime pressure, which is why it is in such a crisis.
At the first level, there is the kind of action launched by Alan Boesak: the non-violent,
the prison housing Nelson Mandela. action; open, legal, or perhaps illega but non-violent, open action, in the most embarrassing way
action of the young people in the townships, who are throwing stones, who are grouping and regrouping in the most fascinating way.
of
South Africa have come to the view that what they are
fundamental that life itself
I was privileged to be in Britain at It is ine ume Belfast. I was fascinated to see the methods that are used by the young people in Bogside, by youngsters embarrassing the armed forces of British imperialism.
I have been privileged to be in London when the riots in Tottenham showed the police forces highly armed forces can be embarrassed in different ways
In South Africa today the young people, unarmed as they
rinding ways of regrouping, urban guerilla warfare, most heavily-armed state, perhaps in the world.
Disorienting them. embarrassment bring in the army because they cannot contain the situation
So what we see in South Africa is another level of struggle. That is the struggle ot young unarmed, but nevertheless able create enormous
And then there's the ANC underground. A clandestine which has cels country, which has learnt a great dea about the effects of torture on people who are captured great deal about : the police security in the level acts as a kind of framework, within the whole popula struggle, framework
the body which sustains it and gives it guidance and leadership and so on.
And then there is the last one, perhaps the most fundamental, which is Unkhonto wing of the ANC. accord the Mozambican border mean, let m say, hit-and-run methods › are now A guerilla who goes into South Africa today has to survive, has to stay in the COMELY He Col across the border. He must stay there, he must make sure that the conditions
All 1S a highly Rural, urban, - so man Of
struggle
else. unde
three reasons. taking the form of confronting the regime
But there is another level: the mass
the regime.
6 The black people of
fighting about is so
people
is worth giving in that
fight.9
of the Bogside attacks And
of legalistic,
exile that even
revolutionary exercising programmatic al t grouping and capacities of fighting a kind of
against the
And succeeding, too.
Causing them Forcing TReM
people, even
embarrassment to
throughout the happen?
long time which has learnt a importance of
underground That
be silly to tr skeleton,
which lies of the people and world;
slalt
Africa we sizwe, une millar. reactionary
The Knomati closely sealing of the
ideas and a thing of the past.
no longer
are ripe for him to stay there and to survive under those conditions.
course the casualties higher. But the result has shown that the actions continue that the armed
OI the ANC cannot be defeated by the Nkomati accords, by raids into Botswana, or by anything
The ANC's assessment is that the conditions are extremely favourable for the struggle in the country for
Firstly, there is a crisis in the ruling class of enormous dimensions. The economic crisis, the financial crisis, is only one element.
There is an ideological crisis as well. The regime does not know where to go. The speeches of Botha make no sense because he has nothing to say He has no direction to take. All he can do is to defend and stay where he is however he can. So there is a crisis o
Secondly, the people themselves Let me say this: the South African case shows very clearly that those who make the revolution are the masses The revolutionaries can be around for a long time; the revolutionaries can be as militant as you like. But it's the people who make history. It's the
who, or through some chemistry, decide wher the time has come to sacrifice all, to be willing to die for their revolution. That's the second factor which exists in South Africa.
the third factor is the existence of the ANC alternative government, in any kind
constitutional Scuise There are people who have said to th ANC from time to time: you should constitute yourself as a government in
The has persistently refused, because it understands that what matters is the existenci OI :
movement capable of both orgasaona and aband ideological to serve as an alternative power centre; not alternative government, ready to take
but alternative power centre capable of shaking the system of white supremacy.
6 The young people, unarmed, are fighting a kind of urban guerilla
warfare against the most
heavily-armed state in the
world. 9
What is the outcome of all this going to be? People ask: when will it
We cannot answer these questions. I have been in exile for a
People have asked these questions for quite a long while. The answer is impossible to give. It woulc
But what can say is that the ANC has fingered the most rotten
been able to inspire sale to has so singered and
fingered
most capital in the world; identified and linked with international capital here, in the USA
agenda, and clearly understood by the
is what they want The people or South Africa are at will achieve
We hope that the people of Britain will join them in that historic moment.
Page 10 scan of this page
ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
The biggest carve up since Partition
10 the Unionists are blowing their tops.
THE TITLE of the weekend is An fiance for Socialism near three things in mind. Firs he ruggle of the working class and the ailiances it has to make. Second is how you use that alliance to break up and deteat the state. Third is to look ai the system of alliances of the ruling class LO alliances up.
It's very obvious that in Britain, if we are talking about breaking up the power of the capitalist state, we have io embark on the destruction of the state in the occupied six the north of Ireland as well as simply looking. at the problem in terms of 'Britain' itself.
If you want to break alliances of the ruling class, you have to break up the alliance between the British ruling class and establishment in the north of Ireland: the Ulster Unionists.
If you are looking at alliances of the working class you have to see that it's necessary inside Britain to create an alliance with the Irish in Britain.
But you also have to see that the British working fundamental interest in alliance with the Irish working class itself. Even if we get to ine stage where the Irish have managed to kick the British out, and remove the partition that was imposed by the British, then it is still the case that democracy in Ireland will not be safe until the British ruling class has been deteated in Britain as welll
British imperialism will always be a inorn in tne side or tae development of Irish democracy and the working class will always nave an interest in an alliance with the Irish working class.
If you look at the picture of the struggle socialism predominantly shared by the Labour tell in blain, suen an allance is no foremost in people's minds. At best the struggle in Ireland is some sort of 'added extra'; an appendage to the struggle for socialism in Britain one whereby the struggle for socialism
Britain hampered inconveniences uke inconveniences like the Prevention of Terrorism Act. inconveniences the existence of strip searching British jails.
It has to be got across that if we are to make advances on the left then the alliance with the Irish people has to be foremost in peoples' minds.
If you read the book by Chris Mullin A Very British Coup you can see the fundamentally peculiar English variety of socialism that important sections of the Labour left are talking about and pursuing. You have in that book a scenario for a supposed victory of the Labour Left where the question of the Irish dimension of the struggle is entirely absent. It's not a problem that's considered.
Today, the newspapers have been filled this 'historic through' coming out of the LondonDublin talks. We have to think about where the Anglo-Irish deal fits into our model of socialism, discussion on where socialism in Bri-
Because when the last tain is going. •fundamental breakthrough' in — when the Sunningdale power shar-
Socialist Action 22 November 1985 BRITISH WITHDRAWAL from Ireland should be seen as central for creating an alliance for socialism, said MARTIN COLLINS, editor of Labour and Ireland. The latest Anglo-Irish accord is a challenge to Irish nationalism. We cannot sit back and ignore it just because
Wing agreement We have to
titude.
break those
rule counties of But most important
up the
the
lo bring It aown.
cher's battle Unionists'.
Sunday Times tells
Two the
fundamentally
British
Plan Paisley that newspapers as find that the Ulster
grit and courage and strength.'
So, there you are.
Does that
by of advance? bullets,
like
was comments
Stand what was going on.
British as Finchley'
Four years later,
Castle.
cursion'.
this
they've invented.
The first language is traditions of breakpaid great heed to, thought the nonse were — into our getting pissed, Catholics, 1974 bombs
was set up the British labour movement, and even the socialist left, iooked on the 1974 agrcement with a charitable sori vi at-
When iney looked at that agreement, they saw the SDLP was going to be introduced onto the power sharing executive; they saw the possibility of curbing some excesses of the sectarian state: thev thought that maybe this form of rule was going to be a little bit more democratic than direct
of all, they looked upon the Sunningdale power sharing agreement and said 'ah well, the Ulster Unionists are our enemies, and because our enemies are opposing it then we are just going to sit back on the sidelines and see how it develops.
Woes fall in ghty re because the
because Unionists have brought it down. We should just sit back and watch. We don't have any real interest in helping
When I was preparing for the session today I was lookińg at some of the papers. It's very confusing at first glance to see what's going on because The Observer headline reads "That-
plan to beat rebel On the other hand, the us about an 'Anglo-Irish drive to defeat the IRA'.
supposedly serious newspapers have completely opposite understandings of what is going on!
6 The nationalists don't
need permission to stick up
Irish street signs or display
the Irish Tricolour. They are doing it already. 9 was quoted in the saying 'Thatcher will people are not
miners or Argentinians. They have
Quite clearly our enemies ase opposing this deal.
mean we nave something to gain by sitting on sidelines or pretending it's some kind
We shouldn't make the mistake of underestimating what has actually happened. In 1981 Margaret Thatcher
strikers. She said she couldn't unders-
'Northern Ireland' she said, 'is as fundamentally
she's meeting
with Garret Fitzgerald in Hillsbrough
The last time he visited the north it was described as a 'border in-
who e To understand what's going on in supposed Anglo Irish dialogue appears difficult. You have
to come to grips with a new language
word of the new einos aescribing Protestantism. The
ethos that has to be respected and
was not what we traditions of Ulster a religious, racist,
ideology about going out on 12 July
yelling abuse and maybe even throwing
stones through their windows, and
through their front
doors.
Now there is something different we are told. It is a tradition which has its roots in a very religious dedication which has to be respected. So
notion what LoyalismUnionism is about has been around by this new word, a 'Protestant ethos' which is somehow ferent from Unionism and Loyalism
There's another word and that's 'alienation'. Properly speaking, exclusion of the nationalist popula tion of the six counties from sphere of life - be it economic life through job discrimination, be cultural life through the banning of the Irish flag, of the Irish language and exclusion from the political pro cess by means of a gerry mandered electoral system.
The 'alienation' which Thatcher
and FitzGerald talk about is the Sinn Fein vote and the resistance of the nationalist population of the North. The word has been twisted round and used the to present a different picture.
turned agenda'.
Garrett FitzGerald is to put items 'ondif- 10 the agenda of
dialogue.' Not that they are going to do anything about the sectarianism of the UDR. Not that they are going to do anything about strip searching but somehow it's a big victory that you every are able to 'put matters on the agen-
da' and maybe put some suggestions forward that might or might not be listened to.
necessary to invent this new language and why it's necessary to go through process Dublin and London. Thatcher has
blem whatsoever.
Then we have another notion 'the
The great achievement of nationalists, million an Anglo Irish You have to look at why it was
talking might.
woken up to the fact that there is fundamentally no solution to the pro
of 'northern Ireland'. None
There is no solution militarily. Neither side can win. Half a million
cannot defeat one Loyalists, when added to 20,000 armed unionist paramilitaries the weight of the army and so on.
Equally it's impossible for the British to win, even given their vas fire power. They can't impose a solu tion in the six counties of the north because the nationalist population have thrown up a militant Republican leadership which will not go back to the old ways of being governed, wil not submit to sectarian majority rule The roots of resistance of the na tionalist people are so deep that it can-
be crushed with any military
Page 11 scan of this page
It is the same front. It's impossible to find a soluon to the em'. It's impossible to return to the Id forms of majority rule — because he nationalists won't put up with it. It's impossible. to come aritish solution and make it stick. It's impossible to achieve a nationalist solution because of the existence of thę gerrymandering in the first place. there is no movement, and it's necessary for Britain recruit the establishment to help them to find a
solution.
-Dublin now spends more
money per head of the population in defending the border than the there are changes comAgain, ared to the previous situation. 969 Jack Lynch sent troops of the ish Republic to the border to guard gainst a massacre in the north. Some ears later Charlie eader of Fianna Fail, was involved in
an arms trial under the supposition
that he was going to supply arms for
the defence of the nationalist people.
The situation is
terent today. Dublin
more money per head of the popula-
tion in defending the border than the
British do. The
throughout the south of Ireland. You WOL COSIVC legislation
have no jury courts, you have Section
which keeps Sinn Fein from the
media.
Internationally, the Irish
lassies are completely subservient to
the British embassies. An increasing
incursion upon Irish neutrality and a
subordination of Irish foreign policy
to the interests of and wishes of
NATO. The government is the best al-
ly the British ruling class
stabilise the six counties.
It's interesting to note that when
we talk about the Anglo-Irish deal,
more correctly we should be talking
about an Anglo-Irish-American deal.
The first thing that will be done when
this accord is pushed through in the
South, and the British parliament,
to send it to the United Nations for
the full approval of Ronald Reagan, for ratification
at an international
level, and for the promise of money
being held out in the future.
The accord defies the Irish constitution.It will only serve to prepare for a co-ordinated offensive against the Republican movement and the nafionalist resistance that lies behind it.
" Democracy in Ireland will
not be safe until the British
ruling class has been
defeated in Britain as well
as in Ireland. ›
Why should the Dublin government do that? Among other reasons, because of financial pressure. The 26 wellites economy in western Europe thoroughly hock bankers, and open to pressure from the IMF who prevent loans being called in.
The southern suffer because the threat of political anstability, represented by Republican movement, strikes at the very heart of stability in the 26 Counalies • where the national question is still the most important political issue going.
In the latest Anglo Irish talks another new word has been invented. In the conference they are going to set
on the political 'Northern Ireland pro-
Up with a
possibility of further
tion.
Dublin ruling
Why tatives"?
discussions Ireland.
British do. ›
are all about.
Haughey, now waged
onto the completely dif- "cultural heritage',
now spends
whole panoply of
views tionalism.
Adams -
nationalist
fruit of victory'. of British oppression
are doing it already.
This
and see where it gets them.
indebted by any kind of sell out.
UnIC British diversion. and the Unionists
have interest also people, the
and concare represents, because
up where Dublin can have a say in the
running of the 6 counties will sit the
'constitutional representatives'
Those two words are very impor-
tant. What 'constitution' are they are
talking about? They are certainly not
talking about the Irish constitution
because it claims sovereignty over the
whole of the 32 counties. They must
be talking about the British constitu-
That's not written yet! 'constitutional represenThe reason why they are
talking about constitutional represen-
tatives is because they refuse to have
elected representatives. They aim to
entirely exclude Sinn Fein from any
about the future That is what the Anglo-Irish talks They are all about the
recognition by the Dublin govern-
ment of the partition of Ireland for by
the first time ever. They are all about
a co-ordinated security offensive to
against the Republican
movement and the nationalist people.
That is what the Dublin government is
giving support to in return for putting
'agenda' such items discrimination, a
Bill of Rights, maybe the release
some prisoners to take some of the
tension out of the prisons, and maybe
some economic co-operation. What is
off the agenda is the notion of justice,
the disbandment of the UDR, the
question of plastic bullets, strip sear-
ching of women prisoners, and the
censorship which is used to repress the
republicanism naI'll finish with a quote from Gerry who's looking forward to
the possibility of concessions being
made to the nationalist people from
the Anglo Irish summit. He says 'such
concessions are not attributable to the
efforts of establishment politicians.
They can be claimed by a struggling
people as minor petser on the road to tasting the full
That is the way the nationalist grip people in the north will look at the Anglo Irish deal. They will not come out on the streets to propose the smashing up of this deal. They will wait and see what this deal means to the people who have borne the brunt
The nationalists don't need permission to stick up Irish street signs, or display the Irish Tricolour. They
is retrospective legislation, making legal something which the security forces have no power to prevent anyway. People are going to be looking at, and measuring up the performance of the SDLP against the aspirations of the nationalist people
These points have been put onto the 'agenda' by the struggle of the nationalist people of the north and they are not going to be removed from the agenda
So these talks are not some kind of
Just because lan Paisley doesn't mean we just sit back. We Inem
in fighting for an alliance with the Irish
opposing these inings ourselves and making sure that people who support the cause of Ireland are won and convinced that they have to oppose this deal. We have to organise
around what it's something new, something we have to pay atten-
It's something we have to fight.
expulsion
recommend that the general committee expel coun-
cillor Amir Khan and Kevin Scally when it next meets
on 26 November.
the disrepute.
SION file stars, Tariq
Ali's
which that Hat-
ed
blocs voters
deals with Birm-
inenans god-
fathers'
'br-
inging the party into
disrepute' general
ohre The real
of
Amir was the
Kevin of its most
Droller white sup-
porters.
tional supported
the for Democracy,
Tribune.
ported by LAST WEEKEND'S annual CND conference saw the national leadership more previous years. But the activists are still strong in CND. MATTHEW CREIGHTON, Labour CND executive committee member writing in a personal capacity, reports.
'A WEEKEND away from politics' one delegate described his first to CND conference. The Can-
issues facing the anti-missiles movement were kept well off the agenda by a leadership whose
on the campaign was clearly stronger than in previous years.
For instance, the British Defence Charter. which a number of leading members of CND executive are cobbl-
¡DENING THE
GREENHAM COMMONFO
SATURDAY DEC. 14th 1985 ENCLOSE THE BASE WIDEN THE WEB AND CARRY GREENHAM HOME EMPOWERED AND STRONG -
Black section organiser faces
ROY HATTERSLEY'S Sparkbrook constituency is trying to expel two leading supporters of its newly-formed black section. In the most serious threat to black people in the Labour Party since the national black section was formed two years ago, the constituency executive decided, by eight votes to six, to
send letters
Hattersley Labour Weekly,
that Labour
that
Scally,
- is covered by no party
such
views.
whose
ly icadel. in
conducts debate on black
They conseems
Warning signs for CND
firmly in control than in
Wing losette present politicians with a soft option unilateralism, was never discussed. When Labour CND asked why mention of their opposition to this charter had been removed from their report the answer was that the charter organiser, James Hinton did not wish to win CND support at this conference so we need not think about But despite the stageEMBRACE THE WORLD
Socialist Action
BACKE WEST MIDLANDS GAM PATGN
SOCIAL SECURİTY
CUTS
MARCH ANDRALLY ATURDAY 14th.
March as ther
expelling those on one side
of it
Kevin Scally is a leading
activist in the Labour Com-
mittee on Ireland. His ex-
pulsion would also leave the
Labour Party wide open to
the charge that it settles
debate by expulsion.
The move is not only
undemocratic but will harm
Labour's election prospects.
The majority of Sparkbrook
votgers are of Asian or Irish
descent. How can Labour
endorse such
then stand before them as a
champion of democracy or
of the oppressed?
The attempt to discipline
individuals on the grounds
political
disagreement proved
managed
vitality par• ticularly ac-
activities, actions
also voted give top
Clearly conference which for I COUL everything
Vul dia
the real about direction to
the Basic Case in ans or SOme means reinstating unilateralism at the centre of the campaign which success n won public opposition to cruise and Trident but made little
its central aim.
It became clear however that to others it can be used as a wal of dropping the question of NATÓ and US bases by concentrating only on British deterrence. This interpretation be endorsed by conference when it rejected an amend-
NEXT WEEK
Speeches from the 'Alliance for Socialism' weekend continue with:
• Mare Wadsworth
• Ann Pettifor
Women Against Pit Closures • The Anti-Apartheid Movement ....and others
22 November 1985 11
disastrous obstacle to vic-
tory in the run up to the last
election. new and ex.
tremely dangerous prece-
dent for disunity would be
set by the expulsion of two
leading individuals who are
not with any
hold views unpopular
with their local party leader.
ship. We appeal to those
concerned that the expul-
sion proceedings are ended.
• Copies of any motions
passed should be sent to th
the Black Section National
Committee and to the
Campaign for Labour Party
Democracy, 10 Park Drive,
London NWI.
ment to include the bases
and NATO.
Significantly, this was
the only mention of NATO on the agenda But numerous motions referring to NATO originally submit-
ted by CND groups showed that a section of paign realises hampered in progressing unless it tackles the central pillar of British defence and foreign policy - which will require reversing the shifts registered at this conference
Perhaps the spectacle of Bruce Kent supporting a motion to dilute the Thet the stitutional objects campaign will at last show the members that the leaders whom they have followed uncritically and bottling out. They would rather shift ground to accommodate the needs of Labour and Alliance leaders than con front the Labour Party's allegiance to NATO
It is no coincidence that their 'non-nuclear defence strategy' looks remarkably like the Labour Party's 1984 defence document.
After a conference like this, the left will need to ge its act togeiher if it is not to waste the opportunities presented by the mass missiles movement.
Narendra Makanji • The FDR of El Salvador
Page 12 scan of this page
No return to bipartisanship! Reject the London-
Photo: G M COOKSON
Garret FitzGerald egistered as a newspaper with the Post Offic mblished by Cardinal Enterprises, PO Box 50, London IN Printed By Laneride bla. (10), HaH Ma
ACTION
LABOUR'S COMMITMENT to the reunification of Ireland is being broken up by the front bench's headlong return to bipartanship behind the conservative Anglo-Irish Accord. The shadow cabinet has fallen for the notion that if the Dublin government gets an office in the Six Counties, it's the first step towards eventual reunification. Their conviction is confirmed by the blood-curdling rallying calls of the "clockwork' Orangemen in the House of Commons.
Tony Benn disagrees. 'It's another one of these
The said. 'where we are told we all have to pull Cases.
By Martin Collins Ed. Labour and Ireland together. It's the same as when they sent the troops in in the first place. I'll be voting against the Accord when comes up in parliament.
Despite the 'rhetoric of the Irish constitution and the conclusions of the Forum Report which argued for a unitary state, the Dublin government is the best ally Thatcher has in defending partition.
The British will allow Gar ret FitzGerald a right to comment on the running of the occupied Six Coun ties only in return for an Accord which registers his
partition - TOES! veto al the United Nations.
The Labour Commit-
tee on Ireland is calling for
MPs to vote against the
Accord in parliament, and
organising a campaign of
opposition and education
against it. They point ou
that even if the Accord like previous
aimed at devolution, Is op
posed by Unionists, it wil
inevitably lead to renewed
repression the na-
tionalist population.
Exclusion of Sinn Fein
is not just an attack on
that party. It is a disen-
franchisement of those na-
tionalists who have suf-
fered THOS from
discrimination by the sec-
tarian state and repression
Dublin
deal!
at the hands of the army, RUC and UDR
Labour's spokesper son Peter Archer dashed
Belfast this week 'consult' with all parties and like his Tory counterparts snubbed Sinn Fein.
different
HOW Labour leadership's con-
AS WE GO to press, it
seems Liverpool coun
cil is on the verge of
accepting a package
of proposals which
would avoid imminent
bankruptcy.
The Association of
Metropolitan Anthorities have offered
council over
million of borrowing
rights unused by other
councils and has thus
been able to compromise
substantially, softening
the blow involved in its
earlier proposals, which
were the subject of the
Stone-Frost Report can-
vassed by council leaders
such as David Blunkett.
The report would
have involved major cuts
in Liverpool's HOUSINES
budget and an 18 per cent
rate rise. The new offer
would mean a five per
cent tale rise, sale of
financial assets such as
fusion to even the Daily Mirror which says: 'This is an agreement for politi Clails. Mrs Thatcher has nearly not the people.
all of Westminster's politi-
her side largely Clansol because all parties lave failed over Ireland in the
But they failed because they refuse SIC recognise the heart of the problem, which 1S the British presence in Ireland We will not take the first
removedpeace until that is
step to
See 'The biggest carve up since partition', p10.
Defend
Liverpool
Liverpool's housing association mortgages and transfer of expen diture to other years budgets.
The concessions will not meet Livepool's needs. But the ferocious onslaught against the councH Tom Kinnock supporters, and the council's national isola tion, seem increasingly likely to force acceptance of the compromise.
The TGWU and
NALGO have already
called for acceptance of
the original Stone-Frost
proposals — but a new
grouping within
TALGO, calling ITSP 1
NALGO Rank and File,
has been campaigning
against acceptance
the basis that it is a live
now pay later solution
that would lead to the
fight to defend jobs and
services being abandon-
ed.
← Socialist Action No. 121, 15 November 1985Socialist Action No. 123, 29 November 1985 →