to win the next election. The opposite is Kinnock claims all this is necessary He has spent the nine months 1187since the end of the miners strike fritteraway ine enormous damage icted on the Tory Party by the 12 onth struggle of the mining ziunities. Evidently the new witch-hunt ill weaken the fight to Thatcher government and replace it by * Labour government.
It will give a green light to the right wing mafias in control of many parties and councils to silence political opposition to their corrupt practices by expulsions. That is what is happening in Hatdersiey s Birmingham consutuency was the way the party operated in the 1950s and '60s. That is what Kinnock's new witch-hunt will legitimise. witch-hunt will legitimise.
Any Labour meniser
gives the slightest support to the witchhunt against Militant is condoning the use of bureaucratic repression against political differences in the party. attack on Liverpool is an attack on the . democratic rights of every member the labour movement. trenteo as such.
NO CITY and no people have suffered so much under capitalism as Liverpool have . suffered. never have I known such leadership in Liverpool as we have now. I'm proud to come here in support of the councillors in their struggle to protect the people of the against the Tories, and now alas against the attempts to suspend the District Labour Party.
From this platform I would like to anneal to the whole labour movement support the Liverpool councillors who are defending the people of this city from market forces and government and who.- following conference policies - have prevented the massive rate rises and redundancies which the government hope impose. councillors are threatened charge, with bankruptcy, and with disqualification. Now we are told they are possibly inrealenea will expulsion as well. I very much hope that constituency parues ana trade umons talougnou the country will support the Liverpool councillors and the Liverpool party, support them with money and financial backing as tney approach their appearance in court on 13 January.
I haven't come here to tell Liverpool how it should run its affairs. Over the last few years I've heard all our front-bench spokespeople parliament 'don't interfere with local democracy. But when it comes to the internal affairs of the party, I find the national executive taking a totally contrary view. There made in Liverpool, I don't mustakes know. If so, I have made many myselt. But any mistakes that are made in the labour movement are to be dealt with by discussion within the labour movement, in the area where the decisions , are taken. They should not be used as excuse LUI suspending democracy of the party.
We have a duty to analyse why it is Spread that the government should be attacking this city. And the answer is that there is a deep crisis in the capitalist system in Britain.
Liverpool is now beginning to spread to Sheffield. We can see the first signs of it Chesterfield. Il has long feature of the inner areas of London.
The boom days are over, the days when Macmillan never had it so good'. Unemployment is a tool of government policy: to lower wages, to break the unions, to justify the cuts in local government, and course to justify the attacks upon civil di= tar:0o the role of the media ame te sery BBC figure is witch-hunt une eneury incom- position.
remove the For Militant.
Kinnock.
they indulgence indulgence which sent; they will also seeking to recruit for their own who it better himself.
illal of should be The Labour Coordinating Committee and Fribune have covered up for by supporting into Liverpool District Labour Party. To support the enquiry but oppose expulsions is not a viable After Kinnock's speech to Labour stage, Party conference, the LCC told us that the "blunt choice' was between Kinnock "Those who decide to fight we were told, saying they don't care adoul winning le les!
opting for selfkind of selfwould be a real betrayal of the working class people we have the privilege and the duty to reprebe quite cynically CeCi tarian purposes rather than build the party . Mr Kinnock coulan t nave pui Taccal When he turned his words against Liverpool into action it was hardly surthe Meachers, Sawyers, and Blunketts were there to support him. Indeed, at the national executive meeting it was Tom Sawyer who moved goal. the addendum suspending Liverpool enquiry, and Kinnock who seconded it illa subsequent editorial. 'Liverpool: finding a way through the mess' Tribune defended this decision while counselling the leadership that expulsions: 'would be inappropriate at this not mention counterproductive in terms of rallying support to people whose actions have shown that they do not deserve it.' And it was local LCC member Roger Murray who spearheaded the move to expel and Scally in Birmingham Sparkbrook.
The nub of the matter came out in a statement drawn up by the LCC ex ecutive for their recent annual meeting. They wrote: 'We share Neil Kinnock's desire to isolate the ultra-leit and to broaden Labour's appeal but we remain critical of the leadership's attitude to wider struggles and sceptical of the content of party policy.
Kinnock, the issue of broadening Labour's appeal is first oi all one ol abandoning support for struggles like the miners and Liverpool council. witch-hunt is one step towards that The enquiry is a fraud. Kinnock's statements to the press have subjected the Liverpool council to trial by Fleet Street. The Labour Party leader pro-