Learned him the hostility of the majority of the group.
He was removed as vice chair of the city's race relaLULN culdi opportunities committee November of last By cal Group leader Dick Knowles complained that Murphy considered 'the Black community in BirmmOre Imporlanl than anything else' Phil Murphy UCICVC was mined that it would be unmistakable a pro-Labour Party rally to combat any suggestion that their views were semraust n occamt a major issue only after DIcK Knowles live 01 Birmingham's six MPs wrote Bernie Grant Linda Bellos telling them to stay away.
Letters were circulated to the national media to gualalltt a SIlUy Events of the ] April rally have opened wide-ranging debate in the black . communities about Black Sections involvement in the Labour Black Section and their supporters are now poised allipalsil defence of Murphy others if action is taken by the NEC.
ON WEDNESDAY 29 April Black parliamentary candidate for Nottingham East, Sharon Atkin faces expulsion by Labour's national executive. Lambeth council leader Linda Bellos has also been threatened in the press. Birmingham city councillor Phil Murphy has already been suspended from the Labour group which has referred his case to the National Constitutional Committee and called for his expulsion from the party. The official opening of the witch hunt against the Labour Party Black Section took place last month, at the March NEC. But the origin of the policies leading to this attempted purge can be traced to annual party conference of 1983 when the expulsion of the Militant editorial board was ratified. CAROL TURNER examines where the witch hunt is leading the Labour Party.
THE Labour Party Black Section opposes all witch hunts within the party. No friend of Militant's politics, Black Section has consistently fought the expulsalons othe su sinilas along with simlar disciplinary action against members of the Labour The Black Section, like many on the left, argued that the attack on Militant was the thin end of the wedge for an attack on the whole of the Labour left -anu acu d uc disE oppressed. Sadly, those predictions have now been proved correct. The frameof Sharon Atkin and UU others is the latest in whole series of purges and alemste• urdes party's left wing The NEC move against the Black Section came exactly one year to the day after proceedings began against 12 members of the Liverpoo Labour Parties. The NEC passed a resolution against the Black Section on Wednesday 25 March this year. The first NEC meting which considered the findings of Inel Liverpool District Labour Party enWednesday 26 March 1986. • LO0K plact the ena of 1985. when the enquiry „InTo Liverpool was Joan Maynard MP told Socialist Action: 'The Laboul Partv should be concentrating public attention on the viciously anti-working class polices this Tory government. stead the headlines are now going to be dominated for months by this enquiry. It will run and run. Don't have any illusions.
prospective She was, ot course. right. Twelve months on, at the brink of a general elecwing still Lull. naven t learnea unc iesson.
Roy Hattersley and the other TOlY Birmingham MPs who launched the atTack on nara kıl arc busy demonstrating that thev regard expulsions of members whom they disagree as more implan men ucledlg the Thatcher government. It they are preparca o s° this far on the eve of an election, what lengths will they take the witch hunt to if their overall policies lose Labour the election?
Pursuing a witch hunt, however, is not just a matter of a few determined right wingers laking acuon. Tlley can only do so if the maOlILY the wally prepared to let inem gel away with it. The witch num lda d as let (perhaps se should be today because the calling them the soft right?) have gone along with It.
From the expulsion of its editorial board onward, Tribune has been assuring us that it was only Militant supporters who were up for chop. 1 ney weiC "special case' according to Nigel Williamson OLICI S The opposite has been the case. ov une me une Liverpool expulsions were contirmed at the 1980 annual Amir Khan and Kevin Scally had already been thrown out other members had gone on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Speaking at the Tribune rally at 1986 Ken Livingstone periectlv accurately described the process of the witch hunt. ne o. nose wio dave read what I have written in Tribune must know Culle clearly I do not support the Militant tendencv. But never wanted them expelled v c all. l ursaniocu in the London labour movement until we won our posihons on women, lack ped ple and the need for a free and united Ireland.
'That is how we go forward. There can be no support for the witch hunt.
"Those who warned at the beginning that the witch hunt would actually widen have been proved right...
"There can be no support for left unity, there can be no step forward to create agreement about the sort of policies we want, unless we agree first of all that we reso ve our ditterences internally we oppose every expulsion that comes before the NEC.' But this view was rejected in the soft left. At the same rally David Blunkett spoke mom tae platlori Le justify the Liverpool expulsions. Today he is one of the driving forces behind the calls for Sharon Atkin's expulsion.
Dennis Skinner, who has warned from the start where the witch hunt would lead, described the new step taken by the expulsions of Khan and Scally thus: "The witch hunt net was cast wider when Amir Khan, Kevin Scally and Mohammed Raffique, all from Roy Haltersiey s bırmingham It has included local parties (including in Bırmıngham) refusing to accept the transter of partv members • for which there is no provilaasocyel dily Labour Party rule book. It included expelling members in Central Fife on no specific charges whatsovel, aner iney poliec out irregularities in local membership and the lunc tioning of a ward.
It included attempts to expel three members of Exeter for bicakming Ine hon-eisieu rule of confidentiality of EC business. And it has included suspending whole consutuency parties. like s Helens North and South Liverpool-Broad Green and Knowsley North.
In the case of Knowsley Socialist Action 24 April 1987 ED the time) then that seat would have been lost too.
reluctantly conclude TOrDols nauonaı cxecutive was right to impose George Howarth. It is no surprising then that senior Labour figures should considering extending that practice to all by-elections. •But despite all the attempts de cac o zi0e the demands of women and black people,' he said, "these issues have not gone away 1 am absolutely convinced that the idea of positive action promoted by the Black Section, with al the support that got in many inner citv areas. na:
number Black caning es sed in ane as ting elected, round of local government of policy. Once the purge had begun the right wing was able to start watering down policies. Dennis Skinner correctly told Socialist Action on the eve ol 1980 Darly coniercuce The truth is crystal clear. The witch hunt was launched against the Militant because they were the casc aree But Militant was never the real target. They were the pretext to generate the momentum for the witch hunt.
The witch hunt was never an issue of Militant's politics. It was a far more fundamental issue of party Those who sup ported the SuLHL against Militant opened up a coo or every ounci ali tack on party democracy
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