LAST WEEK saw the announcement that 1,400 local authority jobs in the Strathclyde area of scotland are to go in the next year. This follows the publication of a report attacking the direct labour "gross inefficiency and low productivity'.
But this was no ordinary report. It had been prepared by Malcolm Hoppe, head of research at Aims for Freedom and Enterprise. This extreme right-wing outfit won immediate support in their drive for municipal speed-up ana rcauncancies from Bailie Dick Dynes, leader of Glasgow's Labour group. He decided that the "crunch' had come, and that in line with Hoppe's proposals direct labour workers would be more efficient drawing dole money than building houses Once again workers in Scotland find at the receiving end of the Labour Party boot-boys sitting in the Glagow City Chambers. This is a good example of the situation which has led many socialists to oreak with The Labour Party and join the Scottish Labour Party But instead of seizing the opportunity of building on this disillusionment with the Labour Party, SLP leader Jim Sillars has preferred the more respectable road of a parliamentary allance Scottish National Party on devolution rather than a serious fight against the cuts and unemployment.
But to do this meant splitting his party. And last weekend 130 people turned up to a reconvened SLP conference in Stirling to discuss the next steps after the expulsions.
Two weeks after they had been kicked out, the first preoccupation of the confer ence was inevitably that of their relation to unc sillars camp of Ine sEr. the steering committee of the conference argued that the conference should proclaim itself the 'legitimate' SLP.
The agenda of the conference started at the point where the previous conference had adjourned because of the expulsions. Because of this procedure, all the decisions made by the previous conference up to the point of the expulsions were accepted as valid.
This correctly left the door open to a party and paced me responsibility for the split on the shoulders of the Sillars leadership. Time and time again, delegates stressed that no artificial barrier should be put up between une two camps. However, merely pro claiming Sunday's conference as the 'real' SEP lett many questions unresolved Delegates were quick to point this out.
Did this mean that they recognised Alex Neil as the General Secretary of the party? If so, should they send their membership dues to the Sillars camp? What happens when policy resolutions are which are directly contrary to those passcu by une previous conrerence!
Delegates were content to allow some of these questions to be left unanswered, but only on the basis of calling a policy conference in January and setting up a National Council delegated from branches In pursuing this fight for a reunified party, delegates unanimously rejected a proposal from a Tillicoultry member that the conference should not discuss any policy resolutions in order to prevent an ineradicable split with the other wing of the party. Reunification yes, explained the delegates; but not at the price of a disintegrated and scattered left wing. WHOSE TERMS?
The fight for the reunification of the SLP posed sharply the question - reunification on whose terms? This was taken up by Kelvin delegate Jim McKechnie, when he explained that the only guarantee for a unified party was complete internal democracy: If we go back, we go back The second danger taken up was that the expelled branches could be left without any perspective except that of waiting for some future development to take place in the Sillars camp. Passive. unorganised branches which are slow to seize the opportunes now open for recruitment and for aggressive political campaigning can only ald demoralisation of the left. This would make the completion of the job which Sillars began with the expulsions a hundred times easier.
Corrie McChord, a delegate from Stirling, reminded the conference that the old SLP leadership saw the left as a cancer which had to be destroyed. 'Our strength doesn't lie in money or prestige, he went on, 'but in our potential to drive the organisation into tenants committees. the trade unions, into the working class. Any reunification will have to be on our terms."
It was such problems which Gerry Finn from Kelvin referred to when he spoke about tactically riding two horses-that is, both fighting for the reunification of the party, yet at the same time going out possible.
all une problems adopted oureaucrauc conterence.
wing to be clarified in a democratic way.
Inukev maL ne wil resoone to unt it nis sunDor ers are aror ane same mine links with non-capitalist countries.
although supporting the he summed it up.
disintegration and unemployment and the Social Contract. into socialist wing materially strengthened. party.
NEIL WILLIAMSON
DISCIPLIN LOUISE BOYCHUK to build the socialist wing as actively as The discussion clearly could not solve nevitab e given the origin of the socialist wing. They have been thrown together not through a long debate and discussion but by the expulsions of the original Nevertheless, it establishes both the right atmosphere and a clear procedure for relations with the Sillars Immediately after the conference, however, Sillars personally rejected any unity with the expelled branches, and it is unanimous proposal from the conference for discussions between the two wings of the party. Only the next few weeks, above all his conference in December, will show The afternoon session of the conference continued the economic policy debate. The resolution from Kelvin, made almost infamous in the preceding press witchhunt, was passed unanimously. Described WEEKLY GIVE US FIRM
----- pull-quotes -----
ON SALE HERE BONDAGE PUNISH! CHHAT YOU WANT,
YOU CANNOT SEE ASK THE DESK SMUENT