the Council of the 'Get Britain Out Referendum Campaign this week announced that they would no longer be prepared to speak on the same platform as Enoch Powell.
Their decision follows close on the heels of Powell's first speech in 18 months on immigration. Addressing a Monday Club rally in Croydon, he had spoken of the catastrophe, even death of a nation*, which would befall Britain unless large numbers of immigrants were repatriated.
The Labour MPs who have said they are not prepared to speak with Powell are, according to the Labour Party paper Labour Weekly, Guy annett (Greenwich), Denzil Davies. (Linelly), Doug Hoyle (Nelson and Neill Kinnock (Bedwellty). (Baling North), Jim uth Ayrhire), and Nige Red Weekly has argued betone hat it is precisely because Powell as been able to establish an alliance with the Labour left' on the CommiMarket that he has now returned to the isue of immigration and race, What better way to cover up the anti-working class nature of such reactionary ideas than to put them forward afa time when he is engaged in a common campaign with well known figures in the labour movement?
Such arguments have not until now cut much ice with supporters of a 'broad front' against the EEC whether in the trade unions, the Labour Party or indeed the Communist Party.
Even a mere two days after Powell's outburst, he was able to address a 'Get Britain Ouf meeting in Brighton along with Labour MP Michael English (Nottingham West) and Clive Jenkins of ASTMS. And apart from English, two other Labour MPs on the GBEC Council, John Lee (Hand sworth) and Max Madden (Sowerby) are still willing to speak with Powell.
But the problem is not simply Powell (or the National Front). While we welcome any move, even a partial one, that begins to under. mine Powell's attempts to exploit the EEC campaign for his own ends, the GBOC would. even in the event of his total exclusion, still provide SEVEN of the ten Labour MPs on an object lesson to the working class in how not to fight the EEC.
The fact that no section of the ruling class has any strategy for dealing with the present coonomic crisis except at the expense of the working class undertines the need for the working class to wage an independen class campaign against the Common Market. But the seven Labour MPs who have spoken out against Powell have so far shown no sign of withdrawing from the GBOC Council, which not only has Monday Club Tory MP Richard Body as its joint chairman but is also attended by Powell and another Ulster Unionist as well as two Tory MPs and two Scottish Nationalists.
In the strugale against an institution like the EEC, which the ruling class will attempt to use to shore up capitalism and centralise attacks or the workers movement, it is sheer lunacy to ally in this way with the most backward sections of British capitalism, whose intentions differ from this only in that they would prefer these attacks to be mounted by the British state.
For these reasons we welcome Labour MP Norman Buchan's proposal to set up an independent Labour against the Market Camp aign', The way to fight the EEC is through a united front campaign of the working class which can, by developing international links within the labour movement, begin lo lay the foundation stones for a real working-class solution to the crisis. Although this is, no doubt, beyond the scope of what Buchan envisages, an casential part of such a task will be the exclusion from such a campaign of all those bourgeois forces who will attempt to lead it back up the blind alley of crisis-stricken capitalism.
ANDY NEWTON