Socialist Action No. 14, 17 June 1983
The scan: 014-jun-17-1983-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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photo• GM COOK Arthur Scargill
the
ACTiON SOCiAList No. 14 17 June 1983
Rebuild Labour to fight
Tories
30p social services.
to resist all attempts to I call on the british people
lower living standards and take away our basic rights and freedom. In order to resist this government's policies we will undoubtedly need to take extraparliamentary action that includes the possibility of political strikes to prevent the massacre of our health, education, housing and
the coming Tory
Party, the unions and the GLC'.
Labour never governs alone again.
This is why the leadership struggle opening up in the labour movement is so vital. The issue facing the contenders is how to defend the labour movement and rebuild the Labour Party.
Ran
Hattersley, Shore and Healey Labour's general election campaign. They used their position to denounce the Party's policies. Their programme for Labour is simple regain the middle ground lost to the Alliance by wiping out the left and its policies.
But their won't work. The British ruling class don't want to resurrect governments of the Callaghan and Wilson type. They want to make sure that Labour never governs alone again.
The left has powerful support. The eight million voters who backed Labour's programme despite the unanimous media campaign against it did SO because bitter
Tony Benn Ken Livingstone
Points of view from
Dennis Skinner, Emlyn
Williams, Helen John,
Joyce Hurcombe
Full election analysis John Ross Labour's own goal -what went wrong?
Steve Marks & Alan Freeman Sinn Fein's victory Martin Collins
International reactions
ARTHUR Scargill is right. Responsible parliamentary opposition will not deal with
onslaught. As Ken Livingstone put it, "The Tories' manifesto is to eliminate their enemies: the Labour
The Tory press already scent blood. With the Alliance finishing only 700,000 votes behind, they want to ensure that
experience has taught them that SDP-type policies don't work.
Right wing trade union leaders like Frank Chapple and Terry Dutty have already explained that if Labour can't govern alone they would quite comfortable with Labour/Alliance coalition.
Meanwhile, the offensive of the Tories threatens the labour movement with serious defeats.
The strategy of the right proposes nothing to stop them. Unless Labour defends working people here and now the labour movement will be prostrate before the Tories for the next decade. The second group of contenders are those around Neil Kinnock, the protege of Michael Foot.
Reveal
Events before and after the election reveal that this centre-left bloc independent position - they try to balance between the left and the right, generally
Next steps for the left - 10 pages of news, comment analysis and
perspectives including:
Major articles by Page
7 4
2 & 3
8 & 9 13 MODERN TIMES Apparently, the union's backing_Neil Kinnock as part of its Be Nice to Rightward Moving Welsh MPs campaign
going with the strongest force.
But their vacillation allows the media to discredit the Labour Party as a whole. The final effect of Foot's leadership was to legitimise the witch hunt by the expulsion of the five Militant editors. This opened the door to Hattersley and Healey and the media who ridiculed their timidity and demanded that they go further.
In the election Foot's attempt to marry left and right around a fudged manifesto was progressively shredded on millions of TV screens. The result was a field day for the right wing in alliance with the media to discredit Labour's most radical policies.
Continued on page 10
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Thatcher has no mandat
2 Socialist Action 17 June 1983 THE PRESS say that in June 1983 the Conservative Party won a massive electoral victory. The facts are rather different. Margaret Thatcher has received the lowest real proportion of the vote of any government with a secure parliamentary majority in British history. She has not gained a popular mandate for her policies.
is Labour's disastrous defeat. This defeat was ably assisted by the wrecking of Callaghan and Healey. But the decisive blow was struck by the SDP/Liberal Alliance. The result is that while the Tories have no mandate to push through their secret agenda, the labour movement must itself for struggle.
The British working class movement has been educated by its history to be profoundly anti-Tory.
The 1983 elections results confirm this. Thatcher showed herself incapable of increasing her vote from the debacle of Labour's campaign.
By John Ross
In fact Thatcher's vote actually by almost 700,000 between 1979 and 1983- a man mom to ber cent to 42 per cent. That 42
proportion of the vote receivea by a government with a clear majority in British history.
These election results are part of a decline of the Tory vote which has now been going on lor fifty years show elsewhere on this page.
This is why all comparisons with the years of Tory supremacy between between the wars miss the point entirely. In the 1930s Conservative governments succeeded in gaining real mass support and mass
per cent of the VOLeS -vote in 1931, per percent of the votes in 1935.
The great majority of those who voted for the Alliance, no matter what the goals of their leaders, do not support the demolition of the health service, do not support Thatcher's policies on unemployment, do not support the attacks democratic rights which this government is going to carry out.
A decisive majority of voters, 58 per cent, did not vote for Thatcher. That is why Ken Livingstone and
Tory victories Tory % of the vote
Year 55.0
1931 53.3 1935 48.0 1951 49.7 1955 49.4 1959 404 43.9 1979 Tory defeats 39.6 1945 43.4 1950 43.4 1964 1966 1974 (February) 1974 (October)
The second decisive result of the general election
now completely rebuild
Arthur Scargill are solutely right to say that me abou movemendousi
side Parliament to defend working class rights.
The potential for such
struggle Those
Party members who worked for the cam-
WELC thusiastic, active and mili-
than previous tall years. Those who voted for a manifesto denounced Dy the meala as lelt wing did so more consciously
The Tory attack on the
mahour movement
The Tories realise the obstacles facing them in
through their secret agenda. They know their popularity will decline even more rapidly in power. That is why they are seeking to strengthen themselves and destroy their opponents.
They have to try to: of the Labour Party by
the trade unions having political
• abolish the closed shop in order to protect scabs in the workplace • use Tebbit's laws to intimidate militants, crush struggles and attempt to destroy unions, particularly those in the public sector.
The attack - the Labour Partv and that on the unions are tied together he trade unions created the Labour Party to defend the unions through political struggle. Weakening and 41.9 37.9 35.8
debilitating the Labour Partv for the emplovers Is removing the most essential of all weasons with which the unions can defend themselves
The very scale of the Tories' assault on basic rights is a result of Thatcher's lack of authentic mass support.
She proposes abolish the GLC because she is not sure the Tories could win election against Labour in Lon-
Police COS. powers will be increased because the ories cannot gain popular support for
The Alliance attack on
the labour movement
Coupled with this organisational offensive against ine Labour movement will be a political atLaCK on by SDP/Liberal Alliance. Contronted with a working class movement which
profoundly anti-Tory but not educated by its leadership to prosocialist, then the solution for the capitalist class was
Sponsor two political Dardes Cara through the attack on working class rights and living standards, the other
'anti-Thatcher' lo pose as and 'anti-Tory' alliance which could slice into the Labour vote in a way that the Conservative Party never could.
The result is a major
Coolaus class. It was the Alliance not the ories who cut into the Labour vote and im-
the Alliance and not the
who were able te pick up the votes driven in-
their hands Callaghan and Healey.
Millions voters reasoned that if the point was to be anti-Tory, but not in support of policies like unilateral disarma-
the Common Market, then why not vote for a libera anti-Tory capitalist party.
The failure to build up a real socialist Labour Par-
TE
Steel, O into the ends of
Owen, and Jenkins.
Tree Ad toe doice ever
pretend replace Tories They eplace and smash the Labour Party - they say so openly.
Someone like Owen quivers with hatred every time he even mentions the Labour Party. The triple assault of the brutal club
in the Tories homiette
the from Alliance, and internal sabotage by the Labour
the Labour Party faced and will face in the future
The Alternative to
Thatcher
There should also be no illusions that the struggle with the Alliance is only just beginning.
representatives The more of SCHIOUS the capitalist class understand perfectly well that this se cond Thatcher government is going to become unpopular extremely rapidly. The building societies carefully stage-managed their announce ment on increases in mortgage interest rate it came out only after the election.
There will be another round of public sector spending cuts in the autumn. The time bomb
the deteriorating balance of payments, and the need for austerity to curb it, is constantly eating
Within a year even That cher's low 42 per cent vote will have fallen drastically.
The fraud of 'landslide support' will be increas ingly obvious for all to see and the Tories run the risk of being crushed in by-election after by-election
Every by-election will be turned into a gigantic contest in which the entire press, and every oner weapon, will be mobilised to ensure that the Alliance defeats Labour. Above all the Alliance wants claim, it is the alternative to Thatcher. Grinding down and smashing the Labour Party is the goal of
both capitalist parties today.
As for the politics of the Alliance it will huff 'and puff about 'opposition to Thatcher' and in practice put the knife into te Labour rarty. As so meone said of the Guardian newspaper it always comes down on the side of repression The Allance will Tegret-
'regretfully' go along policies to tr to destroy the power. o the labour movement
Those who call for votes for the Alliancethe Chapples the Granthams — should be hound ed out of their positions of
movement. The Labour conference itself completely and totally against any coalition or pact with the Alliance
The struggles which lie ahead under this govern-
CHL accor to be
remely hard. But it is no impossible to win. As the economic crisis deepens as people find out the real intentions of the hatcher government, anger is go ing to rise
It is precisely because Thatcher does not have mass support for attacking the welfare state, or for assaulting democratic rights, or for creating unemployment, that the Labur Party can rebuild its popularity. But that means the organisations of the labour movement must
their members jobs, wages, the welfare state and democratic rights.
If the Labour morement does not defend its members then millions of its members are not going to defend it.
The orientation of the Labour right, to make the Labour Party go even fur ther back to its old openly right wing DOCt and structures, will leave eve more space open for the Alliance to try to destroy the Labour Party.
Build the left wing
The labour movement and Labour Party is only
going to be defended if a massive organised left wing IS built inside Those who belleve tha this *divisive should look at the election cam paign.
It was the fact that Healey and Callaghan were held up as honoured figures of the Labour movement and still had
Pasty apparatus a boat
apparatus, that allowed them to sabotage the campaign.
Building up the Broad Lefts the unions- and bullaing me lels constituencies is absolute v centra to detending and rebuilding the Labour Par-
and labour movement. The left wing can win the support of whole new sections of the working class.
It is out of the activists in the anti-nuclear move ment, fend the welfare state, in fighting for jobs, in the defence of democratic rights that the forces rebuild the support of the Labour Party are going to come.
Thatcher out
rinally the labour movement should have one clear goal - even if it seems a little remote a fev days after an election. Thatcher has won a landslide of seats with a small vote The Tory Party will rapid- government.
ly become dramatically
There necessity for the labour
to wait for another five years to get rid of this government
As Thatcher's popularity falls becomes clear she has mandate for the policies she will follow, the aim must be to get this govern ment out and lo force new general election in which the Tories are crush ed. No matter how tough the first months of the struggle, that
the SDP/ Liberal Alliance got in the election.
The Alliance had been
put down as a creation ol
the media. dismissed
some odd protest vote or
described as the 'bubble
that would burst
By John Ross
Even SULLIC of OUl
readers thought we gave
too much aliciol to the
Alliance. But the 26 per
vote notched uvuy
the Alliance has shown
that there a profound
change taking place
British politics.
Nor is this some odd
thing that happened in one
election. The TISC the
Liberal vote has been go-
ing on for 30 years our
table here makes that
clear.
Obviously this 1s no
flash in the pan. Despite
odd ups and downs the
Liberal vote has been clim-
Three Party p
MANY PEOPLE were surprised by the big vote that
bing steadily. The trend
195s to shree cent in
1959. By 1964 had reach ed 11 per cent. In 1974 it had climbed to 19 per cent Now it has reached 26 per
General Liberal-SDP Election percentage of
the vote 1951 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 1974(Feb) 1974(Oct) 1979 1983
This is why Labour can't just ignore the threat of the Alliance. The New Statesman
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litics?
SDP as some irrelevancy when it was formed, making 'funny' 1okec adoll Woy' and claret. Their political ignorance WaN shown when they finished
La 'tactical up caling Iot vote for the Alliance - in come Consululecies parently 'Woy' and 'claret' was better than independent working class politics.
Militant, who thought just having the label Labour was enough, have
proved 776,000 been votes wrong. Such complacency dangerous. LADOUr Call only win the
leadershid of allies it i
Cass and its allles fights the politics of the SDP and the Liberals. Relying on anti-Toryism is not enough — the Alliance can cash in on that. Only
building an anticapitalist movement Labour become a majority.
, to govern
MICHAEL FOOT'S decision to step down as Party leader surprised nobody. Foot was elected as leader by the Parliamentary Labour Party troduction of the electoral college, as the best candidate to 'unite' the party and keep out Benn.
His abysmal failure as leader was not due to his personal eccentricities sentences, general air of being somewhere else — but to his political positions.
HARRIS Trying to unite left and right
he fudged every issue and pleas ed nobody. The electorate could see that his 'leadership' farce of indecision promise.
Without Benn in parliament, the left is in a difficult position to put forward a credible candidate.
During campaigh we backed Tony Benn not because we agreed
Voting
behaviour in
the NEC
KEY TO NUMBERED ISSUES
Conference. July 1982
september 1902 3.
minimum wage. Seotember 1904
Keep Benn,
November 1982
*= Not on NEC then
back after Foot?
out In practice leadership available.
By Phil Hearse before the in-
trying to impose its policies The opportunity the endless hollow rhetoric and ›ably forward his
and the Gerald Kaufman.
stage left was a and cepted nomination port him.
But the Hattersley, Shore and the deputy leadership Kinnock with him 'centre-left' around Foot. 1. Keep the commitment to nationalise clearing banks in NEC State. 2. NEC t0 Cod terencese Conference amendments calling for removal
of NEG's arbitrary powers over pressure groups and calling for
impartial conditions for the operation of pressure groups.
Total onnosition to incomes policy and support tor guaranteed
not Golding, as Chair of Home policy Committet
Carry out 1981 Conference decision to allow CLPs to carry out
full re-selection in the event of boundary changes. February 1982 6: Against expelling the Militant editorial board. February 1983
KEY TO SYMBOLS F = For; A = Against; O = Abstention; = Absent or not voting;
Who should the left
politically, but to advance and embolden the left generally, and to test his
the most left wing
A victory for Benn would have been a symbol of the political majority for the left in the party, and would have stayed the hand of the right in witch-hunting the left and
• for the left to put forward a candidate will pro. labour
be around the deputy leadership where Michael Meacher has put
nomination This should be firmly backed against the 'centre' candidate, Denzil Williams
candidate the right,
there is at this candidate for leadership. At one stage Eric Hef- vances. ter's name was roared. u ne ac sions
we would sup-
major candidates are Kinnock. and Hattersley alc ulan
biguously on the right of the party
associated with the
NEC VOTES Issue No.
Frank Allaun hony bent betty bootnroya eric Warki Laurence Coates Anne Davis Gwyneth Dunwoody Jor Call noy cvan:
Michae, too John Golding Alan Hadden
Denis Healey tric метте Neville Houal Doug Hoyle Denis Howel Les Huckfield
Joan Maynard , McCluskie Jo Micharasor Gerry Mussel Tom Sawyer Dennis Skinnel Shirley Summerskill Syd Tiernes
Lave Vitam
As Ken Livingstone points out in
article, long record of opportunism and betrayal anne lens abiddons
The accompanying chart of re cent voting behaviour on the NEC prepared by CLPD shows that Kinnock has voted with the right on incomes policy, nationalisation of the banks and the witch hunt.
Nevertheless in the absence of a left candidate, the divide between left and right in the ranks of the
movement will emerge around Kinnock's candidature.
that the maioritv of the part! swung to the right decisively.
It would be a green light for the witch hunt, for the abandonment of
embracing the Common Market and incomes policy and
constitutional
Kinnock is a rotten opportunist, who at a later stage might prepare his own attack on the policy gains of the left. But to refuse to back him against Hattersley or Shore in the
final analysis would be an ultra-left stupidity - handing the game to the right wing without a fight.
1982-8: 1901 - 04
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What the left said
4 Helen John
Camp
I'M VERY disappointed at the large swing to the Tores. Part of the reason for this is that people were mis ed.
They were told that there was coing to be an upturn and that the economy was becoming strong again. Unfortunately the people are going to nino out une nard way that this isn't true.
Neither were the issues discussed in the campaign. Labour's campaign in particular was not hard enough or positive enough. ConEmlyn Williams
Tribune
IT GOES without saying dat this election has been • usaster lor Labour. 1ne
restion now arises: what
First, Labour must ever again go into an elec-
on with leaders most of tom are so manifestly
it of sympathy with the
rogramme on which they
supposed to be cam-
gning ...
there is likely
the autumn. Nomina-
alc OUCE and Jose on 15 July. We need
politician of sufficient tature stand up Meatcher and who at the
se me colmanos e
THE LABOUR
has great task
ead of it in the next two
following the
miliating defeat the
right wing Labour leaders.
We absorb the ars and the pain and flex
muscles for the great ght ahead. There will be
attack on civil liberties
Police there will the unions;
ete will be the attack on
r public services: and we est transform our pain Mo energy and fight back ainst the Tories at every
Socialist Action 17 June 1983
Greenham Common Peace
Helen John
Emlyn Williams, President, S. Wales miners
ty members. of Tony
fits the bill. effort
Tribune
Third, we reet prepare ourselves for onslaught Labour right. They will allege that it was Labour's policies which lost the election ...
What destroyed the credibility of the Labour
Ray Davies, Labour candidate, Cardiff C.
Ray Davies This • must be done through the rank and file
ference decisions were not
put forward with any
vigour.
If the election had
been fought properly on
these policies. 1 still think
that Thatcher could have
peen dereated did
Labour could have won.
Alter the election we
will see a great deal more
of the sort of action we
have seen at Upper
Heyford, as those who
atre aware dame oste
take action.
The missiles will be
stopped by extra-
parliamentary action.
WE'VE lost the election, but don't be despondent because of that.
We face the massacre
and destrucLon British mining industry at the hands of the hatcher
particularly the growth of nuclear energy.
If more pits close there won't be jobs at other pits for miners to transfer to. It would mean large scale redundancies; our youngsters will be deprived of jobs in our industry.
But we're not going to sit back and let this happen. We RECTO OCI closures and redundan• cies
Jim Callaghan has done more to damage the image of the Labour Party than any other Labour MP. He is now the only Labour MP left in Cardiff, and he's in good company with Cardiff's three Tor MPs.
conducted by of the
supposed
Opposition long time.
The facing its
is two fold.
gulf inside the party between the leaders and led.
SECOND, they must go out into the country and close the gan which is
between the
abour party and the electorate.
of the trade union move-
must be part of the process of rebuilding our ship which was the weak link in the whole of the Labour and trade union election campaign.
People will judge us over the next few years not
action in defending working people Tory onslaught. The priority of TalK and file bactivists in the vital months ahead is to work within tne trade union and Labour Party uphold and promote the Party's radical policies.
Dennis Skinner, MP
lost the
policy
we're
labour but
we ve got
on course. convey message
Policies
charisma or . I shall be asking
all those who aspire to the
parliamentarians
have to understand this -
battle must start VuL'
side parliament, and MPs
and trade union executives
will have to mirror that
Extra-parliamentary
activity will be extremel
important in the coming
period.
Joyce
Hurcombe
Joint Secretary Labour CND THATCHER'S victory is a disaster for the working Class. The next four years will show. there's no way forward under capitalism.
Our leadership didn't come back with a straight, simple line, especially on disarmament. İ didn'i expect we'd be attacked on
disarmament during the election by our own leadership, but that's what happened.
There are problems inside the Labour Party. If the right wing now turn on the left they accelerate the witch hunt -- 1
In 1970, when Labour
lost, many people thought
world. spirit
struggle developed which
resulted in the downfall of
the second
following second
miners strike in 1974.
We've got to get that
spirit after this
defeat. The potential for
defeating the Tories and the establishment lies in
places like this among the South Wales miners.
We must make sure that if the TUC won't take
the government on, then the might of the industrial unions will be brought into play.
Strength
We've got the strength to do it, so let's start the fightback now. Everybody who struggles against the Tories and the bosses should not be left to fight alone, but must be given support.
One almighty struggle against this government and we repeat what happened in 1974.
Wythenshawe CLP
NOW that the General
Election is over the fight with the right-wing will start again with new force. We think that they will want to try to • completely break the Wythenshawe • агту, Suspenet just prior to the election.
Despite being suspended there would have been
election campaign in organised it, so it does seem ridiculous that we are still suspended.
Our solicitor, Jeff Wilner, has written to the NEC's solicitor demanding that Joe Paine election agent that we sacked equipment from the par- hands UVC
ty's offices.
One letter that we
don't see a lot of future for the party.
the right are successful in this, it means there will be no party put-
torward socialist programme. We might as well step down and just let the SDP get .on with things.
Vladimir Derer,
Secretary, Campaign
for Labour Party
Democracy
THE VICTORY of reac-
tion at the polls was due-to
a number of tactors. onit
a few of which the Labour
Party could control.
One factor Labour can
influence own
credibility as an alternative
government. here,
lowever. unal me cabou
Party contributed to its
own defeat.
In its propaganda the
party tended ' lo treat the
unemploy-
ment in isolation and not
as the consequence of the
capitalist economic struc-
ture. Inis meant that the
Alternative Economic
Strategy which was
originally founded on
basis of a significant exten-
sion of public ownership,
was abandoned.
Outery
The failure of
Labour's remedies to go
beyond Keynesian meth-
ods of economic manage-
ment methods still
remembered as not having
worked under past Labour
governments meant
that LADOUT S concern
about unemployment was
seen at bes as well mean
ing but only likely to result
in inflation and overmanning.
Labour's past records further meant that socialist incomes policy could not become part of
party's economic strategy, thus depriving
strategy any credibility.
Instead of making the economy the main plank of its platform, the parti was forced to rely on the
Alf Home, Chair, Manchester
received in reply was addressed to me as chairman of the Constituenev. It was from David Hughes, tho National Agent. 1 di
how the could
be written to as the chair.
•When David Hughes found out why I had not replied wrote again, saying that he knew I had been elected chair by over two-thirds of the constituency, , so ne still con. sidered me as chair. Presumably this is a new rule, you're not really elected unless you get a two-thirds vote!
We have recently written acain and asked for a meeting with David Hughes and
Fighting back will be hard We can only do it with clear •policies and a real socialist alternative. This what the left must now fight for. This time, the Labour leadership waited till the election was called to put torward our arguments the
UlI
News
calculation (a miscalcula
tion as it turned out) that
unilateralism
drawal from the Common
Market would be electoral-
ly popular.
But it was not just its
programme that deprived
Labour of credibility. The
party's internal battle also
controuled
The major reason fo
their protracted and elec
torally damaging
ION HARDIC
photo:
Vladimir Derer
character is, of course, the refusal of most Labour
MPs and some trade union leaders to accept the end of the PLP's monopoly of policy-making powers
on the party's
wing , who have helped to achieve Labour's demo-
completely fail to appreciate the paramount importance of party unity.
ror without unity, there can be no electoral credibility, and no chance to implement the party's policies
The fact, however, that the party will unite. The real choice is between unity dictated by the right wing and unity involving all shades of opinion In the Labour Party.
tatives of the NEC, on the grounds that they have gone beyond their constitutional rights in closing Wythenshawe down. have told them that if they
not agree meeting within 14 days, LIel a High Court writ will be issued against them.
We are appealing to all Labour Party and trade
bodies pass resolutions in support : of Wythenshawe and protesting the NEC's-action, LIeS NEC. We will also urgently need finance it we do go to court.
Send copies of resolutions I donations to: Alf Home, Chair Wythenshawe CLP 39 Mullacre Rd, Wythen shawe, M22.
economy, on a social programme, and on disarmament.
They weren't really very convincing they weren't able answer people's real fears. and concerns, and so over. come Tory and Alliance arguments.
Page 5 scan of this page
The task is to build a mass,
News
country are bleak, and yet, eight and a half million people or more voted for our manifesto. Eight and a half million is a bedrock of support upon which we can build.
That manifesto, worked out bv the trade union and labour movement over
decade MOTE minimum programme. believe that as the months go by, the relevance of what we said will become apparent, like a prophecy against which we can judge our own experience.
We achieved that vote against the most powertul assault ироп our party that we have seen probably since 1931. My friends, we have five tasks to perform.
FIRST we must protect our own people, outside as well as inside parliament.
We were set up as a trade union and labour movement to defend, to be
guardians, to protect. And these tasks will still be
Surrender
ON 5 JUNE the Sunday
winners of its annual SELOUIS essav competition.
The most frequently chosen topics out of the 15,000 entries were 'the bomb' and unemployAround 90 per cent of the essays on the bomb were for unilateral disarmament, and many students were concerned dole waiting for them when they finish school.
But the judges, three editors and one Oxford professor, awarded first prize _lo an essay called 'A Woman's Place'.
Ten-year old Suzan-
primary school category O СОНОСИЯ ШИШЬ E0 'buck up', surrender and Slav take care of
campaigning Party
WE MUST face the fact that the prospects for this
not have single Labour member in the House of Commons.
That task of protection is a continuing task. We can't say 'we'll wait till the next election when every-
We have to do it here and now protect the young and the old and the disabled and the sick, and to protect the peace.
By Tony Benn
With a hostile media it is increasingly important we give priority to getting our message across to our people. If you look at the public opinion polls they never published and went through them all with great you will find
month after month the British people,
asked for their WICH judgement on the policies of the Labour Party confirmed them time and again.
More should be spend on health, COIS We should look after the public services. The press didn't publish because,
media, they want to keep us in isolation in our own nomes, not alowing Us 1O know how widely were the teelines that each of us had about the way society should be run.
THE SECOND task is to build a mass party. I don't know if it was the exUCHICHEC ot evervone. but it certainly was in Bristol East. We've never had so
AL
ORDER
kids. working
mum is 'a disgrace to the
home with their children)
sibility'.
The judges said that
Suzanna impressed them
because *she seemed to
be thinking for herself.
Presumably those wrote 00|||
unilateralism couldn't
os for themselvesin-
for themselves
they must have taken die-
tation straight from their
hot-ine to the Kremini
(Pam Singer)
Lads and
lassies chers have reported that ARTHUR Scargill
could possibly be a turn-
ing point in nis career.
Arthur has been
many people coming to help. We've had people, we ve steel
Wales.
in other areas. So we must socialism the trade union movement because nobody should take for granted that the trade unionists who read the Sun will see the connection between their trade union work and the work of the Party.
We campaign with the women's movement. A majority of our people, in the front line, are suffering heavily from what is happening, being driven back to the home. wny. In order to take on the tasks the welfare state
notorious in the past for his defence of page 3 pin-
the Yorkshire uus Miner and a debilitating blind spot rights and women's liberation.
Sisters
At an election rally in Hounslow he said that women didn't know
before they gọt the vote and perhaps it it had stayed that way wouldn't have Thatcher now!
But when Arthur spoke at the National Union of Railworkers broad rally in Liverpool he con-
workers as brothers and
and reterred 'lads and lassies' in the laDuuli novellicill Throughout his speech he never once torgot that women were part of the WOrKCIS HOVCHICIL.
We can only hope that his new found consciousness will be a permanent feature.
Compiled HILARY DRIVER. Send contributions to •Male Order'
328 Upper Street, London N1 2XP to arrive not later that Thursday a week prior to publication.
was to perform, and to do
it without pay.
We must work with the
peace movement, and the
ethnic communities.
Non-political move-
ments are a dead end. You
cannot have non-
political trade unionism,
NALGO has
demonstrated with
brilliant campaign 'Put
reople rIrsl
You cannot have
non-political peace move-
ment or a non-political
women's
These movements are all
part of an unfair • society.
and it must be an alliance
section or another of the
front line
how unfair our society is.
THIRD, we must be a
campaigning party. We
MISI campaign on the
issues that touch the must raise ple
deeply.
pectations. One of the
things that amazes me is
the apparent success of the
Prime Minister and the
Cabinet in persuading peo.
ple that to want full
emolovment makes vou an
extremist. To want a de-
cent health service makes
you an extremist
We are very rich
country: we are the oldest
industrial country. We
must raise the expectations
of the voung It is not
unreasonable, with a thou-
sand years of coal and fifty
years oI Oll, people
hould look forward to
work, decelt
home, o retirement and health,
dignity
peace.
In order to do that we
must rebuild hopes, and
put democracy, civil liber-
, socialism, and inter-
nationalism back at the
top of the agenda of our
society.
Halimat to stay
HALIMAT Babamba, I1 months to stay in Britain, has just heard from the Home Office that she and her two children can stay permanently.
when she came here with her husband from Nigeria. She was forced to leave her husband because of his violence to her and her children, and he has since returned to Nigeria. Halimat has made her home here and knew that if she was forced to go back to Nigeria, her husband would get custody of the children.
Halimat said 'I feel so happy and relieved. I want to say thanks for everyone who fought for me and supported me' (Friends of Halimat Babamba, Leeds)
FOURTH, we keep our party together, and the together. There are very urgent tasks to perform. Of course, we must learn the lessons of the past. We must do that, and see that we do not make the same who has been fighting for the last
has lived and worked in Leeds since 1980
Socialist Action 17 June 1983 mistakes again.
I believe that I speak for a very large number of people, today, in the morrow of a defeat, in saying there is no room for personal bitterness rec-
Kandi that desire for us to be united and strong, face this challenge is the dominant thought in minds at
Outl this moment.
FIFTH, we want
more collective and countable leadership. Past experiences shown, through from Ramsay Macdonald George Brown and Roy Jenkins, that a movement as broad and democratic as ours cannot entrust al power to individuals, because many
We need a more collective style, we want leadership that is more like a wheel where each spoke gives strength and balance.
5 movement.
, finally, we MISE
• than
we had
fort put during the decade • '30s laid th
mous victory of 1945
entering troubled times. be certain that this ment, its parlia-
despair LESSICS which will have brought hearts
ple.
we are beacon of hope, for the
hope for older hope fo younger And
respon
shal ycal discharge respon
the workd 1 1C
for ibe British and for working етет!. where.
I wish you success.
Tony Benn was speaking in Mansfield last Saturde? Il June.
Page 6 scan of this page
6 THE 100,000 votes for Sinn Fein candidates exceeded their 90,000 target and thorn in the side of the incoming Tory government.
Bobby Sands, this result shows the lasting impact of the H-Block protest movement and the strong anti-imperialist consciousness of the nationalist working class in the North.
The army's campaign of physical harassment supported by the Southern government and Catholic Church failed to reduce Ine sinn rein vole below levels achieved the Assemblv elections
Acres of free publicity
Social were gıven to ine Democratic and Labour Party. Their campaign 'against violence' was publicly backed by church leaders and the Southern government..
The first meting of the 'All Irland Forum'
was deliberately organısed the middle of the election campalgu lo suggest Illal a united Ireland can achieved col-
L110u2 l laboration with the British ruling class and that Loyalist intransigence should be answered by gradual compromise.
ELECTION ROUND UP
fared
ment.
Foremost among the left's defeats was that of Tony Benn in Bristol East.
Despite a good local campaign, Benn paid the price
big liberal vote (10,000 as compared with 19,000 for the Tories and 18,000 for
- and his quesabuur
Al BY GOD! YOU LOOK L SHATTERED - HAS THE ELECTION HAD SUCH A DREADFUL EFFECT?
Socialist Action 17 June 1983
Sinn Fein
wins 42
per cent
represents the biggest
Two years after the death of hunger striker MP
By involving the SDLP and excluding Sinn Fein, bie cab taisi Darues or uc South tried to restore the nationslst credentials of the SDLP after their collapse during the H-block campaign.
Throughout the election Sinr reir WUIKCIS have been intimidated and harassed bv the army and RUC. , Head-quarters have been attacked, callvasscls have been taken from the doorstep ana. held for speaker cars Lucoliulll. nave been stopped and Irish flags forcibly removed, the collection of postal votes has been disrupted.
Absentee MP for West Belfast, Gerry Fitt has been profiled in every major newspaper and ul usl allililc
How the left
THE LABOUR LEFT suffered damaging blows in the election — mainly due to the intervention of the Alliance. But there were also important successes which will strengthen the voice of the lett in parlia-
tionable decision to stay in onso nen e o safe seats were on offer. enis ucledi Crcales d problem for the left in putting up effective and credible candidate in the COlEC election for the new leader of the Labour Party.
A PIECE OF THE ASTION
TO BE QUITE HONEST L I FOUND THAT MY HORROR L AT THE LABOUR LOSSES WAS SOMEWHAT ALLEVIATED BY THOUGHT OF ALL THE RENEGADES IN wH akay
The house he owns off the Falls Road, heavily guarded against the locals. was unsealed for a series of interviews 'from Fortress Fitt'. Although he proudly clalmea lo nave Teceved half his VOLes from the strongly Loyalist Shankhill Road area, the meoa er aoe o rac cd all his votes in a totting up exerese suggest Gerry Adams did not have the support ot a clear majorıty of nationalists in West Belfast
Mourn
A dishevelled Michael Foot made his only poste ecuon Colluicilt mourn the passing of Fitt.
operation slowed the col
the SDLP who asse still got 137,000 votes
Neither the SDLP, nor the Workers Party who polled under 22,000 votès, can be further displaced by the simple combination of military activity ane elec tioneering.
Day-to-day involvement of the mass of na-
The Tories and the labour ligal wing WCle jubilant.
candidates who support the Militant
had nixed newobavel results. Two of their can-
elected dildie WCIt Dave Nellist in Coventry South and Terry Fields in Liverpool Broadgreen. Both with decisive victories.
Impact
Pat Wall in Bradford
North went down however
by one and a half thousand
votes under the impact of
of LayCuUl
Alliance who took 11,000
VOLtL and former Labour
MP Ben Ford W10 took
4,000 votes as an indepen-
dent cadace.
The other Militant hopeful
was Rod titch in Bronton
Kemptown, who lost by
9,000 to the Tories.
HIN
OF
Posters getting the message across in Derry tionalists in Ireland as a whole cán turn around the situation and give the lie to politicians of the SDLP who claim to be working towards a united Ireland.
In the North, Sinn Fein nave established dovde centres in the main working cass areds and Women's Centre in West Belfast. hese are intended to combine fighting inCivela housing and social benefits gritvalce. OVCI
will Centralsne opposition to the extension of the
Northern DOWCl. ot the Ireland Assembly the
of the Tories in the allil coming year
The left in the Labour Party SORUSE welcome the Pat Wall - defeated in Bradford
Leading London left winger Jeremy Corbyn won a handsome victory in Islington North. Despite backing from Frank Chap-
ple, SDP candidate John
beaten into rall was third place. Corbyn's majority over the Tories was 5607. Ex-Labour, ex-SDP political mafioso O'Halloran got 4,000 votes.
SO WHY ARE YOU LOOKING SO SICKLY?"
fele
STRIK
BACA
THAICHER
electoral gains of Sinn Fein
who now hold the support
of 42 per cent of the na-
Tonans vole.
build
withdrawal movement in
this countrv that can 11gh1
new repressive measures
being planned.
The Labour Commit-
Livingstone are jointly in- on Ireland and Ken
viting Gerry Adams
ralles in the maior towns
in Britain and to Labour
and TUC Conferences
In the coming weeks,
this invitation will be back.
ea oy consuluency parties
and organisations of the
Labour left.
Ken Coates of the Ber-
trand Russell Peace Foun-
dation, IWC and END,
was defeated by the Tories
Nottingham South,
with a Tory majority of
6000.
Beaten
Labour's only likely
black MP Paul Boateng
suffered a huge defeat in
Hertfordshire West, being
pesen HALD AnTrO ADaLe
behind the Tories
SDP.
Other important left
wing losses were leading
Bennite Bob Cryer
Keighley and anti-
imperialist campaigner
Stan Newens in Harlow.
In Birmingham
Ladywood, where the first
re-selection _ol a sitting
Labour MP was carrier
out when John Sever was
removed, left winger
Caire Shor won a 9001
majority for Labour. SORM 6/83
CELEBRATING THE VICTORY OF GERRY KADAMS IN WEST SALTASI
LUNDUN
OUT OF
under way.
mote model Against the CLPD Women's Labour Committee on Labour Committee on Gay Rights.
. sucn resululiuls
CLPs.
Prime Minister this century.
and their links with our party, and crushing democratic rights and living standards to defend its numune cu-Labour camealeı
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary,
Conterence reens
and parties
in
unionists, tacks, a) defend the weapon:
Sanudr us
the right to an Assembly in Scotland
Of) defend gay rights black people from any quarte Conferences asserts that this is the most Tories.
assess its strategy against the send a delegate or observer.
brie ing suppiemen For
News
Socialist Action model resolution THE DEBATE on Labour's future is already
Socialist Action urges its readers to pro-
resolutions from Labour Witch-hunt, Labour CND, Action Committee the Ireland and the
But the labour movement at all levels needs a clear strategy as a framework for
We therefore urge all supporters to put the following resolution endorsed by London Labour Brifing to their labour movement bodies as a statement of general position, and to ensure that it goes forward to Labour Party conference from a representative group of
'Conference notes that Thatcher has been returned with the lowest popular vote of any Tory
Conference does not accept this as a popular mandate for her 'hidden manifesto' of dismantling the welfare state and public sector, breaking the unions
Rather, her victory is a verdict on our party's failure
socialist policies in the face of a witch. Conference pledges the party to all measures, both resist Tory attacks and bring an about early election.
a) any alliance with anti-Labour parliamentary
b) any watering down of Labour's socialist Nefther esuld allow Labour to defend those it represents, nor to come to oftice in the face of a media and establishment bitterly hostile, not just to Labour's policies but to the Labour Party as such. Conference resolves instead to rebuild the Labour Party as a mass campaigning party among trades
women; youth and black people porting and chamoioning all resistance to lory at
and to approach the TUC for joint action to public sector and the welfare state
b) prevent all further deployment of nuclear
c) defeat Tory attacks on the unions and on livin
d) defend the GLC and City Councils and uphold
e) defend women's rights to abortion, equal pay
ana work, and against sexual nart assientt
g) curb police powers and stop racist attacks ol
effective means to unite the party against the
• Labour Against the Witch Hunt is to hold its postponed National Conference on 2 July. This will be the first national forum in which the left cun
witch-hunters and readers should ensure their Party wards and YS
The day after, 3 July, will see a national conference of Brifing groups, called on the initiative of london Labour Briefing in consultation witł other local groups, to discuss setting up a national
• information and affiliation to LA W contact Keith Lichman, I1 Wilderton Road, London N16 01-802 1709. London Labour Brifing can b contacted at 23 Leghorn Road, Londón NW1O.
Page 7 scan of this page
News
I THINK WE should try challenge some of the myths that are going to grow up about why
lost the election. there's a whole series of factors which undoubtedly played a part, but don't think were factors.
Undoubtedly a major reason for the creation of the SDP was to keep Labour out of office. was clearly the objective behind the establishment of the SDP, and it was to a degree effective.
Also, there's the question of the Falklands. It wasn't helpful, even if
agree with Denis Healey and Neil Kinnock just for once, it wasn't particularly useful to raise the question of the Falklands given that our record on it was so bloody abysmal!
. would have been quite happy to
on the doorstep if we'd opposed the vaso• Dul ne baoour rarly TUCK ed backwards and forwards, first of all sounding more jingoistic than the Tories and actually creating the base trom which Thatcher was anie launch the invasion. And then afterwards deciding that, when . ported sendino the task didn't think they were going to kill anyune wnel wey col were.
Neither was crucial
Callaghan the issue of defence. It didn't help. But then. it we look at what happened to Thatcher, she had all of her wets
- she just brushed them aside. Had we had a party committed to its policies and were those policies coherent, we could have brushed it aside as well.
It's on this question of economic policy that I think we see the reason wily we lost. because I you look al what's happened throughout campaign, for all the talk of an alternative economic strategy, in the last nine months in the run un to the elec tion the labour leadership put forwaru even gimmick going.
We had the idea that valued the pound by 30 per cent, this would De the miracie cure or une British economy. They stopped talk-
when the pound was devalued by 20 per cent and matters got worse.
There were people still rabbiting on about import contros as thouch they could solve the economic crisis all on their own. I don't think anyone
convinced of that because KIUW perfectly well it would unleash a trade war which would rebound on us right away.
'It isn't a question now of going along just defending
our policies, we have to
argue for the control of capital, we have to argue for the extension of public ownership. In doing that we've got to counter some
30 years of damaging
propaganda
The same I think is true of this nonsense Everytime I saw Peter Shore on television he was talking about borrowing our way out of the crisis. that we may be on the brink of a col. lapse of the world banking system ... I don't know what that brings to your mind, but Peter Shore rushing to the banks to borrow some money before they collapse so that economy can survive ...? It's not convincing ordinary voters, anymore than the National Economic Assessment. It's just a very long way of say ing an incomes policy. that all those gimmicks were just gimmicks and weren't going to solve the economic problems of our society
An awful lot of those Labour MPs who've lost their seats actually helped themselves lose by Party year by year witch hunts burges
hey're quite naive if they assum though they're arrogant enough to that the average Labour voter actually distinguishes between a Labour MF and the Party generally.
The media attack clearly had an impact, but once again I think that if we had had convincing
and
Because
key
That policies, aside.
Allnougn across the
LIC COLLUSIOI
because the
we supforce
fudging:
with the
the strategy
watered down
this vear world
revised it.
if we de-
remember when
would actually economic crisis?
the lines ofNo, they only SHOW
posed
in government.
collectively
because what
borrowing.
Well, given
British
being CLOU
volers reals
what they
Party smearing the say that the and calli chink for
electorate on.
We've
set of
swept
people the public
policies. vul
resolved economic
of Labour's Adoralle
boom. And
interviewed candidate
- and one of the
renDive Kritain's
weaknesser wert. - I talk about it
will be. Perhaps before has
when.
and cuts in public
we expected
the
exposed for Is. The common denominator acceptable to the
conte rette policies we fought the election on were a betrayal of Parti conference, we have to honestly sa! that the conference has fudged for a decade what sort of economic and other policies we're going to go to the
made advances, but they' ve always been advances that have been so compromised, that when we came to the crunch of having to
"We have to get
our policies right"
defend them, the weaknesses and contradictions were exposed in the tury of the election campaign.
There's no way we're going to see - a Labour government elected on this half-way programme, because aren't going to convince workers that it's going to work. They remember the record of two Labour governments in the last twenty years which promised maca we same lnng. 1ue, remember that we promised to deliver so much and yet we failed to deliver on anything other than an increase in public spending, financed out of taxation out of workers' pockets.
And they know that until we're prepared to tackle the wealth already existing in society, a Labour Party that dodges that issue is going to fall back cuts in public spending, higher taxes and an incomes because there is no other way of doing the things the Labour Party wishes to ao In office if it isn't prepared to tackle the question of the control of capital.
I'm one of those who declined to sign the statements that were drifting around before the election saying sign here to defend the existing policies, the existing leadership, the membership. While I was quite happy to defend the existing membership, I wasn't too happy to defend the other two categories.
I believe that we aren't going to be in a position to win at an election until
are saying quite coherently, terms that workers can understand. that Labour will fund its programme out of the existing wealth, the control of capital.
In no other western industrialised nation does the financial sector have such a dominant influence as it has in
country. There's no radical socialist government what it wants without tackling the question of the City of London.
We have lost that debate at con ference. We haven't persuaded the
By Ken Livingstone
conference to go for nationalisation of the banks, we didn't persuade the bank workers union that they'd actually be better off under a nationalis-
you private employers.
reopen make it a coherent one which we can win the support before we have any chance of winning
some detensive position of saving 'de fend the existing policies', because I think they've been exposed as being totally unworkable.
that we've got that ducking of the issue. without also talking aso estension of public ownership. policy,
that. The reason Thatcher is going to try and destroy British Telecoms is it's
you privatise it you're actually not
in favour of capital that wants. existing
we're prepared to take into ownership the productive sectors of the economy, we are going to con. tinue to fall back on the issue of pay. ing for services of the weltare state out of higher taxes.
in along just defending our policies, we Lave argue : tor capital, we have to argue for the tension of public ownership. In doing that we've got some 30 years of damaging propaganda. abour woat pubac corporalione are when tionalisation. We have got to raise the way any issue of the workforce having control can do of that it we're to have any succes.
whatsoever.
Unti polices straight, no new combination policic
Socialist Action going to
sham.
armed of Ireland.
from key areas ed industry than under their present
so we nave to Labour's programme, and where he workers for,
We don't want to slip down into
It's not only on economic policy
Because there's no way we can
programme
Thatcher realises the converse of
meetings,
role at the core of the British economy
making the shift in power and wealth
Thatcher
We have to win the reverse. Until
Danel
t isn't a question now of coing
want. the control of : ex- every
counter-balance
they're under na-
over
economic election. or deputy
17 June 1983
leaders is going to get things right.
There other contradiction which I can't go into because the isn't time. It was quite illogical for to go stomping around saying we wes
get rid of nuclear ' weapo:
We had John Silkin saying we' going to get rid of nucleal and spend more on conventional on‹ - and the whole thing is exposed a
We are still wedded into defence strateg which says we part and parcel of te rentagon
struggle and it's directed Eastern Europe and Russia
We have to challenge this, and ui til we do then we are in a positio where we're inevitably dragged bac into saying don't worry about gettir rid of nuclear weapons, because we have plenty of conventional ones fight off the red menace.
There's key Gueslie which I don't think is an issue on tl doorstep this time, but could escala into it at any time, and that is the issi
Until we can go into an electi committed to withdrawal of trool
Irelana, election in which a Labour gover ment is committed to using all the a paratus of repression against Iri workers that has been built up ov the last ten or fifteen years, and can't honestly go into an 'electic defending that.
Those are most probably the thr
the economy, defen and northern Ireland which have to get straight.
'I notice that the Evenin
Standard, usually no
friend of the left, has
decided to back Mr Kinnock. And as I say, it'
no friend of the left!'
I notice that the Evening Sta dard, usually no friend of the left, h decided to back Mr Kinnock for t leadership. And as I said, they're r friend of the left!
was opposed automatic reseleetion back in the mi seventies, and gol on tue dalluwag once it became massively popular
CLPs. his whi denied the NEC recommendation conference that the NEC should co trol the manifesto. We are still awa
implications of l failure to vote for Benn. We're awa of his vote on Tatchell, his vote f every expulsion. And it's quite cle the campaign he's going to run fro his statement in the Sunday Time
said that the question Militant has to speedily and firm deal with, and that we have to revi our policy on the Common Marke!
Part of our failure is how we' organised for so long. Our strug has far too often been confined to t Labour Party, and that complai you hear from some organisations the left that the Labour Party resolution machine can come dama ingly close to the truth.
I believe that our weakness » shown in the basic block of votes th we lost — skilled working class vot It is these workers that we have target. We won't get them to wa
we've got to start to bu workplace. The Party constitut workplace. The constituti
for braici Unless we get into the workplace &
there. and political debate there and argume we are not going to recapture that si tion of the vote
It may be that we can mobilise win socialist policies and a left wi NEC, but that's not enough. We h to turn outwards and start to build t
the that is t prerequisite for the election of
Labour government of the sort
Unless we turn out in support
grouo or workers In surug every group in the community tha going to be fighting the cuts, we are going to be able to see these peo then turn around and vote for us a future general election (This is an edited version of Ken L ingstone's speech which was heard
350 people at a meeting Monday in London called to discr the next steps for the left after i
The meeting was organis by Socialist Action)
Page 8 scan of this page
HOW LAB
Tay is the one on the leash
LABOUR's election humilation was an own-goal defeat, scored by a leadership that did not want to win. And if they were the only ones to suffer by it, we would say they deserved to lose.
The campaign began with Labour well in the running to overtake the Tories. local elections gave Tories a lead of only six per cent in the popular vote. polls showed popular port for a lot of Labour's positions on issues unemployment and the EEC. There was a record number of undecided voters.
During the campaign, a torrent of leaked documents revealed that another five years of Thatcherism would mean the dismantling and ese ors the the are state, and new attacks on the rights trade unionists and unemployed.
In spite of this, the gap didn't widen, and Callaghan and Healey finished off the process. But at the base, the tale was different. Record numbers of election volunteers came forward io help, Labour canvassers reached more voters than those of any other party, and 15,000 new members were recruited.
This enthusiasm among the acwists was betrayed by a leadership
did want CIO
abour's radical policies, eterred a Tory victory which
rened the prospect
busebreaking a decimated Labour Party for the role of coalition part==: with the Alliance when or if the i aers turn against Thatcher.
The right are already •hat the reason was not them but :he unpopularity of Labour's leftwing policies. But this ignores the fact that Thatcher's most effective argument was the alleged lack of any alternative on the economy and jobs.
8 Socialist Action
Labour government.
with no lasting created.
The the
The sup-
like
means towards socialist aims.
Labour's
policies for reason.
had a field
of
the past and had failed.
the
of win
and
railway worker
one who has not done a I'm voting Conservative'.
saying alternative
plans had
ferent way economy,
17 June 1983
This made sense to many voters because they had already had experience of the 'moderate' policies of Healey and Co under the last
The Tory argument was that pumping money into the economy would only lead to inflatión and a new squeeze,
and real jobs
Labour's manifesto did contain policies relating to planning and industrial democracy, and promised o dirept investment in the interests of need rather than protit. Socialist Action's objections to the Alternative Economic Strategy are well known. But the overwhelming bulk of party activists thought it was a
leaders fear the exactly the same -That is why they never spoke about them. The Tories then
day arguing that which Labour's policies had been tried in
As a result, many voters agreed
'Mr Tebbitt's home truths are not infallible, but even in Bolton, where unemployment 'and despondency are great, no-one seemed to have anything much better to offer. This is one of the great strengths of Thatcherism and Tebbittism. They have half-convinced people that, somehow, unemployment at its present level is inevitable.'
with the unemployed Stevenage
quoted the Financial Times as saying: 'She is a heartless cow, but she is the only
U-turn.
This meant that, without a clear Tories on the defensive, the leaks could and revelations about Conservative
no effect. Because if Labour had no fundamentally dif-
running the what guarantee would there be that a Labour government because
By Alan Freeman ON THE first Wednesday of the election campaign, after Healey had torpedoed Labour's unilateralist policies, Tony Benn was speaking to a Labour Party CND rally in Bristol.
The speech he could have made but didn't - came from Helen John. Denis Healey, she said, does not represent the Party's policies but we do. And, we can make sure a future Labour government carries out its promises because women, if they organise like the Greenham Common campers, will stop Denis Healey from sabotaging unilateralism.
If Tony Benn had made that speech it might not have won the damage had already been done. Nor would it have united the leadership. They were then irrevocably split. However it would have been a counterblast to Callaghan's speech the same night, which put the final nail in Labour's coffin.
It would have also rallied the ranks of the great majority of Labour supporters who do support unilateralism to give them the confidence to try and win over the
Again it would have proved to millions in the peace movement who had not made up their mind for Labour that at least one section of Labour thought unilateralism was more important than Party infighting. would not be forced into similar economies by the mounting crisis, as it predecessors were?
Labour's policies on economy were based on Shore's 'emergency 12-month programme' of old style reflation which as Tribune pointed out was smuggled in by the right-wing to enable them to avoid talking about the economic measures in Labour's programme.
This led to the humiliating spectacle of the television chat-show on
Labour's Trade and dustry spokesman, a grey blur called, I believe, Cunningham, baldly denied to millions of viewers that Labour had any plans for na-
Rubert Cornwell
Financial Times 28 May
tionalisation, only to have his Conservative opposite number prove him wrong by extensive quotes from the Labour manifesto.
This could only reinforce the voters' impression that Labour did not believe in its own policy, and regarded public ownership something to be afraid of. references to industrial democracy, new rights at work, and alternative production, to be found in Labour policy, were never presented.
This means that on i the economy Labour did not lose votes
of its left policies
Tony Benn did not make that speech. That did not diminish anyone's respect for his integrity; but it did show the weakness the political line which he has followed since the Bishops Stortford meeting of party and union leaders after he lost the Deputy Leadership in as the case for them was never put.
If the economy saw sabotage by default, defence saw direct scabbthe ing. Healey Peter deliberately put the Labour. Confusion on defence was raised on the doorstep as much as fears of unilateralism, those not against voting for a clearly unilateralist party were deterred from one which was not only divided, but led by a man who lacked the gumption to defend his own party's policies.
In- As one disillusioned voter put it to me, 'If old Gummidge won't stand up for unilateralism, will he ever stand up for anything?'
The final Labour workers was to see Enoch Powell arguing defence policy more effectively and with more conviction than any of Labour's spokesmen.
Powell's radical than Labour's, and rejected not only the British bomb, but any reliance on America's bomb. He described the US as 'dominated by an obsessive sense of mission and a hallucinatory view of the world scene', and referred to powerful US economic interests in the armaments industry as a source of world tension.
Here again, had a quasi-unilateralist policy, it could be denounced by the Tories, as but the case in favour was never The put. Peter Riddell, the Times political reported on 25 May that leaders privately their unilateralist approach is unpopular with traditional working class voters and, in the campaign so. far, it has been played down'.
Left kept quie
HAS ANYBODY SEEN THE PARLIAMENTARY ROAD TO
SOCIALISM?.
1981r
of
Labour Victory.
Callaghan knife into
and even
otherwise, senile House.
humiliation for
for Labour's
and logic
position was more
because Labour
Financial
correspondent,
'Labour
recognise that
This line was endorsed by most of the parliamentary left right up to the
With the good nel MPs such as Reg Race and Roberts who backed Socialists for a
• It was fought for b the Campaign for Labour Part:
Own
By Stev
Labour voters, traditional and
however distrust • the warmonger in the White By going on the offensive against Thatchers' foreign policy of subservience to Reagan, Labour could have tapped a real mass cur-
Page 9 scan of this page
Democracy's leaders, using Tony Benn's own words to the 1982 Labour Party conference: that the left should ane une party around, une existing membership, the existing policies and the existing leadership•
This is why the parliamentary left did not put up a candidate for the leadership in 1982. They then endorsed a fudged election manifesto whose wording created the space both for Healey's sabotage, and for all the Labour leaders to claim that Labour was in favour of incomes policy.
Then they refused to speak out in defence of Labour's conference policies and against Callaghan and Healey's sabotage.
Their policies proved disastrous. It did not stop the right from sabotaging Labour's campaign. It did not unite Labour, but divided it as never before. It did not win the election. It has put the left into its weakest
began.
The left must now rethink and draw the lessons of this experience.
What was wrong with the strategy? The big mistake, lies ir CLPD's own rallying cry: 'The existing membership, policies and leadership'. This sounds nice in theory. In practice it is useless. The existing reauersmp does not want ine existing membership or policies, and was prepared to lose an election rather than have to form a government on these policies.
goal!
Marks
rent of fear of the war danger,
reflected in mass opposition
cruise and Trident, and also won
over some of the Liberal supporters
of unilateralism from the alliance.
On 16 May Jim Mortimer,
speaking at the NUPE conference,
t, Tories won
The leadership therefore witch-hunted the membership for six months instead of preparing to fight the fores. and then attacked Labour's policies in the middle of the election campaign
The tragedy of the parliamentary left's approach is that when the final sabotage look place, по-опе was aore to defend the policies. Foot didn't detend them because he didn't want to break with Healey. Benn couldn't because of his self-imposed silence and naive trust in Bishops Stortford. The leaders of Labour's campaien couldn't defend them because they simply didn't agree with them!
Tony Benn and the parliamentary left signally failed to understand a message which revolutionary socialists have consistently argued that Labour's right wing do not play by the same rules as the party rank and file, because they are beholden to a different class. Healey and his crew are literally traitors.
They decided long ago, as did the bureaucrats who support them, that their influence, prestige and position depends on avoiding a confrontation with the ruling class at all costs. When the IMF told Denis Healey to impose cuts against the working class in … he unhesitatingly did so, and the rigni wing trade union leaders unhesitatingly helped him.
This was their alternative to a noholds barred fight with the monetary
OUR LOST
blamed the US for the arms race.
Apart from that,
Powell to make
challenging the Thatcherite argu-
ment that the main threat to world
peace is in the 'Kremlin drive for
world domination'.
Callaghan, whose contribution
to the Labour Party consists of los-
ing it an election every four years,
made his infamous speech on the
bomb. He attacked to policy before a specially invited
media audience, saying
'could not fault the tactics of the
Western arms negotiators',
underwriting Reagan's war drive,
and putting himself to the right of
establishment, and they were not prepared to have such a fight. now tell Healey that no government will de given a Dll or neal Dy tel unless it keeps Britain in the EEC, and imposes a savage incomes policy Healey's conclusion is that it is better not to govern at all, rather than face a fight with these people To seek unity with Healey was therefore as unpromising and doomed a policy as seeking unity with
In the event, the left leadership held its tongue while the right cut it into pieces and thereby threw away Labour's only hope of victory.
present attempt to get unity in the İeadership. This is doomed to failure. • Hallely All the signs are that the section of
the left previously grouped around Tony Benn understands this and will now - al lasu But it will do so under the disastrously weaker conditions of a terrible Labour defeat, and moreover a defeat of the worst possible kind — a defeat at the hands of the Party's own leadership.
ensure that this time a lett in the Party and unions will emerge which draws the lessons of this defeat and
saboteurs of the Labour Party election campaign — its own right wing leadership. it was left to the running in policy.
policies would lead to
socialist leadership Labour's
that he
thus ship wedded to an
AGE POSTI
When the Pentagon and the banks
endorses US nuclear policy, Thatcher. Both defend the same class.
'here are two roads ahead. One proposed by CLPD, is to continue the
• come out ngaling.
We in Socialist,Action will try to
fights to the bitter end against the true
encouraging workers' away as Warsaw.
factor'. roomful typewriters,
the US Congress, which has called for a freeze in defiance of Reagan's quite capable,
To leave the field free for Tory Hence scares about Kremlin expansionism reinforces the Tory red-baiting at home, with its claims that Labour's
an East European' or 'Bulgarian' society.
A confident and imaginative
could have replied by defending Solidarnosc, and pointing out how its struggles would have been illegal under Tebbitt's anti-union laws. But a leader-
'alternative economic assessment' that would end up as an incomes policy, and in
LUIE
by withdrawing hours later.
Iwa.
Labour
level-pegging, calls from
ficers in
hock to TUC, can't be too keen on
anti-bureaucratic struggles, even as far
Then there is the 'Falklands
It is well-known that of monkeys with given all eternity, port: could well end up typing the works of Shakespeare. Denis Healey is no monkey, and given only a fourweek election to play with, he is
at least once, of coming up with the truth.
the 'glorying in slaughter' speech. Inept, blundering and treacherous thug that he is,
Tory voters in Labour seats which have good Alliance candidates should vote Alliance to get Labour out. It is important that there should still be a believable and democratic left-of-Tory force in parliament towards which by-elections and a future general election can then swing. It is desirable that it should be a sort that can form an effective parliamentary force with right-of-Foot Labour ... 'The worse Labour does in this election, and the better the Alliance does, the more possible such a desirable coalition of the left (and the dismantling of the Labour party under its present constitution) will become.'
Healey found the strain of telling the honest truth too much, and and restored Labour's cock-up image
This remarks 24
But this line in denunciation
trom unpopular with voters. report to.
Labour's campaign committee, on the phone calls received at Labour HQ the day after the Healey statement showed supporters and critics
, with half the hostile Tory supporters, in- by cluding the predictable retired of-
Tunbridge Wells.
Labour objectors were mostly exservice pensioners, most of whom withdrew their objections when
Socialist Action
told of the context of Healey's remarks.
ludese a mephor one Tory
included a member of the Reform Group, and the mother of for others, and offered her sup
others, and offered her sup-
All of which shows how strong Labour could be today if it had taken a principled position of opposition to the war at the time. But how much credit can be given to professional politicians who sup port war during war-time, and only take a peace-loving position when there's peace?
Economist 4 June 1983
The real reason for both Heale!
Kinnock's remarks on the Falklands emerges from the Time report of 31 May, that Labor: leaders had abandoned any hope c victory, and were concerned simp to jockey for position in the powe struggles to come.
Healey had to notch up som credit for attacking the other sid instead of his own, and Kinnos was keen to rebuild his 'left' imag in the hope the ranks in the const tuencies will forgive him for lar ding us in the mess in the first placa
getting Healey deput! leader - and forget that he joined his patron Michael Foot in suppo:ting the Falklands war. That wa when Labour lost the election. A full year before it was called.
17 June 1983
Page 10 scan of this page
Socialist Áction 17 June 1983 10
SoCiAlist
ACTION
Continued from front page
Another period of Footism without Foot cannot restore Labour's fortunes. tion where such a candidate of the centre could be supported for leader to stop the right is where there is no candidate of the left. Unfortunately Benn's Bristol defeat means that the plausible candidate of the left is unable to stand.
The lesson of the election campaign is that only the left can rebuild the party. who voted for Labour's policies can be organised to win a majority only if Labour is seen to lead the fight to defend the labour movement and all of those who are the target of the Tories' attacks. Right labourism cannot don't intend to vacate the non-socialist middie ground. Extra-parliamentary action and socialist policies are the only means to defend the working class and the only credible alternative to Thatcherism.
For this reason it is vital that there is a candidate of the left standing for the Labour Party leadership.
But most importantly the left must tear up the peace treaties which have proved such a disaster and set to work Labour Party, the unions and the mass campai the Party must be rebuilt as the party of the oppressed, the poor and the workers fighting to defend their organisations and with the objective of forcing the Tories from office.
Home rule for
Scotland
IF THATCHER has no mandate to rule in Britain with 58 per cent of voters against her, then her claims in Scotland are thin indeed. Labour MPs have already organised a meeting this week to discuss the implications of 73 per cent of Scottish voters rejecting the Tories.
Their answer should labour movement north and south of the border should relaunch a battle for an Assembly. nonsense that this would divide the class should be rejected. The best way to unite the working class is for its most anti-Tory section to fight now to weaken the rule of Westminster.
It may be argued that with a 144 seat majority Thatcher will not even cede a referendum, let alone an Assembly.
But the labour movement should fight for it by organising now through a Labour Movement Assembly which begins the struggle against the Tories right away and acts as the basis for the Assembly of the future.
Editor: ALAN FREEMAN Published weekly except two weeks in August and the last week of December.
Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily represent Socialist Action's views. These are expressed in editorials.
Send all correspondence regarding subscriptions, and receipts to Socialist Action Distribution, 328 Upper Send all material for publication (including advertising) ia samans Acuon cantonal at tne same adaress. De de ig cos ef postage we cantor
ETODE "i TITe ataE
The only condi-
The minority
succeed. The Alliance
AGREEMENT
organising in the Scottish
De unequivocal; the
All working saler
Labour
I WAS very interested
in John Ross's article
(SA 3 June) on the
the Tory Party, as prov-
ea Dy lls decaning
percentage vote in suc-
cess ve ceneral ciccuons.
I sincerely hope that
he is right. But couldn't
the same thing be said
about the Labour Party
on the same basis?
I don't have the
figures for all the years
John Ross quotes, but I
do know that the
Labour Party percent-
age or te vote ren rom
48.8 in 1951, , to 46.4 in
1955 to 43.8 in 1959,
and 36.9 in 1979 (I take
the figures from the
Sunday Times).
Isn't there something
wrong in socialists bas-
ing their hopes on elec-
OTA SAISNCSA
FRED HALL,
London N16.
Tax return
correct?
WHILE I thought that the Socialist Woman supplement (SA 20 May) on mne odes ramy boncy was generally very good I wanted to duc uol Ule point that was raised in
In the article called 'New hope for the family' the issue of the married man's (sic) tax allowance is mentioned. The Labour manifesto calls for its abolition, and the article calls this a 'correct reform'.
Firstly, the tax allowance is now the married person's tax allowance, and can be claimed by the husband or wire al tnelr ciscreuon. This was a correct reform.
Black rights
campaign
vital SOCIALIST ACTION with its national support and press is in a perfect position to help build a black rights campaign within the Labour Party as discussed in SA 3 June.
Activists understand. that until the Labour Partv can be classed as ar ally in the fight against racism and not a cause of the bulk of the struggles, the majority of campaigns will continue outside the party.
Campaign organisers should be encouraged to direct the issues into the Labour rarty, wnere une black rights campaign can take up the fights, alsc take them to Walworth Road, Congress Houst and the despatch box in parllamenl.
Alongside this Labour Party activists must build the campaign to rid the Labour Party of racism, repeal all racist laws, stop racist praclises in industry and all other fields.
If any Labour Party activists want to build such a campaign I'll be pleased to hear from them TOM WATTS.
GMBATL desegate 10 Obitam Tea CLP
SaRa CApA!
Thatcher - historical decline
However I question whether it is correct to cali for the abo lition 01 this tax allowance. What this would mean to the overwhelming majority of people is simply a cut in income. And this cut in income would affect women just as much as men.
In the context of a statutory minimum wage increased child benefit, and increased rates oi unemployment benefit and supplementary allowance (available to both men and women). this tax allowance would probabiv become un• necessary.
However' outside such other changes I do not Tink we sioiaenorse the abolition of this alowance, nor give credence for it in any way being a "feminist' step.
Most campaigns against racism have been based outside the Labour Party
Write to us!
This is your page. comments, criticisms or even congratulations. But please be brief -letters over 300 words will be cut. Write to: Letters, Socialist Action,
declining too?
Our approach has to be to extend the allowances and benefits payable to single parents, unmarried couples and DIKONCCHOIRSIOUROTEO cut those that are presently paid out to married people.
JUDITH WOODWARD, Manchester.
Send us your
328 Upper Street, London N1 2XP.
(Tel: 01-359 8180)
No to genocide!
WHILE Paul Lawson's analysis of the situation in the Middle East is reasonably correct (SA 27 May), his conclusion to say the least is questionable.
He states: 'For socialists there could be no question of who to support in the event of war. syrla Is a capilallsl state, ultimately allied wit menarsol
'But nonetheless it would in a war represent the forces of Arab nationalism, against an imperialist aggressor Socialists should stand without question for the defeat of Israel and a Syrian victory - however unlikely such an outcome.'
Firstly, socialists shoulo never stano or anything 'without quesLOH If war does break out, copcclally wal
the socialist response should not be to support the lesser of two evils, or as Paul Lawson would have it, the least imperialist state, in this case Syria.
If neither side is in the right the war must be wholly opposed. Obviously an alternative would. Lucu lave lo ut proposed, which would defuse the tensions ana provide a long term solution.
Isreal is a reality, and only genocide of the type that Israel is practising against Palestinians could change that reality.
ucnocac oi ally lacc is not the solution to the Middle East's problems
wow-
INFLATIONS
0OWN 1%
THAT'S E20,000
OFF THE MANSION I
CANT AFFORD
€
Letters
KIMNOPORSTU'
LÚK LETTERSTU'
Obviously a multi-racial Palestine, with Jews and Palestinians living equally, should be the ultimate aim. and the means of securing that aim lies Wilisaci
The peace movement, which was created when mass opposition to Israel's war in Lebanon was organised, shows that there is a progressive movement within Israe itself an effective socialist movement could be built in Israel, the chances of an Arab-Jewish reconciliation would increase as a socialist Israel, by its very nature, would respond to most Palestinian demands.
Definitely an uphill
struggle and perhaps somewnat laealsuc, Du certainly better than cocac r calaous war in which Israel may eventually use her nuclear capacity.
TIM PORTEUS, Edinburgh. Interviews great!
THE ACTION interviews in SA are great. especially the one you ran with the hi. Savadorean woman! Also glad to see vour supplement socialist Woman
Congratulations on the format.
LINDA THALMAN, Paris.
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Page 11 scan of this page
The making of the second Cold War
REVIEWS
THE NEW COLD war, and the peace movement which opposes it, has produced a massive literature. Unfortunately much of this literature has been of either a technical character outlining the horrors of war, or of protest and moral indignation.
Few works of detailed analysis and explananon have appeared, and the DeSI •them like Marv Kaldor's Baroque Arsenal nave nor been maxist. u deed EP Thompson in his celebrated essay on Exterminism (1) rejects the search for the origins of the cold war divisionarv. saving it leads to pointless attempts to apportion blame between the 'super-powers'.
Reviewed by Phil Hearse
Marxists in the peace movement have argued for ine neca lo unaelstand tic cold war in order to combat it and the need to identify our enemies, their projects and alliances, so as to prioritise our activities and slogans.
Fred Halliday's new book starts out with the injunction to combine moral outrage with analysis and
cold war published. It comones amass or a d and historical material, WILD
Malou
MALOU is, in many ways, a typical contemporary German film. It is obsessed with history and the way that history interwines with, and
up people's lives. It is also a very political film, dealing with racism, fascism and the oppression of women.
Reviewed by Chris
Bertram
Hannah, married to a successful architect West Germany, determined not to lose her own identity to a man, like her mother. LAIS she must come to terms with the past and with the 1mage of Malou, her mother.
Crisscrossing both frontiers and time we are taken on a lournev from Alsace to Argentina, from Hannah's relationship with Martin Malou's love for Paul. We see how Malou gives up her identity; her life as a singer, her religion anne several na-
UV CHOICE
Birth Of A Nation Sunday 19 June, 9.30,
Ten week their int
ten-week series
dramas which Central
TV promise deal with 'issues of today'.
The first four are written by David Leland and deal with the educaits imРот ион youth destined
unemployment. 'Birth of a Nation' is
set in a large comprehen-
sive school where the
kids and teachers are mainly concerned with
avoid pat answers and simple formulae. Halliday has handbood for those produced invaluable
WIlU fight to build a wing of the peace with an anti-imperialist and anti-Stalinist understanding.
He identifies five factors which led to the breaking of detente — tne new rise of third world revolutions, the decline of US military superiority, the rise of the new right in the United States, the exacerbation of inter-imperialist contradictions, and the crisis of the postCapitalist slalks
He takes exceptional pains not to exonerate the Soviet Union from responsibility for fuelling the cold war (2), but his list of factors leads to an inevitable conclusion about where the prime responsibility for Tne breakdown of
detente lies — he says 'it
in the USA, not in the was USSR, that the sharp changes of mood and
Pale 19has can be seen.
1970s can seen. And it is the USA which then sought through the tionalities to follow Paul,
German Jew, into exile. When Paul leaves her for another woman her world is shattered. one dies, broken alchoholic, South America.
just getting through the
day.
Panorama:
Life after Debt
Monday 20 June,
8.10,
PANORAMA this week
examines the imminent
collapse of the banking
'developing' countries
defaulting on their loans.
The at thr ramse
looks cullse
quences for the people,
especially Latin
America, of the massive
cuts in public
diture IMF just to pay the ine ordered the
terest on the Loans.
Cold War to re-assert its dominance over the USSR, its capitalist allies, and the third world'.
Halliday integrates into his analysis the explanation Lne millarypolitical function of nuclear superioritv of the United States suggested by Mike Davis (3).
as is col way in which the United States USCS nuclear superiority nuclear field of conven tional military and political operations, par ticularly in the third world, and to pressurise economically and ponuically Ine non-capitalist world.
Scheme
the
In this scheme, quest for nuclear superiority, far from being as some in the peace movement would have it, an irrational or lunatic' preoccupation is in fact perfectly explicable and rational calculation by US imperialism. evitably contrasts Halliday's search for
LUll prehensible policies of imperialism to EP Thompson's half-despairing cry of outrage against an infernal and untathomable war-machine Malou directed by Jeanine Meerapfel, distributed by Cinegate.
The Nazis, who pull
down the Jewish homes are contrasted with the
present day bureaucrats
who oppose the building
of a cultural centre for the
astardenter
State Opening of
Parliament
Wednesday 22 June,
BBCI
WHERE can you see
walking backwards
and idiots dressed in daft
clothes banging
doors? Only in the
'Mother of Parliaments'.
This time it would be
no surprise to see Her
Resoluteness siting
the throne, especially as
the SCULOUS
world must get the im
DrESSION she's just beer
made life president.
Broadside:
Message from
Skinningrove
Wednesday 22 June,
8.30, Channel 4
NEAR Middlesborough
the two 'nuclear leviathans'
The Making of the Second Cold War is anything but despairing. While investing great hopes in the European peace move ment, it correctly points to some problems - namely the concentration on the issue of the weapons per se, at the expense of attacking the political framework in which these weapons are wielded.
This manifests itself for example in a lack. of canva me brush Deact movement on the question of NAlU and a lack of COLICCIlE for the governmental forms which would assure steps towards nuclear disarmament.
Naturally a book with such a wide-ranging review of world politics calls forth some disagreements. The HOSI important Halliday's review of the different 'monocausal theories of cold war - for example 'US imperialism theories' theories' *arms race
and 'NorthSouth' theories - indeed, he identifies eight theories or unls kind.
He says thạt each of these theories may contain some truth, but theory of the new cold war must identify and integrate
I was struck by the contrasts Malou a It is more accessi • images
ble than much contemJUl aly German cinema, although I doubt it will get the wide distribution it cer-
Skinningrove, with 60% coasta town unemployment.
programme revolves around poems written local people describing life in what is
industrial
wasteland. A group of
organised the whole
Britain in the
Thirties
Thursday 23 June,
BBC2
country, A pise into
country' pro-
gramme in the interesting
series on life in the Thirties looks at the growth
of country houses
Labour was cheap at
the time and while the rest of Britain
all the relevant factors, and Halliday identifies five, listed above. So far so
'partial' Incorle. polemicised against 'class conflict theories' which says may understate the importance of the impact of states and the extent to which nuclear weapons has altered unt
post-war politics. tainly deserves.
Go to see it, and tell your friends about it. found the film ended on a slightly unsatisfactory note, but the getting there was worthwhile.
languishing under the
the ruling ucession. class were enjoying their weekend bartle the country. Seems like life in the eighties' isn't very different.
Wimbledon Monday 20 June for two weeks, BBC 1 + 2 THE tennis set are back for the annual perfofe mance, complete with
ike that upstart tood
that McEnroé.
Any self-respecting socialist will be supporting McEnroe against super-whimj Jimmy Connors, if only on the gre Wimbledon estays
Wimbledon establishment.
Socialist Action 17 June 1983
This seems a curious polemic for a Marxist to make, and in contradiction to much of the rest of the book If we look at each _ || Halliday's five 'factors' each are crucially determined and limited by class conflict.
For Marxists, it isn't only imperialism the 'history of class struggles'
Vietnam
country, we were going to do it for them.
Both the Soviet Union and China tried to hold Ho Ch Minh back from military involvement in the south The ruling bureaucracies feared war with the US. In North Vietnam, the laws üneven and combined development prevailed.
The revolution was li quidating capitalism.
Agrarian revolution gave Ine lana to lne peasants Landlords were being tried by people's courts. . In 1959 Hanoi decided to back the struggle in the south. The guerrilla forces were re grouped the National Liberation Front (NLF); called the Vietcong by the
Americans and their Vietnamese stooges.
By C. Van Gelderen
The NLF established a shadow government which commanded support from the DeoD e Salgor ficials would sit in their offices during the hours of daylight. When night fell, the NLF took over.
The Minh track was established, ensuring supplies thefighters in the south. This was a web of tracks, which could not have been maintained but for the active support of the people. Women played a decisive role in keeping it alive.
American forces were being reinforced. US air raids on the North destroyed targets but not tne morale or te people America's 'Operation Rolling Thunder' had fail ed. Then in 1968 came the
Offensive. few weeks before, General Westmoreland had said: "The war was entering a new phase, the end was beginning to come into
President Lyndon
11 After all, despite Halliday's typically understated tone, , and his self-denial of the • tern 'imperialism', in essence the book is saying that the new cold war response of United States imperialism challenges ainst it in the third world mounted
and by the post-capitalist states.
It is Halliday's open
of this (page 204) which draws togethe
allalysis of 'factors
and gives them coherenc
The laws of motion whic connect up the five factors are those of the joint crisis
imperialism and stalinism bombs and states notwithstanding
But this is a minor quibble. you want understand the configuration of world politics to day, the Making of the Second World War is essen. tial reading 1. Exterminism and Cold war in me annoy on same name. (Verso 1982) 2. In particular it attempts to match UNA each
wean Exterminison.
Exterminism and Cold War (ibid).
The Making of the Second World War Fred Halliday Verso £4.95.
The fifth of Channel 4's twelve-part documentary on Vietnam opened with an American officer bragging that the United States was determined to save Vietnam from communism, whether they wanted it or not. 'If they were not prepared to fight for their
Johnson echoed his words with: 'The enemy was not yet beaten OHI knev • he had met his master?.
- Westmoreland spoke more truly than he knew But the end was not to be that which he thought. Vietnamese forces were now fighting inside Saigon. There were snipers in the US embassy itself Key targets throughout
were hit cluding Saigon radio sta LON TV newsreels of the of-
fensive, , and especially the picture of a South Vietnamese colonel shooting a prisoner In Ine head point-blank range with
Americans standing by,
galvanised the opposition
to the war in the States
Among new arrivals of troops , from the
anti-war sentiments were rite
Officers were attacked
Black GI's WCIC asking themselves 'Why are we
fighting here in Vietnam
when we are not free at home and have a war to
win over there?' In their
pockets they • carried the
writings of Malcolm X and
Martin Luther King
South Vietnamese con-
scripts were deserting to
the NLF at the rate of 2000 a day.
The eighth instalmen:
showed the war spreading
allu Cambodia
Rodgedender Pol Pet
Roug under PoI
entering Phnom Penh
They received a rapturous
reception and then pro
ceeded systematically 10
depopulate the capital and
institute a regime of terror
and genocide. It is one of
the most bizarre and inex
plicable episodes the
tragic history of Indo
Page 12 scan of this page
12 Socialist Action.
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THE BEST responses
of the election result
came from Ken Liv-
ingstone and Arthur
Scargill, who pointed
out that the struggle
against the Tories now
has to move on to the
terrain of mass strug-
gle.
Over the next few
years the left has a
massive job to do. But
Thatcher's "landslide'
is not a mandate for
right wing policies.
In fact the Tories got
slightly bey did in 1979 VOICS - the
landslide? was entirely
the result of the splitting
of the anti-Tory vote by
the Alliance.
This government will
rapidly become very un-
popular. So-now
HUrC
than ever the active in-
tervention of socialists
will be crucial.
We have to be there
slogging it out in mass
17 June 1983
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Weapons, 31 Stavordale Rd, London N5 (or at door)
Conference on Namibia Sun
Oxford Hse Derbyshire St, London E2. wuriner details trom Namibia Support Committee 01-267 1941.
Name a cenary di Struggle Public meeting organised by Namibia Support Cttee. with Ernie
speakers from South West Africa People s roanisation SWAro a African National Congress; Hackney Councillors Sam
Kendall. Sat. 16 June. 7.30pm, Assembly Hall Hackney Town Hall, Mare St, E8. So Sarity sponsored cycle SWAPO Women's. nice London to areennam Common Sat 2 July. Further details from 96 Gillespie Rd, London N5 01-359 9116 • Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine weeken• senool. lorry june. 11am, County Hall, London
Further details from 28 carton ivins. nomicien a. London N16 Conference Mo Labour Movement
Ireland 16 July. Conway Hall. Red LIon square, London wel Starts 10.45am. Delegates £3, observers f2. . Further aelalis: LVLI, BOx 109, 32 Ivor Place, London NW1.
Kelease Nelson Mandela! Victory to the ANC! Weekly picket of South Africa House, Trafalgar Square 3.30-1.30, rridays. Called by City Anti-Apartheid Group.
STAND
TRUISE
NORIDENT
Every penny is a blow
against Thatcher
campaigns against the
StOp
missiles, in defence of
the public services and ir
defence of working class
In the Labour Party socialists have to ensure that It links up with
workers in struggle.
We've got to prepare the fight prevent righ-wing
left wing policies in the
party.
As the struggle hots up, we have to make sure that the Healey's, Hat-
lersieys anu snores don l have it all their own way.
To carry forward and unify this fight socialist
are absolutely vital.
Socialist Action is proud the played before and during
LIS CAII. We cham.
pioned every fight by the
left wing and the peace movement. We backed
the 24 May Women's Day of Action on disarmament like other paper.
• Preparing for Power Conference organised by the nevoluuonary communist Party. 16-22 July, Polytechnic of Central London. Over 80 workshops including Marxism after
UDDI COUl Phone 01 274 3951 for further details.
Walk for Life from ras are muccal submarine base to Greenham Common, 19 May to 6 August. For more details of events contact ine scotust Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), 11 Forth Street, Edinburgh 031-557 4284.
Crtsts in tersel
Mas Havertisement • No to slave labour! Mass demonstration and rally in
Workers strike at Aire Valley Yarns Ltd. Sat 18 June, Farsley, Pudsey, W Yorks (For details of coaches from CONCOR contact Race today 01-737 2268 or Southall Monitoring Group 01-843 0343).
Youth CND Conference 2 July, Manchester. For
Goodwin st. London N4
If you agree with what Socialist Action has Deen saying In lie elec tion, send us a donation. Your donations are not 'extra' money we put in the bank, they are what keeps us going.
Every penny another blow for socialism.
Thanks this week to:
388
verpool Bristol 40.00
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Socialist Acion
National Tour
socils acion supporters are organising a national series of meetings to discuss war vext arter tre election? Come to the meeting in your town!
BIRMINGHAM Wed 15 June, speaker John Ross (contact 021-643 5904)
EALING Thu 16 June, speaker Alan Freeman (contact 01-571 5019)
GILLINGHAM Thu 16
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• Easi London Rally for disarmament. Speakers:
Tony Benn, Alf Lomas (MEP), Illtyd Harrington (Dep Ldr GLC), Dan Jones (Tower Hamlets TUC). 29 June, 7.30pm. East Ham Town Hall. ree Neson Names and all South African political prisoners 24-hour picket organised by Bradford Anti-Apartheid. Starts at 5.30pm, Fri 17 June outside Provincial House. Bradford City Centre, Support from all organisations welcome,
June, speaker Redmond O'Neill BRISTOL Fri 17. June, speakers Alan Freeman Helen John (contact 0272 510242)
ISLINGTON Sun 19 June (contact Nick 01-359 8288)
CAMDEN Wed 29 June, 8pm, Camden Labour Club, Carol St NW1. Speaker Valerie Coultas YORK Thu 16 June, speaker Bob Pennington
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the missiles! Send us a contribution today to Spring Appeal, Socialist Action, 328 Upper
Street, London N1 2XP.
DUNDEE Mon 20 June, speaker Alan Freeman ABERDEEN Tue 21 June, speaker Alan Freeman (contact 0224 896284)
SWANSEA Tue 21 June, (contact 0702 460086)
EXETER Tue 21 June (contact Exeter 55040)
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+ SOCIALIST REPUBLIC
WHY SOCIALISTS SHOULD VOTE SINN FEIN
FROM UNITY AT POLLS
TO UNITY IN STRUGGLE
NO • MORE , PARTITION SOLUTIONS
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IN THIS ISSUE
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Page 13 scan of this page
INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO TORY VICTORY "By their friends shall ye know them"
International
up.
from that source could be well expected.
The South African
leader PW
Botha sent his
personal best wishes to
Thatcher and looked for-
ward to the 'continuation
the friendly relations
which happily exist bet-
ween our countries'
west German Chris-
tian Democrat chancellor
KOnI said the
result was 'a massive con-
TOI i natcher
and a victory for NATO'
election
party at the British em-
bassy in Washington,
there were huge cheers
when tony Benn was
defeated in Bristol. British
and American VUICES
mingled in the cheering.
'WHAT happens in
Latin America and the
Caribbean will not only affect our nation, but will also shape
America's image throughout the world. If we
cannot act SO decisively close home, who will believe us anywhere?'.
Thus spoke President Reagan when addressing rally of Cuban exiles in Miami on 20 May.
Reagan's speech came at a time of mounting right
wing clamour in the
United States for stepped up involvement in Central
America, and when there Is ulsturoing evidence thal the United States is more deeply involved in the fighting than hitherto acknowieuged.
On 24 May the New York Times revealed details of missions being carried the Howard Air Force Base in Panama.
An American pilot who was recently stationed at Howard described four huge C130 cargo planes
there, equipped with electronic surveil-
equipment and 40 millimeter cannon. Planes
He said that the four nearly every night, and returned often with their ammunition spent.
The air crews did not wear uniforms or insignia but were almost certainly
mechanic who worked on the planes indicated that the gun barrels had to be replaced almost daily, a sure indication of heavy firing.
The article indicated that the Howard Base was 'swarming'
with aircraft taking equipment to Honduras El Salvador.
and assumption must be that in the of
Course
NATO general secretary Dr Joseph Luns summed it
'It cannot be doubted that the continuation of Mrs Thatcher at the head of the British government will mean that the strong support for the alliance in all its phases will continue as before'. With NATO about to deploy its new missiles in Europe, delight
The Tories are holding a victory celebration on 23-24 June which will be attended by reactionary COLLIKCIS from around the world. Te formation will discussing the of an international federation of right wing parties
Among
ding was Jaques Chirac of Laose attenthe French Gaullists, US vice-president George Bush, West German спалсеног Köhl and the Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
US prepares for war
in Central America
nightime deliveries the US planes take the opportunity to launch aerial attacks guerrillas El Salvador, the Nicaraguan border.
Activity The activity out of Panama is just one arm of the US war effort against Nicaragua and the FLMN in Salvador.
The US military commitment to Honduras has been rapidly escalating.
An electronic surveillance Dast Is being Dulll and 100 US 'advisors' to Helicopter gunship over El Salvador
Stop US intervention in Central America!
End Thatcher's support for Reagan's war drive Picket US embassy 5 July 4.30pm - 7.30pm Organised by ELSOC, INSC etc Don't forget! National demonstration September 11, London
Among the other reac-
tionaries who hailed That-
cher's victory were head of
ine lurkisn millary Junta
General Evren and the Spanish fascist paper
Alcazar.
The reaction inside the Europear one-commared Socialist Parties was also typical. Holland, France, Norway; and
socia democratic leaders put down Labour's defeat to internal and
'unrealistic policies.
Ine Argentina lo re gain the islands.
Virtually alone in placing the blame for Labour's defeat on the right wing leaders of the Party was the Soviet news agency Tass, pointed out that less than half the elec.
cher. train Honduran and Salvadorean troops are being sent. Ine preparallons are being made for US military back-up to a war
Nicaragua by the
londuran army.
The views of the US military establishment on the measures necessary lo stop the Central American
WelC last week General Wallace Nutting outgoing head of the Pentagon's• Southern Command in Panama.
Calling tor a 'commit-
Nutting said can't say whether 150, 200, 500 or 'No more Chile's — hands off Central America'
1000 trainers in Salvador is sufficient. I'm pretty sure aller a coupit or ycals Wal 55 is not'. Salvaged
Arguing that 'like it or not the United States is engaged in a war' he stated that EI Salvador is sorted out, I think Nicaragua can be salvaged without an invasion'.
The regional thinking and determination all ine way couldn't b clearer. necessary, the United stales, as a last resort, would be prepared to resort to combat troops.
Support Nicky
Kelly
IRSP member tramed for
Sallins mail train hold up in
1976
AFTER A harrowing
38 days, Nicky Kelly
has ended his hunger
strike.
The announcement
came within hours of a
statement by the
Southern Government
which said a successful
civil action against the
for illtreatment
whilst in custody would
constitute sufficient
grounds for reopening
Kelly's case
Speculation by the press that a deal had been
done was denied by the
OYCILCH The Nicks
Kelly defence campaign
said they were sceptical
Many commitment given by the government,
18191 stopping the hunger strike marked a
stage Ine campaign, not its end.
In the last two weeks pressure on the governdramatically both the Transport Workers and the Irish Party
MEXICO EL SALVADOR
In mattary aid Agroug
Pacific
O ce an backed Kelly's case. Support by Amnesty Internauonal nas lea to many humanitarian appeals
Kelly's release ever including the Fianna Fail VUUUSIUL. Kussel Clarl the US Attorney General has beer amongst those trying to get permission to visit him
Caolite Breatnach the PRO TOr Kelly's campaign said Kelly 'taken honourable decision end the
as lo create a new atmosphere for behalf. He decided that he would be a better asset alive than dead, but it was a more difficult decision for him to give up than to carry on'.
Mr Breatnach said that supporters who had expressed concern that the hunger strike should end, now had a moral responsibility justice was done.
LIZE
HONDURAS
COSTA RICA Special supplement
In defense of the Permanent Revolution
by Ernest Mandel
Ernest boisnevisu Mandel defends the traditional Trotskyist Trotsky, as opposed to the pre-1917 Lenin, his theory of strategic guide in the less developed countries today
328 Upper St, N1
Socialist Action 17 June 1983 13 Imperialist leaders delighted over Thatcher's victory
CENTRAL AMERICA:
HOW HIGH A PRICE?
By the standards of the Vietnam era, American military commitments in the region remain relatively low. Hard-liner argue that more will be needed to counter threats from the left. 17 eUS-backed rebel groupi revertisemen.
Just published
International Viewpoint Special supplement Triest Mande to supple Policy Continuity se by
Political Continuity Doug Jeness of the American SWP. view that Was COTICCI on the class character of the Russian revolution, and that
'permanent revolution' serves as the
• 20p post and packing from the Other Bookshop.
Page 14 scan of this page
POEU left wins victory for labour movement
Manchester strike for trade
14 Socialist Action
PICKET
LINE
Greening strikers
battle on
FOUR HUNDRED strikers at the Greening engineering Warrington continue their week strike against compulsory red-
cuts holidays and attacks on union organisation.
Management have failed to break their unity with autempis o ba. off strikers with redunSteel bosses up stakes in Swansea
STRIKING workers at British Steel Corporation subsidiary Unit Superheaters in Swansea have been told their factory will SouL completely.
This follows bitter seven week battle against compulsory redundancies.
The workers' occupation of the plant ended when national Engineering Union officials refused the necessary official backing and the High
Victory in sexual
harrassment dispute
AUDREY WHITE, the
manageress of the Lady
at Lord John boutique in
Liverpool, has won her
job back after a month
long struggle.
She was sacked when
she reported the actions
of the area manager who
sexually, harassed mem-
bers of stail. A "ransPorkers® and General
picket
outside the shop stopped
many shoppers and
thousands of signatures
Aire Valley
AIRE Valley Yarns
workers are carrying on
their strike to reinstate
their shop steward and
win back their jobs after
being sacked for joining
a union and taking ac-
No to
slave labour
Mass Demonstration
and Rally
n support of Asian Textile Worker
strike at Aire Valley Yarns Ltd.
saturday, 18th June
17 June 1983 dancy cheques and a threat to sack them.
The workers anger and determination grows with each management attack.
• Donations and messages to: Greening JSSC. fund, c/o Len Blood, 26 St John Street, Newton-LeWillows, Merseyside.
Court stepped in.
The strike is now official and the twenty four hour picket contaies. Strikers know this is an attempt to organisation in the plant in preparation for possible hive off to private industry.
• Donations and messages of support to:
Bishopston Road, Bishopston, Swansea.
were collected on a petition.
Another picket was
set up outside a sister
boutique in the city and Transport Union mem-
bers were not put off by alicols during the dispult.
Management have caved in. Audrey
10W
White has got her old job back with no loss of pay or conditions. (Dave Lee)
tion in his support.
• Messages and dona-
LOTS to: Aire Valley
Yarns Workers Support
Committee, 34 Dirkhill
Street, Bradford 7.
1983'
Coal Hill Lane, Farsley, Pudsey, W.Yorkshire
Assemble: 3.00pm.
DANGER CONCENTRATES the mind. delegates at Post Office Engineering Union conference, held just before the election, the certainty of a Tory landslide concentrated leadership of the union.
The Broad Left won
of conference the support against the NEC on all the key issues. The outgoing executive's proposals for amalgamation with the
SPOE supervison was turned down in favour of the Broad Left's proposal for amalgamation with the UCW.
By Pat Hickey
The executive wanted to create civil-service type union which would include management
The Broad Left fought for a rank and file union of workers in the comme adoption of the
The adoption Broad Left's approach is a real break with the union's
co-responsibility approach to manageMet. Faced with Job loss, deskilling, and privatisation the old relationship with BT management has broken down.
Campaign
Privatisation the
was facing conference, and it was on this that the left made the greatest gains. going executive was severely criticised tor ineffective handling of the fight against acla tionalisation and a motion or no connacnce l tac li dustrial Action SubCommittee Was whelmingly passed.
This set the tone for the elections to the NEC. The left gained 5 seats to give them an overall majority on the NEC of 14-9. While this vote rebresell. the underlying changes in the union, it is a much more
immediate on of ia Tory nee Cecili government and the threat of privatisation.
A BITTER strike has
started at Barber and
Coleman, an engineer-
ing factory in Man-
chester, Trafford Park.
Until recently the
factory was not
unionised. Then Jon
Silberman joined others
in a unionisation drive.
For this he has been
sacked - the manage-
ment claiming that his
job is redundant.
The hundred-strong
workforce walked out im-
mediately and have all
signed up for the Engin-
eering Union to fight for
union recoonition. against
victimisation and arbitrary
Here reprint the of the strike
committee.
And for
minds on the Dave Ward as new Broad Left member of the national executive
BT is a rapidly expan no are one con growing with the development of new technology in cable TV and business information communication. It will be one of the
highly profitable areas of the British convully
Armed
It will be a prime trage for the Tories now because the opening up of the nationalised sectors private capital is essential
or Britain's hard-pressed cavitalisls
The POEU, a union which has real industrial muscle, is capable of inflicting considerable damage on Britain's in dustrial and commercial operations. will therefore come under attack from the government.
It will also be in the thick of the battle in the abour movement which will now take place. POEU like the NUR under Weighell, has been a staunch supporter of the labour right. Its sponsored MP is John Golding, who is also the paid political officer of the union. The new executive will have to clip
union rights
For over 40 years, this American owned multina tional corporation has been solidly Victorian conditions prevail on the shop floor, wages are very poor and there is no SUCE Will as the rate for the job — two workers exactly the
same job can be on £10 a Week difference in their wage packet.
Film
Recently London
Weekend Television, who
were making a programme
called 'Hard Times'
to the factory film
worker on regular nights.
He receives time and a
third shift allowance,
his wages are so low that
he receives Family Income
Supplement.
against privatisation. the wings of this arch right-winger who with Healey Callaghan responsible for Labour's disarray in the election. Zone
This puts the POEU in the centre of the left right battle in the labour move-
The new executive will be in an excellent posi-
The company's polic on redundancy is appall ing someone committed to long employment with the firm can be made com pulsorily redundant, while someone else doing similar work and who might be keen to volunteer will De kept on.
Communication between the management and the shopfloor is non exis-
number of tempts to organise a union Leil. have been met with threats and from management.
This time we have
refused to be intimidated.
A hundred per cent of the
workforce are now members of the AUEW. On
Tuesday 7 June the union
Post Office engineers demonstrate outside the Bank of England as part of their action
come of that battle.
This will put enormous pressure on the left. The
pronly of the right
thel letto Apline same tide
the lett the same time they will be fighting to divide the new executive from the membership. Dealing with all these pressures will require enormous political flexibility alongside the most determined opposition to the pany seeking a meeting to negotiate a union recogni-
The company received this on 8 or 9' June. On Friday 10 June, they sacked Jon Silberman, nent trade unionist in the factory who now secretary strike committee The company claim that Jon was inaut redundant'. To cover themselves, a few othe redundancies were made at the same time.
Convinced
We are convinced that Jon has been victimised. If the firm is seeking a reduction LINC WUIKIUINC then this should be the subject of negotiation and with the possibility of
Tory plans for privatisation.
The Broad Left won the conference because it effectively combined
against Custod privatisation with the Dollical leader against hat the union leadership. combination will continue to necessary. And i provides an object lesson for the left in other unions on how to organise. volunteers - not through sackings six minutes nOLICC as was the case in this instance
We are committed to staying until all our
OUL demands are met — union recognition, reinstatement of Jon Silberman, no compulsory redundancies.
With your support we are conneen o vIcio Together we can strike a
tol laur
• Copies of this strike
committee statement
from: Dick McGrogan,
chairperson 17
Bridgewater Street, Win-
Eccles, Manchester.
Jon Silberman, 51 Mon-
trose House, Crete Street
Oldham. Send messages
and donations to these
addresses
Page 15 scan of this page
Railworkers must fight or go under
NOW THE TORIES have the election victory under their belt, they won't hesitate to massacre railways.
Arthur Goldstein in now chairperson of the 'moderate' Sir Peter Parker retires in the autumn.
Goldstein wrote
minority section of the Serpell report proposing an even more savage carve-up of the rail network to 600 track miles.
The BRB will press ahead with plans to close the
Celiall workshops, wind 200 branch lines and push through the massive job loss and redundancy programme outlined in last year's pay award.
By Patrick Sikorski
The Rail Broad Left met in Liverpool on 4 June and urged its supporters to forward emergency resolutions to the AGM calling
one day national strike as tne nirst step to di out action against the BRB plans
Without national lead for strike action by all sections OI the union, workshop members will not want to fight alone and militants could be trampl ed in the rush for redundancy pay. If these setbacks happen, the respon sibility will be that of Knapp and the NEC and their's alone.
just railworkers facing the chop. The coal and stee
London Transport
THREE YEAR freeze on London Transport tube and bus fares has just hit the headlines.
This follows the popular introduction of 25 per cent fare cuts and timesaving travel cards Covering bus and tube rides.
This press fanfare is part of a cleverly orchestrated campaign by London Transport management and the Tories to mask the shady side of LT operations. Behind these popular changes are
6000 job losses for transport workers and big cuts in services.
By Patrick Sikorski,
NUR
If the three year freeze is broken this wil be blam-
ed on union refusal to accept job cuts and stepped up productivity.
This divide and rule,
setting passengers against Ju workers. draws attention away from the real
the Tories who
CLICHL
refuse central government
funds and block Greater
for public transport.
this government attack,
li are trvine to torce pro-
ductivity sacrifices from
workers to balance LICH their books. Underground
and bus drivers are told
that opposition to driver
only operation will
threaten their jobs and
wage packets.
London Transport
the
The Serpell report outlined plans for this and likely to be appointed British Rail Board when
chairperson lan MacGregor doing his
Miners' Ar-
forma-
rail, steel and metal
explained
of the Triple unions.
ing for immediate building local coordination involved.
action taken by they will solidarity from these
ple should take similar action.
Threats
The formation of one union federation for steel, coal, Coll metal workers is a bureaucratic pipedream if it is not linked to a united national and local tight against the im mediate threats of BR
and the NCB. A Rail Broad Left, which took lead
Divide and rule on
Underground. This way • tor money and direct
services. The rail and other Underground unions have
for this deal.
In exchange for a j.z per cent pay increase, productivity
Grounds are to be settled by 30 June. All the other parts of the original union pay claim have been
These include
job saving measures like a
35 hour week and an extra week's holiday.
Sadly the Labour GLC leaders have adopted the
of negotiation and collaboration with management instead building fightback in the depots
and unions.
Dave Wetzel, chairper-
son of the GLC transport
committee explained the rank and file monthly
paper Busworker that the
approacn in nis balanceu
Plan accepts more driver oy operallon anu cuts l
bus mileage.
The GLC now has to face Thatcher's plan to
smash to pieces.
Reliance on their courts and arbitration is a recipe for disaster, as ine masco of the Fares Fair campaign
showed. wants to
If Labour
save the GLC it must give a
lead along with those
fighting
against driver only opera-
building resistance, could play a big part in fighting for such action by rail and Triple Alliance unions.
The tremendous gains of the Broad Left in the post ornice engineels unot could be repeated. But for
HONCHI Rail Broad Left does not match
LIC strength and credibility of their sisters and brothers in the POEU Agitation for
begin to change this. Show
Recent negotiations for the London Transport pay award show the shape
things come.
Management have ottered a 5.2 per cent increase but this is tied to the introduction of one person train operation and productivi-
'contributions' from other grades.
Six hundred platform.
2000 lost guard jobs. national executive of the National Union of Railwaymen has accepted this deal and instructed the na-
negotiators get agreement on productivity by the end of June.
This sell out leaves of track
WORM'S
EYE
VIEW
Martial law for
Farringdon Road?
Poland's Prime Minister General Jarazelski
WHEN IS Peoples
Cooperative not
come ver
Well, munist party
the Communist
when the people start in-
terfering and wanting to
run what they had er-
ronously been told was
their's to run.
According to legend
Morning Star is not owE-
railworkers dangerously exposed and directionless as they face the new Thatcher whirlwind. The NUR NEC and general secretary
tion eggs in the basket of a LaDOul victory the general election.
Now a simple choice faces the union. Fight or go under. National strike action should be built to take on the Board. There are a number of flashpoints for this, including this year's pay deal. The most likely battle grounds are the closure of the Horwich engineering workshop scncaulta lot August and attempts to close or dig up more branch lines
But Knapp and the NEC are failing to prepare these fights. The bureaucratic machine left by Weighell is still in place and each issue is treated as
individual 'problem'
There has been no call for action against workshop closures lo build on the
strong lobby called by the NEC on ll May.
This inaction is being challenged. resolution from the Brighton branch
this year's annual general meeting calls for the NEC to organise industrial action against closures.
The British Rail Board plan to scrap thousands of miles Poland's Prem Printing Preseneral to raee could
ed by the Communist a Party but is owned by the
Peoples Press Printing
Society,
shareholders are suppos
ed to be in charge.
Normally just tbe
oda tew lur up the
AGM and dutif lly den
the banc
picked peopte which the
previous management
LONDONE
committee decides the shareholders and readers need
If this method is good enough for the Soviet Politburo then it's good enough for the party paper.
But trouble has been brewing Farringdon Road and the paper staff have put own nominees up for election whilst the CP ex. ecutive explain the party
up the SCL and its management committee as a front the first place so it has
right to run the cycl show.
As some 14,000 copies of its 30,500 a day circulation are 'sold'
Hasterr Europe — and they have
they might have a point.
democratic make sure of outcome to me eetons the executive have been running a campaig get CP members to take out shares and vote the right team home.
is all so inconve-
executive mast enr! Jarizedy. He doc lease to barber wich edes. Don' het dectares
aara too
manted to invite him orer for the AGM.
Socialist Action 17 June 1983
N.U.R
SERPELL MEANS -
• TE MALES DOWN
10370701:000 JOIN US IN THE STRUGGLE FOR YOUR RAILWAYS
SAY NO TO
SERPELL
Soviets now
St Pancras masses build soviet 9 June 1983
REVOLUTIONARY
period opened with the
election. The votes which
large numbers
workers gave CLO the
and the
SDP/Liberal Alliance
were lnel way or leiling
'Drop all this
parliamentary
and start building
soviets, otherwise we will
vote for Thatcher
Jenkins.
Onli the Workers
Revolutionar Party
understand what b going
• Councils
(Soviets) ...'
15
• COUNCIL
Photo: JOHN HARRIS
Shrewdly noting the striking similarities i between redi Petrograd of 1917 and Holborn and St Pancras today, where election polled 155 vole their candidate the out of a poll of 43,110 they explain Community Councils will be the 'equivalent of the Soviets developed during the Russian revolution
It is not true ty way that all the Certa Committee cerified
LINes go 1a19 75%
day a meet prior to po tion.
Page 16 scan of this page
cher
the labour movement.
The changes in the Tory Cabinet are part of a plan by Thatcher to increase inc arcady CulUL" mous powers of the Prime Minister'g office Among other measures she is taking is the abolition of the Cabinet 'Think Tank' and its relocation in the Prime Minister's office.
The sacking of Pym from the Foreign Office amounts to the removal of minor malatious within the Tory leadership, and the sanctification of the core of Tory leadership around Thatcher, Lawson and Tebbit.
Tebbit being kept as the Employment minister is not a sign of disfavour: the Tories intena lo introduce their legislauon in une nst session of the Parlia-
BICW ment. Tebbit will LaNC charge of the front line for Thatcher.
Thatcher has now surrounded herself with men who think as she does.
ine government s popuiality declines she is making sure Ludl divisions
schisms in the Cabinet are kept to a minimum.
The changes the SDP leadership were in-
election rèsults.
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Tories and
Alliance
prepare
for war
THE CABINET changes made by Margaret That-
and Roy Jenkin's surrender of the Social Democratic Party leadership to David Owen are signs that both parties are preparing for battle with
Halfway through campaign the SDP ped its strategy of trying to appeal to the electoral base of both parties and Roy Jenkins, the author of the sulalcay, was demoted.
A full scale attack was launched on the Labour vote wile use resul the Alliance moved from 14 per cent in the opinion polls to 25 per cent of the vote.
David Owen was the figure HOSI associated with this in the SDP. project is to marginalise the Labour Party
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build a new party of the left that replace Labour as a party of government.
His leadership coup its Alliance will means that, dropmechanism for promoting the idea reform, the SDP will step up their allacks Labour Partv and their ap. proaches to the right wing LIC trade bureaucracy.
That's who collaborate with the Alliance like Grantham, to be ariven out labour movement leaderclosely ship. His ruthlessness in this respect should be emulated by the rank and file of the labour and movement.
Tebbit the battering ram for the Tory assault on the labour SPECIAL OFFER For readers who take out a year's inland subscription we are offering a free copy of Hard Times, a new book in the 'Arguments for Socialism' series by Bob Sutcliffe. The book normally costs $2.50.
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could
unchallenged
now continue as a
electora on the
why all those
Chapple, Sirs et al have
of the
Thatcher's
A MASS rally at
defiantly declared opposition to the
ment.
movement
bomb Russia' call,
when she said that
dent.
declared:
missile silos at
publication. election, said that
CND would come
and jail on the blockades of the missile sites.
Wembley conference centre last weekend
nuclear policies of the new Thatcher gover-
In the same hall where rabid Tories had bayed approval for Kenny Everett's 'Let's
3000 CND activists applauded Joan Ruddock
Thatcher had no mandate for the deployment of cruise and Tri-
Applause came too for fire fighters leader Ken Cameron when he
'We must get the message to the shop floor, because after all it is trade unionists who are putting in the
Greenham Common.'
Bruce Kent, explaining that the issues of nuclear disarmament had not really been discussed in the general
behind the thousands of people who were willing to accept fines
THE GEORGE HOTEL CND SAYS WE'RE STILL IN BUSINESS'
TOCE WE STOP
THE BUN
← Socialist Action No. 13, 10 June 1983Socialist Action No. 15, 24 June 1983 →