Socialist Action No. 154, 5 December 1986
The scan: 154-dec-05-1986-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
LIARS CAUGHI
No. 154 THE LAST week has lifted just a corner of the veil of secrecy that surrounds the activity Reagan and Thatcher gUveL ments. If what has come out appears an almost incredible morass of lying, duplicity, double dealing that is simply because the full picture of what goes on in never seen by us.
Look at the facts. First the Reagan government has spent the last year's hysterical campaign against terrorism. It has bombed Libya in so called reprisals against terrorism. In particular it has whipped up a campaign against Libya, Iran and Nicaragua as 'terrorist regimes'. It has called for economic sanctions
SOGA ist
ACTioN
BUILDING AN ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
OUT!
against them. And then it is revealed it has been supplying arms to Iran to attempt to gain friends there and bring the the country back into the orbit of the niteg States And what was the money made from the arms sales used for? To and finance the terrorist contras against Nicaragua! And this was carried out completely illegally back of the US Congress which had formally banned funds for the consix tras. This is from the president who preaches "law and order The argument that this was done by a colonel North in the National Security Council is simply absurd and no one whatever believes it. No one gets permission to supply arms to Iran without authorisation from the
from Reagan.
been revealed as
stop the
behind the
British security services. book, furthermore,
Zionism very highest circles. And that means in principle, if not in every detail,
And what has our prime minister who
involved in? The government has been frantically attempung mn an Austranan coure to
publication of 'security material' in a book by a former MIS agent. All sorts of solemn declarations on 'national security" are invoked. It then turns out that the government permitted the leaking of the ies and deceit -same material in a book by Chapman Pincher — a journalist who can be relied upon to be sympathetic both to the Thatcher government and to the voked
Pincher's was read in a revelations. manuscript which had been stolen in
• Bernie Grant on racism and local
government Khan and Scally victory
NUS conference Socialist Democracy
• Ken Livingstone and Vladimir Derer
order to clear it in advance. Once more law and order' rules supreme.
Sir Robert Armstrong, the person
fronted the cover up of the Westland scandal, was forced to admit that he had given 'misleading' evidence to the court - which is a polite way of saying he had scarcely told the 'truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'.
What has now come out on this government is that it is riddled with
and far worse crimes than that. First it was the Belgrano, then Westland, then the beginning of the story of how it planned and pro-
the miners strike now the revelations on its duplicity on the MIS are.
But don't be fooled and don't be
5 Dec 1986 30p appalled. Because what you are seeing is nothing compared to the real truth that lies at the heart of this government — or of Reagan's. If its plans on nuclear weapons, on how it deals with unemployment, or its aid for countless real rignu wing CSOeS regimes throughout the world - starting with South Africa - were known it would never survive.
But that veil of secrecy has been pierced just for a moment. See what is taking place on the Iran arms deal, or the MIS revalations, and apply that to the whole of Reagan and Thatcher's policies. Then you will get a very accurate idea of what their governments
And that is something very useful indeed.
Page 2 scan of this page
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Page 3 scan of this page
What kind of left?
Politics Today
MORE EVIDENCE of the forces reshaping the situation in the Labour Party came last week.
ingstone, in his column in Tribune, on the Labour Coordinating work with Labour Left Liaison — the left umbrella organisation including the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, the Labour Committee, the Labour Party Black Section and other Labour Party campaigns.
Vladimir Derer, Secretary of Labour Left Liaison (LLL), has replied to the Livingstone column, in a letter sent to Tribune, pointing out that the conditions do not exist today for the unification of the hard' and 'soft' left — a proposal made by Livingstone — but welcoming joint work. JOHN ROSS looks at the issues involved.
IN A letter to be published in Tribune this week
the secretary of Labour Left Liaison (LEL) replies to the column by Ken Liv-
which we print on this page. Derer states that the conditions do not ex-
organisation 'of the left'.
sought is the opportunity tor joint work where
Socialist Action entirely
proach and it is worth spelling out the reasons
Firstly a left has as its first principle to support those in struggle. This, of
applied first and foremost to the miners in their strike, but it also apolc• lo oles • Liverpool City Council in their fight with the Tories.
No matter what fight has to be waged against Militant OVeN LeSICE blunt racist, attitude to Liverpool's black Coll munity, and other issues, in the actual fight between Liverpool council and the Thatcher government the left has to be entirely on the side of Liverpool council
That principle of supDOTLIC DUZAC HICAS asu support for the workers at Wapping, at Silentnight and local councils such as Haringey, Lambeth and Brent that are now coming under attack not simply from the
fories but from the Labour leadership. If that means having a clash with Kinnock then too bad.
Second a left has to be based on defending party democracy. That has two crucial aspects at present.
First, the most imporlant democrauc gain lnat the left has made in the last
vcars. Haczoy reselection of MPs by the sole body, the general committees can in any sense make them accountable is under direct attack It has to be defended by the entire left.
Second, the entire left was always united in its opposition to expulsions as a method of resolving questions in the party. fact, support for expulsions N no no CyD loIR as Clause 4 in the LCC as not really of the left at all -bul ds ngnl wing entrvists in the left.
The reason may be seen samply It is absurd to claim, as did LCC member Fiona McTaggert at the debate bet. ween the LLL and LCC at Socialist Action's 'Building an Alliance for Socialism' weekend, that the LCC supporteu expulsions mn Liverpool because had
The first was a public attack by Ken Liv-
Committee (LCC) for refusing to
Women's Action
discovered 'undemocratic
practices'. What about Roy
Hattersley? Wasn't he guil-
ty of the most incredible
undemocratic practices in
Sparkbrook? Are the LCC
uw vallalslll for his
expulsion? And if not why not?
and that is in Third, left has a
For those
op-
Britain and interna-
„oRaly
munity,
ot the
Central
America and other countries.
on these,
formulas bring LOzCLIC
backwards.
But is entirely
tives.
Amir
Altee Scally.
of other
taken example defending reselection, fighting on Knowsley party, Ignililig expulsions,
galll : Sections, British
and other
On Labour Left
joint work these demands.
agree Ken Liv-
the Campaign Group and Tribune Group should Iusea, or LLL and LCC should be, what we do support is the idea of ioint work on agreed objectives.
LLL - LCC
Left
must look
to the
future
the issue of reselection of MPs and will short).
enile MAr
AT ITS recent annual meeting,
tarianism than policies, it was a wrong decision.
Fortunately the closeness of the vote means that it is likely to be reversed a next year's meeting . Indeed, with the National Union of Public Employees, LCC's strongest region (Scotland) and Peter Hain all voting in the minority, the decision may become academic as the left in its broadest sense is brought together at all levels within party in order to support the demands of women and black sections
gains made by the left over the last decade
The first instance of this will come with the decision of the right wing caucus on the national executive comHELCO which har alcau decided to ignore the decision ot the recent party conference not to reopen the issue of reselection of MPs and will shortly propose so-called reforms which, under
IN LAST week's Tribune Ken Livingstone criticised the sectarian stance of the LCC to Labour Left Liaison. He called for unification of the left. The issues involved in this must be clarified.
Separate organisation cannot be supported for the sake of it. Separate organisation becomes inevitable fundamental political uutsluis are tvolved. These include:
(i) The issue of expulsions
not Militant but party democracy. Expulsion of Militant
DUBBULECIN spreads to damage the whole party's democracy.
THE KEN LIVINGSTONE COLUMN
1 TETS recent annual
abeliğ; wil Lewor Co-ordinating Committe decided by 68 votes to 48 not to work witn cae newiy lorne a bour ren biason. As witn an' denision whieh is more intuence by sectarianism than policies, it was a wrong decision Fortunately the closeness of the vote means that it is likely to be
with the National Union
become academic as the Lett in its broadest sense is brought together at all levels within the party in order to support the demands of women and black sections as well as to defend the ains made by the Left over the
ome with the decision of the Right-wing caucus on the National Executive Committ walen nas auready deciaet ignore cne decision or cn' party conterence nm
• Reproduced from Tribune, November 1986, vol 50, number 48.
the Labour Coordinating Committee decided by 68 votes to 48 not to work with the newly formed Labour Left Liaison. As with any decision which is more influenced by sec-
the guise of widening the selectorate, make it even more difficult for parties to remove reacThere is also the very real danger that the Tories improved position in the opi-
nion polls will be used to try
June
Hulaleird disarmament.
The LCC's decision is particularly sad given the
more positive signs
coming from the Campaign Group of MPs with its deci-
demands of the
Commitee Black Sections. The decision to make the Campaign Group open to any MP who wished to join by dropping
"invitation only' wicu Calbee suchecIment when it was used to
Vladimir Derer replies for LEL
Khan and Scally, Knowsley North, and other cases make this clear.
There cannot be unity on the left while witch hunts threatening party democracy are supported.
H1OSH
tant gain party democracy has made is the right of
GCs to accountability of
MPs through reselection.
Without this no possibility exists of holding Labour YOYCHLLLICID IU COlLIL-
conference instructed the NEC not to
NEC flouted this.
The Tribune Group has called for upholding party policy. The
exclude some comrades in •Cucuoc oJ o CIolu but most important has been the decisior of the Campaign Group MPs on Sawyer and Eddie Haigh the NEC Tom against the right for chairs of the vital home policy and finance subcommittees of the NEC.
Among left wing parlamentary candidates there is strong pressure to end the divisions on the leti within the PLP so that we can maximise support foI the next Labour government to stand tirm againsi the pressures which will undoubtedly come from Washington, the Common Market, the International
With a general election likely in the next 10 months,
vanol groupings which comprise the Labour Party SCIE need to stana back from the sectarianism and splits oi the last two years and consider who benefits from these decisions. It is certainly not the Tribune Group of MPs or the LCC.
Tribune Group to agree an open ballot for the shadow
breakdown of the previous year's joint slate. This caused the defeat of two left
decline in the votes of the other lett candidates
But an analysis of the VOLC CONN SnOWs why the Tribune Group did NUL Walll all UCI More than 20 of them did
LCC has actively campaigned for flouting it. The need to uphold accountability necessitates
organisation separalt nom lose nol ucicnull. party policy.
(iii) Campaigns sociated with the LLL no longer accept as good coin purely verbal support for the Labour Women's Action Committee, the Labour Party Black Section, Labour CND, the Labour Committee on Ireland other pressure
Party conference showed that the LCC did not deliver support either of resolutions in support of the demands of CLPD, WAC, the Black Section,
not vote for Jo Richardson even though she was on the Tribune siate.
Given all the struggles in the party to win support for a ministry for women wito lur cabinet sialus dile Jo's lifelong work for the Tribune Group, we can only assume that a substantial minority of Tribune Group Ivir s are memoers ol lna organisation order
cementas WILI their local activists while soDe uc cocacucs ll the back in the privacy of the voting booth.
Monetary Fund and the civil service as those groups seek block socialist polcies.
If the split between the Tribune and Campalgr Groups continues, the next PLP will see the broad left majority that will . exist a the beginning of the next parlament walec from the soggy end of the CB DUHe Group centre-right absorbs enough
to oke COnITO again.
The problem with the LCC decision is that continuing divisions on the let outside parlament will lead
All Ulll divisions within the PLP left. Unfortunately many comrades are still allowing their bitter experiences with Mililant and its undemocratic tactics in the Labour Party Young Socialists, the National Organisation of Labour Students and some local councils to affect their attitude to Labour Lett Liaison. Indeed, many
and others, nor votes for the NEC for women and black candidates. Tribune Group members failing to vote for Jo Richardson for the Shadow Cabinet, mentioned by Ken Livingstone, mirrors the failure
LCC supporters deliver practical support for campaigns in the party.
We cannot speak for the Campaign Group. But
the LLL
ICHATUS unification of the left outside the PLP has to flow from an agreed political
which does not presently exist - as the LCC fails to support issues which are not sectarian but at the core of any strategy for socialism.
What we welcome is
Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986 of those left wingers who have become active in the party only since 1979 have spent much of their time in alliances fighting Militant and have no experience of LalC broad leti Coalliol. which were mobilised to fight the dire policies of the
and Labour governments.
Militant is no longer an issue which should divide the lett. The accumulation of their "tactical' errors the redundancy notices, the refusal to appear before conterence, , ana now inel decision to take the chair of the discredited Black and Asian Advisory Committee (correctly described Dennis Skinner as 'scabbing') will leave them HOTE so alec and discredited than any polic UI CADubUo COul
Those of us who learned the value of lett unity ir the struggles against the Wilson/Callaghan govern. ments need to remind those in the party who have ant doubts thạt the enemy of radical socialism in Britain is capital and its political wing, the Tory Party, rather than parts of the lett with whom we might have tacuca banceHcıl
The only way to build Labour support is constant campaigning for radical DOnCiC and Labour Left Liaison has a major role to play in that struggle precisely because it is based on those groups in society who have been the subject of Margaret Thatcher's most ferocious attacks.
common work on agreed YUaN. The campaign for Khan and Scally provides a model. Untortunate joint work was rejected by the LCC - which, as Ken Livingstone said, is purely sectarian. Regardless of this decision the Lilk welcomes work with individuals or groups who wish to pursue coals such as defending reselection opposine expulsions, securing the demands of LeID Party Black Section and other Party campaigns, and we hope this will develop.
Vladimir Derer,
Secretary,
Labour Left Lizison
Page 4 scan of this page
Students and the left
4 Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986
In Brief
Left Slate for the NCC THE Campaign Group of MPs and Labour Left Liaison are putting forward a joint slate for the elections to the National Constitutional Commission (NCC). The work in drawing up this slate, and securing a joint statement of the candidates for the CLPs and Women's Division, was undertaken by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy Which has also endorsed the slate. The candidates endorsed are:
CLP division: John Burrows, Mandy Moore, Ken Slater.
Women's division:
Vallins
Trade union division:
Jones, Tom O'Neill, Alan Quinn, Irene Rowe.
Socialist society division: Jim Layzall.
Securing this joint left slate is an important example of practical cooperation. urges all its readers to ensure that their CLP votes in these elections and that they vote for the appropriate candidates above in Women's Sections.
Narrow support?
FURTHER information has come to light regarding the politics of Lindsay Thomas of Clause 4 -the person who moved the successful amendment at the Labour Coordinating Committee AGM opposing joint work between the LCC and Labour Left Liaison.
Thomas is a member of the London Labour Party Regional Committee to support the position of the Black Section and boycott the Black and Asian Advisory Committee. i homas cast his vote against the Black Section position and for participating in the Committee.
The motivation of Thomas's resolution to the LCC AGM was how Black Sections must be supported and how Labour Left Liaison hampered Inis Dy could be relied on more.
As they say the sincerity of words is best judged by actions!
Fight Racism Defend Local Government PUBLIC MEETING Thursday 18 December, 7.30pm Red Rose Club, Seven Sisters Road, London N7 Speakers: Bernie Grant
Leader Haringey Council Telal Karim Islington North Black Section Marc Wadsworth
Organised by Islington Campaign Group, Red Rose Club, Seven Sisters Road. London N7 70G
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Socialist Action
the CLP aitlt
- which voted recently 'narrowing' it down. Instead the LCC Chair, Labour Party Black Section
November issue includes: 1 • Mozambiquer:
The death of Samora
wacner • Poland
A new challenge for
Solidarnosc • Chile
The fight against
Pinochet • Hungary
The example of 1956 • Bolivia
Peoples referendum
challenges government • Peru
Peasants fight for land • Israeli State
• Around the World
Reports from South
Africa, USA, Portugal, Ireland, Britain
rro, Account 230179/90. 153
THIS TERM'S NUS conference comes at an explosive time in the student movement. In the Labour Party the 'soft left' is pulled between allying with Kinnock or with the campaigning left in the Labour Left Liaison. A more spectacular form of the same contradiction faces the 'Democratic Left' leadership of the National which controls the NUS.
Students are the forefront many
ulU" gressive struggles in Britain: we were the largest single contngent on tne ivovem Mov ement demonstthiod 1985 Anti-Apartheid during term time; student opposition to the ÚS bombing o1 Libya was widespread; the recent visit by Sinn rein councillors to Britain saw more meetings in colleges than with local councils.
TeOl withdrawal
ion COT
port given Greenham
DUD UIL
objectives the Anti-Apartheid
The reality of Zionism
ONE OF the most crucial issues which faces the National Union of Students (NUS) today is Zionism. A false position of 'No Platform for Zionists' adopted by a few colleges has been used to divert attention away from the real issue, the continuing oppression by the state of Israel over the Palestinians. Socialist Action asked RIMA MILHIM, secretary General Union of Palestinian Students, to explain the reality of the Israeli state's oppression of the Palestinians and the role of the PLO. THE PLO rather than just being a political party in the European sense an organisation of an entire people. Al lne most basic and all embracing level the fight of the PLO is for all Palestinian people and refugees to be able to return to Palestine, to be able to live aș equal citizens, determining their own future within their own
slalc.
Within the PLO there is not merely the armed organisations but also trade unions, women's organisations, the Palestine Red aTesceri society which organises medical aid WUL ACID cooperatives, the student movement and then all the organised political Tactions.
Zionism, the political ideology which forms the backbone those have denied the Palestinians their homeland and theit
tiumar expresions isa pim-
ticular
CAVICSSIUI perialism tailored to take advantage of the exploitation and oppression of Jews in Europe and to offer them all auvaicul way oul oi Ls persecution by removing themselves from the problem and imposing themselves an imperialist fashion on the Middle East.
Under the political guidance of Zionism Jewish immigrants into Palestine began to deprive Palestinians of their homeland.
Organisation of Labour Students,
Britain, especially for comprehensive mandatory sanctions. However concrete action on this has come from individual colleges rather than from the NUS nationally.
By Polly Vittorini, NUS London executive
On paper NUS supports self-defence by the black communities against racist police harassment and calls for the scrapping of immigration controls.
Most of these policies nave beeno onor lade the NUS by NOLS. But to WOK al ae camoas ld have been waged by the NUS under NOLS's leadership you wouldn't think it.
Instead of taking these policies to their logical conclusion, and waging a conSolcn canbae orniet in the labour movement and in society as a whole the leadership of NOLS and therefore of the NUS has put its support behind Kinnock. But Kinnock stands against all of these
of the
The Kibbutzim movement refused to accept Palestinian members. Kibbutz land became exclusively
revised ow nede anso calisd
workec so-called
Niaci labour movement, the Histadrut, was set up under the slogan of 'Jewish
tratea all its earl! excluding Palestinians fron work -acts as pickets of Jewish employers who agreed to hire Palestinian workers.
\ systematic polic of
xcluding Palestinians fron their homeland continued LAUZGHE 1948-67
eriod within Israel's 1948
borders. It was carried out again with the invasion of the West Bank : and Gaza strip which resulted in a further 200,000 Palestinians being forced to leave their homeland. Today any Palestinian activists who at-
to this
roachment are deporte
Palestinian's day car roughly into
within the and those living outside of Palestine Those living in the 1948 territories were subject to military law for approximately years aiter the state of Israel wa. created. They exist in circumstances such that it is il-
It has become especially clear since the last Labour Party conference with the dropping of nationalisation Labour Party policy, the call for more 'law and order' instead defence of the black communities against the racism of the police and the courts, and the wholesale retreat by the Labour leadership in the face of Tory cuts and attacks that a leadership waichnerene Lne TeaC tionary politics fought for by Kinnock at Labour Party conference is incapable
of being a leadership of the NUS.
Unity
The present NOLS
leadership is utterly unable to implement NUS policies as une as ils ianus are ueo by its support for Kinnock, ana as long as it retuses to enter into a fight for its policies the Labour Party.
This year 35,000 students marched against the proposed cuts SLuaCBI grants. Kinnock refuses to give a commitment that a future Labour government will restore student grants to their 1979 real value. The Democratic Left
• V1U/UDG lead the NUS on the basis of prioritising the legal for them to be sold or rented land. They fill the most low paid and low
jobs within Israeli They are deprived of the vast majori ty of social benefits througl the technique of only giving such benefits to Palestinians who have served in the Israeli army.
The vast majority of areas where the Palestinian's live lack drains, adeGIALC SIOOS OOmeO! mal social facilities. Palesti nians are banned from tak ing certain technical subjects at university s Palestinians territories live under military nian's are liable for up to
wu ycals unor sol uIcu . displaying ne colour of the Palestinian flas
Every form of censor ship imaginable exists. All
election of the next Labour
government to the exclusion
of all other struggles.
Despite the majority in
the NUS for support for so
many or lne suuggies or tne working class and the op pressed both in Britain and
internationally_ the NUS does noi implement this support. The _pressure to
implement it, furthermore, has not been organised.
The problem in organising this support has been the total lac of platform in the NUS for the campaigning left in the Labour Party
ie the Campaign Group of Labour MPs and Labour Left Liaison. This gaping noie nas meant that the op
position to the strategy of
the NOLS leadershi ha. been organised by a current which has pretences to be ing on the left but in fact bends imperialism precisely the issues on which the greatest victories have been won in the NUS. Ireland
'Socialist Students in NOLS' (SSiN) has
DUSEtions in favour of a federal united Ireland before Bntish withdrawal. and fot the formation of a workers Jalty South Africa against building solidarity with the African National Congress. This opposition is no alternative to the preforms of political organisa tion are banned. Childrer regularly get months detention for throwing stones at military vehicles There are over 120 Israel settlement on expropriatec Palestinian land
There currently somewhere between 120,000 and 200,000 Palestinians from the occupied territories who come into the
territories work They are treated in exactly une same way as South African migrant workers they are not allowed to stay overnight. They are not paid unemployment bene
fim opesocial seneil. They
are paid roughly a third as much as the average salary of an Israeli worker. They are without doubt used as dispensible, ill paid, effec
Politics Today
sent NOLS leadership. These positions are in fact to the right of present NUS policy.
adoption by the NUS of SSiN's formula of a two-state solution in Palestine against the call of the Palestine Liberation Organisation for democratic, secular stale Palestine would have disastrous consequences for Palestinians and be great step backwards tor NUS
Campaign
What is needed to take the NUS forward leadership which defends all OI the interests and struggles of the working class and the oppressed in Britain and internationally. One which will wage a conSisicul campaign in their support. In order to win their students must ally with the campaigning left in the Labour
Party which is fighting fo these politics. the type leadership that Campaign Student stands for in the NUS
It should be supported by all those who stand for real socialist campaigning policies in the NUS. . Campaign Student stands for the campaigning unity or the left of the Labour Par ty. tively unprotected labour There numerous examples of Israeli physically attacking Arab workers when they attempt to take some form of industrial action.
There are currently sixty per cent of the Palestinian people - between two and two and a half million who live in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, in very difficult conditions
Living conditions in the refugee camps, especially in tremely difficult because o the continuous Israeli air attacks. There have been 14 Israeli air raids this year on the camps. In South Lebanon all camps are now suftering their third month of food and medical blockade.
This is the reality of Israel today.
Page 5 scan of this page
White man to chair Black and Asian Committee!
News
people. As Tony and big political success.
That theme was set by the first session at which Marc wadsworth Ine Labour Party Black tion, Tony Benn, Ann Pettifor the Labour Women's Action Committee, John Ross for Socialist Action, John Lang from the
I spenders from the
joined speakers ANC and FMLN/FDR of
Salvador representing some of the internationa alliances the Labour left must forge.
Benn cantured the mood of the weekend when ne said that what people were interested in discussing was not rhetoric but the systematic hard work that wall of silence the doing. The
Switch lar press and some in the party around the left in the last 18 LACU Hollis was breakind down. Right wing policies simply
Benn explained thạt the left now taking shape in the Campaign Group, Campaign Forum and Labour Left Jason was Dased on people working together constructively, in support and for agreed policies No and for agreed policies. single school of thought could, or should, control it, and support was welcomed from any quarter. What was
of ideas but practical
That message was hammered home by other speakers: Black Section, WAC Wapping strikers, ANC, FMLN/FDR. Socialist Action. In their own way every speaker said that they did not judge people by what they said but by what they did.
In line with that, the sessions which filled the rest of the weekend took up virtually all the key alliances the labour movement had to make.
Saturday afternoon saw Linda Bellos, leader of
THE BLACK and Asian Advisory
istence of an all white Labour's race relations spokesperson meeting in secret.
Recreating the Black and Asian Committee this year however posed unusual problems. ding of the fact that the sole role of this committee 1s to try to head off democratically constituted Black Sections has grown in the party over the last year. Last year's BAAC chairperson, Jo Richardson, therefore announced that she retused to serve on the committee.
Building an alliance
for socialism
THE SECOND annual Building an Alliance for Socialism' conference organised by Socialist Action in London 22/23 November was attended by 624
Benn and other speakers commented, this event has now established itself as the opportunity for the left in the party to come together to discuss strategy and tactics following the TUC and Labour Party conference. The political theme of the weekend, 'Building an Alliance for Socialism', was given flesh and blood by the wide range of speakers
attendance. It was a major
Lambeth council and vice chair of the Black Section, belly meannela or women Against Pit Closures, and Hill Pettifor WAC discussing the way forward for women in the Labour movement. Simultaneously workshops were being held on justice for mineworkers, the fight for sanctions against South Africa, and the fight British withdrawal from Ireland.
These were followed by soosions un tuc suralcy o. the ANC, Thatcherism and the SDP, why Britain mus wittend from Labour's youth movements, the lessons One lece strike, and Chile since the
Sunday morning, saw workshops on the politics of Sinn Fein led by Sinn Fein speaker Padraig Maolchraoibhe, on fighting the witch hunt, on lesbian gay rights and on nuclear energy The highlight of Sunday afternoon was undoubtedly a well-attended session U1. the fight against racism led by Kingsley Abrams, assiswant secrew or me ack Section, Rose Alaso who is threatened with deportation, Jagun Akinshegun from St Paul's, Bristol, Stafford Scott from the Broadwater Farm Youth and Bernie Grant, leader of Haringey council. (We have reproduced Grant's speech on page o ot this issue.
Other discussions were on Central America, the Labour Party and the state, the pamphlet A Million Jobs A Year class politics?, a debate between Labour Lett Liaison and the Labour Coordinating Committee, Freedom for Palestine with a speaker from the PLO, and socialism and the environment.
The event was an enormous success, not only for socialist OUt. think, for everyone who at-
Committee (BAAC) descended further into the mire last week. The party leadership had aimed to rehabilitate the BAAC after conference by deleting the word 'Advisory' from the title. This does not prevent the ex-
'advisory' committee Alf Dubbs
With the Campaign Group of MPs voting to support a boycott of the Committee,
dinating Committee (LCC) also member of the left on the NEC was prepared to serve on, or to chair, the committee. All candidates from the NEC who might have given the committee credibility in Ine back commenty loerefore refused to be on it.
below some of the audience tended it. Fifty two weeks of the year Socialist Action tries to support those in struggle. We think we have
established one weekend ycal when socialists can come LUZCLIC discuss wadI unites them, and thrash out
The committee fore has now reached a new level of farce with the decision that a white man. (vrI Ambler of COHSE, is to chair the committee. The other NEC members on the committee are Charlie Turnock and Roy 'my Asians'
— not root trom his attempt to expell Amir
attempt to form a Black Section.
It is now almost incredible that any black member 0ш ace serve c
- which is not
London region of the party which contains almost half Britain's black population and which is now headed by three right wing white men.
SARIDI IST ORTIN
Above Jamie Lopez of the FMLN-FDR addresses conference; what divides them, in lively discussion.
The Saturday evening social saw the same theme continued in different
Fergus Hare and Padraig O Maolchraoibhe, 1CU songs the Irish freedom struggle. They
The Labour Party Black Section has renewed its appeal for a boycott of the committee It has also made it clear that as there is now
whatever COLSUN either regarding the Black Section's attitude to this committee, or of the attitude of the left to it, the Black Section will refuse to support any candidate for elechon wao serves onlas committee and calls for the ICS ICI likewise.
Labour Left Liaison, meeting on 15 November,
tion to this non-elected
and demanded the right of black members ot the party to torm de mocratic consitutionally
FOR
SACIPASM
were joined by miners and
singing socialist songs from across the globe and by Mick Foley's There'll Be Missiles Over The White Cliffs Of Dover and other none-too-respectful versions of old tavourites
See you there next year.
recognised, Black Sections electing their own national representatives.
The Black Section has already written to the Campaing Group of MPs pressing its surprise that the
Grour should accept that Linda Douglas, one of its members, should serve committee which is clearly designed to destroy Black Sections.
Labour Left Liaison decided SUDDULL the Black Section in this and to communicate to the Campaign Group the fact that membership of the Black
Asian Committee is clearly directed against sup port lor black secuons which the Campaign Group supports.
Ireland
Unfree
First SDLP
conference since
Hillsborough
the Agreement's disappointed.
By Hilda MacThomas electoral drive against Sinn Fein.
lost,
boldly claimed, unionist propagandists ever dared.
or even a message from party Haughey. The
ting at those
Since, according to Hume,
in the Six Counties and Irish unity
The British are planning to hold on
place. form the next Dublin Government.
and asking for Hermon's resignation.
Policy courts, 'lifers' and SOSPs.
the Ulster Defence
British governel
strip-searches and to ban plastic bullets. • Reprinted from News, 27 November 1986
Socialist Action. 5 Dec 1986 5 THE FIRST Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) conference since the signing of the Hillsborough Agreement was as low key as
elusive 'achievements'.
Many SDLP members are worried that, one year on, the Agreement has delivered next to nothing of the reforms hinted at by their leadership and Dublin officials last year. And if the SDLP delegates who assembled in • Newcastle were hoping to revive the enthusiasm which carried their party through the January by-elections, they must have been
Hume and Mallon in their addresses summed up the thrust of the SDLP leadership at present: to renew their party's flagging support for the Agreement and to call on the help of Dublin to try and maintain their vote increase of last January by an
In his speech, Hume blamed all of Ireland's ills on the IRA: all the dead, the wounded, 39,000 jobs
Diplock stripsearches. Even the presence of British troops are all "direct consequences of their own campaign', he
going further than British or
He also attacked Fianna Fail, who this year, for the first time, did not send any prominent observer
leader Charles 'begrudgers' said Hume, do nothing but criticise and "talk tough about the need to stand up to the British'. Beyond this obvious reference to Fianna Fail, Hume was also get-
SDLP members who are getting fidgety about the Agreement's failure to deliver.
Hume's "stages theory' was trotted out again.
the British 'have declared themselves neutral' in the conflict, it is up to nationalists to convince unionists to go into a united Ireland. Hume's three stages — 'equality of treatment, building prosperity, stability and peace Indicrous as the premise on which they are based.
to the Sir Counties; all they are interested in is stabilising the
The Agreement was described repeatedly as the only way forward, the only thing nationalists have achieved since 1920. The unionists no longer have a veto, Hume also claimed, amidst perfunctory calls on unionist leaders to 'talk'. Hume called for a 'common approach' from 'all constitutional par ties' to make the Agreement progress, another obvious reference to Fianna Fail, whose critical attitude to the Agreement is particularly worrying for the SDLP given that Fianna Fail will probabl
To try and fight off the Sinn Fein challenge, the SDLP concentrates on two tactics: repeated verbal attacks and attempts to don the mantle of champions of the oppressed nationalists. Malion led the way in the latter by focussing on the Stalker affair
documents were passed on the Diplock There were calls to dis. band the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDK) to ban
Association (UDA) t0 strengthen the Fair Employment Agency, which
propsed amalgamate with other bodies and calls to end
You would have thought the SDLP had been actively campaigning for all these demands. The SDLP does not campaign, it does not call on people to organise and campaign, it does not even want people to campaion: it merelv hopes Dublin will convince London that such reforms would increase the SDLP vote at the expense of Sinn Fein.
An Phoblacht/Republican
Page 6 scan of this page
TORY RACISM AND TI
Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986 LABOUR'S FRONT bench must defend Labour councils from racist attacks of the Tory Party explained Haringey leader BERNIE GRANT at the Socialist Action Alliance for Socialism weekend on November. He was joined on the platform by Kingsley Abrams, assistant secretary of Labour Party Black Section, by Jagun shegun from the St Pauls Community Association in Bristol, by Stafford Scott of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association, and by Rose Alaso of Leeds Labour Party who is under threat of deportation.
Defending the black munities, said Grant,
WHO ARE we defending the black communities against? We are talking about the defence of the black communities against racism. We are talking about that in the context of what is happening in Britain today, in the context of a Tory government that is attacking all sections of this society.
We are talking about a Tory government that has attacked the miners, we are talking about a lorv government that is attacking women, we are talking aboul a lory government lal Is allack ing young people, we are talking about a Tory government that is attacking the teachers, we are talking about a Tory government that is attacking employed alu uncutoloyca bcovic allu we dic talking about a government that is attacking black people. We must look at black people in the context of all those attacks on all those other sections. We have to be clear what we are saying, and we have got to be even clearer about what we're going to do about it.
The attacks on black people, on the left wing, and on the working class are part of a general attack tal is going on throughout the world. At last Reagan has been spotted as the liar he is. This man, together with Thatcher, has attacked black people internationally in South Africa, Central America and in tiny Grenada.
When we talk about attacks on black people and about defending the black community, as far as black people are concenca were larking about the wiernational black community. South Africa is free then black people in this country are not going to be tree Let's be clear about that. But I am go. ing to lmit mv contribution todav to some of the things that have been happening in Britain.
First we need to look at some of the things that have happened in the past,
Labour manifesto we published last May
at why black people are here in Britain. I'm not going through that history, the history of the Europeans, to find out why we are in this situation.
For example in the '50s and '60s the race relations board OTI Inal became concerned at the numbers of black people that were coming here. 'We have to be careful, we have to digest them one mouthful at a time,' they said. If you examine that statement you understand how white people feel about black people within this country. They don't want us here in any numbers. They have to make sure that the few that are here are denied our rights. In a debate on immigration Callaghan sala we have to have coloured workers to pay for our people when they get old. Black people know that as far as the British white establishment is concerned we are here to be the donkeys of this country. We are here to be the beasts of burden, as a Labour prime minister put it.
What black people are saying, course, is that we are not prepared to take this situation. That is what the speakers on the platform are saying when they talk about their particular experience — like Rose in Leeds being
understanding the context of Tory attacks and defending oppressed people everywhere. It is the positive action programmes of councils like Haringey, Lambeth 22-23 against which a tide of Tory racism
has been unleashed in recent months — a tide which the Parliamentary Labour Party Akin- take up. And if 'Black Sections
weren't there, the Labour leadership wouldn't have to answer to some of the charges that the black communities are levelling against them,' he explained.
com- We reprint below an edited vermeans sion of Bernie Grant's speech.
deported by this disgraceful government, like Jagun from Bristol explaining the pressure that youth are under, like Stafford from the Farm about the way in which the people's lives are being totally destroyed by the fact that they are unable to get a job.
No one is saying that the Labour Party is the same as the government, but it seems to black people that the two work hand in hand. Kingsley from Black Sections talked about the fact that was lne which laid the ground-work for 1981 Nationality Act and about all the other racist legislation they enacted. So when we talk about Tories and Labour hand, whilst Labour is not saying exactly the same thing as the right wing it is following very far behind.
But before we examine the Labour Party's role, let us look at the general climate.
We have just seen the disgraceful introduction of a visas system against five black countries. Incidentally the only other people who require visas to come to Britain are from Libya and from the Eastern bloc countries, for different reasons.
Tories introduce these restrictions but media deliberately hysteria around the shameful episode at London airport when hundreds of peopie were just lett hanging around mere. ly tor the benefit of a few racist immigration officials. And let us be clear Unless that the new unions the Tory govern-
ment has sponsored within migration service are directly responsible for these immigration restrictions. The introduction of visa restrictions nas been accompanied by local authorities from the government, Labour front bench. As leader of Har"Everything we're doing in Haringey is within the
— on which we had an increased majority and on which we routed the Tories. We • gave the lories a bloody good licking at the last election.
ingey council I have become accustomin any ed to media attacks.
Since 6 October last year Haringey has been under constant attack. government and the media single out Haringey. The media are rendering a time service to a whole number of people
They are helping the government by clouding the issue, trying to make us believe it is one of violence by black youth against the police when the youth are mere v reacting to the situation ther are in because of the policies of this government.
I read in the paper recently that Bernie Grant should "burn in hell'. I've got news for the government: black people Tottenham are living in hell, tenham is hell to a lot of black people. London is hell, Britain is hell for a lot of black people ment is the one that is making our lives hell. Hell is nothing new for us. We are in it now, and unless something drastic happens, we are going to remain there
of in the future.
Haringey has decided to have a massive campaign on inequality, not only on the basis of race but on the basis of gender, on the basis of age, on the basis of disability, on the basis of
and Brent
has failed to
talking Labour government
the
we know that
not
them.
sexual orientation.
Haringey, and inequalities.
and Sri Lanka Not only did the
whipped
in Haringey
the im-
allacks on from the media, and on which we routed the Tories.
and from the
jority from 13 to 25 council seats.
by frightening people
people who are frightened by The Merle Amory. boroughs aren't frightened
VOLCIL scenario we're into Tot-
are trying and the Tory govern-
with lies and distortion.
the Daily Mail carried
BLACK
LECTIONS your voice in the Labour Part
"I support Labour Party
Black Sections. If they
weren't there the Labour
leadership would be let off
the hook because they wouldn't have to answer the
charges that the black communities are levelling at
And we are going to fight for rights of lesbians and gay men
agallisi those
We are doing this within the ambit of the Labour Party's policy. That is very important. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about zealots, and you'd think we weren't carrying out party policy Let me say that everything were doing
within the Labour manifesto we published last May — on which we had an increased majority
"When we talk about defending the black communities we
are talking first of all about allowing the black people the
space, the right, and the resources to defend themselves.
We gave the Tories a bloody good licking at the last election. We increased our ma-
The government has decided that the only way they are going to win seats is
I don't even think they believe they are going to win them in the inner cities. But they are going to use racism to frighten those people who live outside the inner-cities, in marginal constituencies. Those are the
Bernie Grant, Diane Abbott, Linda Bellos and
Those who live in our halls.
The object of the exercise is to bring up these bogie people to scare floating
— the same people the Labour bians Party is trying to catch with all the brutalised razzmatazz of Neil Kinnock walking within London. down the road arm in arm with Glenys The party is into positive images of Kin. nock and Glenys, but the positive images Haringey puts forward are of lesbians and gay men. That is the kind of •sons
with party policy.
But the government and the media
to make out that proper policies which have been democratically arrived at are loonie. They are trying to turn our policies against inequality exampie, because into a laughing stock, so they come up
For instance, a couple of weeks ago
La headline that Haringey council had decided to abandon the nursery rhyme Bah Bah Black Sheep and substitute the words Bah Bah Green Sheep. (It's funny, but I'll
ON LOCAL G
BLACK HISTOR
BLACK TEACHES
BLACK LAN
tell you something, I got a number of calls from Irish people who objected.) That story is not true. We wrote a letter saying so and asked for an apology. The Daily Mail categorically refused. So we are taking them to the capitalist courts.
Although there was no foundation for their story now they are going to cycly singic volunlar group in the borough to find out if any council of ficer has ever threatened to withdraw their grants or if they have ever heard any mention of green sheep. The whole borough is full of Daily Mail reporters harassing people to try and find some substance for their story.
The Mirror is a bit more clever. It attacked our policy of equality for les local bians and gay men. The Mirror saic that Haringey banned any mention of the words family life in schools. Once we pointed out that that was not the case they published an apology
But when Ridley attacks councils ir the House of Commons then we have to take note. We have to deal with that in a different way. The Tories talk about the 'stench of socialism' coming from the
They such heavy language in dealing with serious and sensitive issues - like the case of les.
and gays being beaten up and within our borough and
When the Tories in parliament start to make a тоскету or serious Issues and attack Labour councils we have a right to expect our front bench spokesper-
defend and defend the policies we are carrying out are in line
We don't expect a mealey-mouthed response, the sort of rubbish we hear from Cunningham.
The front bench must clearly say the the Tory Party is racist. It is racist, for black
it wants to deport people like Rose while white South Africans can come here any day of the week. It is racist because it attacks young black people who have little or no hope in this society, and who can see no other way forward than to take on the forces that oppress them. It is racist when it picks out for attack, from
amongst all Labour council leaders t London, Haringey council which has
whic has a black leader, Brent council whic has a black leader, and when it goes a to attack by name two black parliam tary candidates, myself and Dianne AL bott. The Thatcher government is raci when it does that - and I want Labot Party front bench spokespersons come out and take the Tories up
I had a meeting with Neil Kinnoc last ariday wich ne came to lay wreath in memory of Mrs Jarrett. told me that the front bench was goin
the question! racism, to take on Margaret Thatch specifically on the question of racist If that happens I will be pleased bi andl want all of you here today to mo resolutions in your GCs demanding t front bench take on Thatcher ticularly on the issue of racism
authorities That is Thatch Achilles heel, the area where we've g the most ammunition against the Ton and where we've got to attack them.
There are many other examples a Tory racism. For instance in Ealin Tory spokespersons have singled out fe attack only black councillors, Valerie Vaz, in a clearly racist way.
"When the Tories make ai
attack Labour councils wes
bench to defend us and defi
out in line wi
When talk about defendin black communities we are talking fir of all about allowing the black peopl the space, the right, and the resources l defend themselves. Black peopl callying oul unc most desperate and death struggle. You need only tal to some of the young people in the in ner London boroughs to find out ho desperate that struggle is.
The Tories attack in parliament oi
council leaders is nothing co pared to the racism that some ofo own youth have to put up with. Wh they stand at the bus stop people wa away from them as if they were going t be attacked They come up against load of racists in the DHSS. They walk down the road and get harassed by the police. They get racism every minute o the day.
Page 7 scan of this page
KHAN AND SCALLY VICTORY
That is what we are talking about. That is why we need to give people the resources to defend themselves.
To defend the black communities
have to defend other munities under attack. For example we nave to make sure that when a Labour government comes to power all those
sers who have been incarcerated in tall are leased. We've got to
the lesbians and
, who are an i estal part of the le- are catered: ple are to get a fair deal, that means white men are going to have to be in the background for a period of time That's what positive action means, if you are at the bottom of the damn pile. That is what the left is going to have to support.
We've got to ensure that pressure on the government continues, sure that the black communities work hand in glove with the oppressed communities. In Haringey recently we were proud to invite Sinn Fein councillors to our council meeting. We have promised Sinn Fein that we will send a delegation over there. In our borough, the Irish are counted as part of the
We have specific policies relating Irish groups and it was as a response to requests from those groups that we invited Sinn Fein to Haringey.
To defend black and other oppressed communities we have to ensure that the Labour front bench isn't let off the hook. That is why I particularly appreciate and why I support Labour Party Black Section. Kingsley spoke earlier of the Black Section policy with regards to the police, racist immigration laws, and defence of the black communities. Black Section keeps the Labour Party on its toes. If Black Sections weren't there, the Labour leadership would be let off the hook because they wouldn't have to answer to some of the charges nockery of serious issues and ave a right to expect our front ad the policies we are carrying I party policy."
that the black communities are levelling at them.
Finally I want to say a word about the unions. When it comes to racism a lot of trade unions have been found wanting. For example why will the National Union of Teachers be attempting to discipline a black head teacher in Brent Because he gave evidence ic Brent council that Ms McGoldrick told t310 personally that she didn't want black teachers in her school. I want the NU1 to explain how come they could end up victimising a black head teacher.
I don't want to be accused of being anti-union because that is not the case. I support the trade unions, but I also was involved in an organisation called the Black. Trade Unionists Solidarity Movement. We set up that organisation because we recognised that the trade
HE ATTACKS
OVERNMENT
unions were discriminating black people by their very policies.
When we talk about detence ot the black communities we also need to look at the labour and trade union movement. We need to look at the whole history of racism.
Malcolm X who said that unless we know where we come from we don't ensure know where were going. And unless we undersiand where raciam comes from даук, ordinary we are not going to be able to tackie it. by making LAST WEEK Amir Khan and
Kevin Scally
Sparkbrook Labour Party. Their
reinstatement was ratified by the
national executive committee.
was a 100 per cent victory tor the
Campaign for the Reinstatement of
Amir Khan
(CRAKKS) — and
significant victory so far in the
fight against the spreading witch
hunt. MICK ARCHER reports.
WHEN Roy Hattersley stood up to
propose the reinstatement of Amir
Khan and Kevin Scally at Sparkbrook
CC last week, defeat was written all
over his face. In his first ever direct ap
peal to the GC in 22 years he asked his
supporters to back a resolution
Amir and Kevin's readmission.
It was, he said, moved in a spirit of
party unity and on condition that the
constitution of the party, and work for
an early Labour government. I was
passed unanimously although, true to
form, the chair ruled that no discussion
or amendments would be accepted.
Delegates who had supported Amir
and Kevin throughout theit year long
struggle were stunned. No notice of the
resolution had been included on the
G€ agenda.
In August, the GC had supported Shenomeno orwarma
Labour Party
along simiar lines, and a subsequent
CC had moved it out of order on the
grounds that any proposal to resciod
existing policy required twe weeks
notice
This time, hawever, Roy Hattersley
was in something of a hurry, He had
been told in no uncertain terms that the
NEC of 26 November would reinstate
Amir and Kevin, The aiterwative was a
court appearance on a December where
lawyers representing Amir Khan were
to argue that the expulsions breached
natural justice on nine counts
The Labour Party's owa legal ad-
vice was that the party would lose, the
two would be reinstated and the pro-
cedure for cxpelling them would have
against
think it was were reinstated by
Other inquiry
and Kevin Scally
the most
open defeat on the NEC Apparently
championed the
for
with Hattersicy shows you can win even
involved?
2310 national conference
Largely black commumity
Led by the campaign
been under attack.
to start all over again. With 2.7 million votes at Labour Party conference and a campaign that enjoyed a broad band of support in the party, the result of a fur-
was by
Roy Hattersley, therefore, had to move quickly if the damage to himself and Labour's right wing was to be minimised. Better to take the lead in reinstating the two rather than sutter
Hattersley's own meeting with his supporters, prior to the CC, had not gone at all smoothly. Understandably some of those who d
campaign against Amir and Kevin in Sparkbrook's Asian community were concerned about the long-term damage done to their own standing caused by such an about-turn. Some of those who had loyally voted Amir Khan
for the previous 12 months failed to turn up at the GU
The victory has already had an impact on Sparkbrook's Asian communi ty. As Amir Khan explained, from the start a lot of black people said he was foolish to take on an MP: But I said there was a principle involved and peo Campaign ple had to support it. Our reinstatement
where the deputy leader of the Labour Party is
Joint
Amir is also hopeful that it will encourage more peaple to join Labour Party Black Sections, challenging the patronage of white MPs to represent a the party
But Khan doesn't believe things will stop there Sparkbrook, he says, is like a prison whese walls have been breach
encouragement to others like the LPY, and women's section who have also
Kevin Scally pointed to the impact of the campaign nationally which he hopes will give the NECs right wing with some reason to pause and think. think they will remember for a long time the bruising that they got trom this campaiga and hopefully they will think twice before doing anything similar in
in
The success of the campaign also holds valuable lessons for the Cabour left. The campaign was initiated by activist forces on the hard left - through a press conference organised by thi Campaign Group, Black Section and
for Labour Party Democracy for Amir Khan, and then with Paul Sharma of the Black Section and Vladimir Derer of the CLPD as
secretaries of CRAKKS. But while the hard lett got the campaign go ing and provides most of its activists, it pulled in the widest possible forces in
- Including the LCC, and many individuals in the Labour Party and trade unions.
It was enticised for this in a left sec tarian way but as Amir explains: the victory itself tells who was right and wrong, 1 think it is important when we re on the floor and when we want te get up and fight that we ask those forces who are not hostile to us - who we have some sort of common issue
- to work with us to light for vie tory. This victory has strengthened the whole labour movement. Scoring a victory in one case has helped the ligh against the witch hunt everywhere
Kevin Scally believes that it wus its broad appeal which was decisive to the
Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986 campaign's final outcome 1 think that
these sorts of campaigns the
their intentions. Our intention from the beginning was to gain the reinstatement of Amir and myself. We didn't lumber ourselves with other objectives because had we done so, we would have found that one or other group would have found reason not to support us.
The lessons to be learnt are that there are a whole number of issues on agreed, and it is important that if we are serious about success we draw the whole left into these campaigns otherwise we can't win. That's the mam lesson from this campaign - to break down the sectarianism, which we can do on a whole number of issues, not all issues, but on a whole number of Issues.
Despite their elation, Amir and Kevin are under no illusion that their victory Will check the witch-hunt against constituencies like Knowsles North While the outcome of then campaign offers some hope to those party members who challenge corrupt practices in right wing constituencies they believe momentum started with the Liverpool witch-hunt will re quire much greater forces and much greater victories to hait. Both admit to having been surprised at the amount of support their own campaign attracted but they think this is testimony to the sense of outrage of many party activist it produced.
Gina Khan, Joint chair of the na donal campaign and one of its most ac tive supporters over the last months summed it all up. My advice to those who find themselves in a similar position to Anur and Sevin, or aayone who Is running a campaign for people like Amir and Kevin, Is don l ever give uf you know that you are right. Don't le them get away with denying you your nights
The lessous of the Khan-Scally campaiga now nave to be applee t Knowsley, to the expuision of Militan supporters, and to every other witch hunt which is proceeding in the party
Page 8 scan of this page
Socialism is a multi party system
8 Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986 NEIL KINNOCK'S claim is that he stands for 'democratic socialism'. The real nature of this committment to 'democracy' is shown, in internal party terms in such actions as support for the expulsion of members of the Liverpool District Labour Party, support for the expulsion of Khan and Scally, the refusal to allow Knowsley North constituency party chose its own candidate for the by-election, and the decision of the NEC to re-open the issue of reselection following a clear decision of party conference to instruct it not to do so.
But more seriously, Kinnock's and the Labour right's entire conception of 'democracy' is a traversty. The VErY nature of a capitalist society is that it is not democratic... On the contrary it is anti-democratic in its entire nature. Even formal democracy at the central level is confined to the
members of parliament. All other real centres of power the civil service, the judges, the chiefs of the police and armed forces, those who run the great centres economic Dowel. not elected. The purely parliamentary system is a democratic fig leat over an entire system of autocratic power. This is why one of the most classic demands of Marxism is for the extension of the elective principle throughout society - - a view shown clearly in Marx's writings on the state.
Furthermore, even this limited parliamentary democracy exists only in a handful of imperialist countries.
VANL malority capitalist countries in the world, above all those dominated by imperia ism. even the 119 leaf of parliamentary democracy does not exist. 1he ninea parlamellar democracy of Britain ed by its imperialist plunder of large parts of the world — • as is that of the US, Sweden, and all the other classic democracies. Remove that
WITHOUT full freedom organise political groups, tendencies, and parties, no full flowering of democratic rights and freedoms for the toiling masses is possible under the dictatorship of the proletariat. By their free vote, workers and poor peasants indicate themselves what parties they want to be part of the soviet system.
In that sense, the freedom organisation of different groups, tendencies, and parties is a precondition for the exercise of political power by the working class. "The democratisation of the soviets is impossible without legalisation of soviet parties." Without such freedom, unrestrained by ideological restrictions, there can be no genuine, democratically elected
councils, nor the exercise of real power by such workers' councils.
Restrictions of that freedom would not be restrictions of the political rights of the class enemy but restrictions of the political rights of the proletariat. That freedom is likewise a precondition for the working class collectively as a class arriving at a common or at least a majority viewpoint on the innumerable problems of tactics, strategy, and even theory (programme) that are involved in the titanic task of building a classless society under the leadership of the traditionally oppressed, exploited, and downtrodden masses. Unless there is freedom to organise political groups. tendencies and parties, there can be no real socialist democracy.
Revolutionary Marxists reject the substitutionist, paternalistic, elites, and bureaucratic deviation from Marxism that sees the socialist revolution, the conquest of state DOWCi. and wielding of state power under the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a task of
and the tacts show even the classic limited parliamentary democracy of capitalism would not exist. Socialism means a vast extension of democracy. It means going ve onu lie election simov of alew members of a backed or relativels powerless locg councils, to the extension of the elective principle into all spheres of socie-
• elections in the civil service, 01 self management in industry, election or ine neads of any necessary in a socialist society, election of magistrates and judges.
The socialist democracy is as yet greatly underdeveloped in the socialist movement. One of the few places where it has been taken up systematically is in a resolution passed by the Trotskyist Fourth International in
аген. among other sources, Open Letter to the Polish Communist Party written in the late 1960s by Polish Communist Party Kuron and Modzelwski. It has aiso drawn on the practical experience of the 'socialist countries'. It is a debate waica needs lo be atvelopeu.
The section of this resolution we print below, deals with the crucial issue of a multi-party system. shows, simply in socialist but
and tual struggle to bring a new society into existence classes have concentrated their energies in a single party -Jacobins in France or Cromwell in England for example. desperate struggle of the revolution, or fighting off foreign intervention, does not leave the luxury of many parties. But as the society 'relaxes', as the new stabilised guaranteed, inevitably arise. idea that represented by neither theoretical nor practical foun-
• he SUCCHCH socialism will be multi-party ieties. That point, and must be stoutly and explicitly defended by socialists. The following docuim- ment is a clear explanation of why.
to the revolutionary party acting 'in the name of the class or in the best or cases, 'with the support of the class.
If the dicatorship of the proletariat is to mean what the very words say, and what the theoretical tradition of both Marx and Lenin explicitly contain, ie, the the rule of the working class as a class (of the 'associated producers'); if the emancipation of the proletariat can be achieved only through the activity of the proletariat itself and not through a of passive proletariat being 'educated' for emancipation by benevolent enlightened revolutionary ministrators, then it is obvious that the leading role of the revolutionary party both in the conquest of power and in Ine bullding Of a classiess society can only consist of leading the mass activity of the class politically, political hegemony in a class that is increasingly engaged in independent activity, of struggling within the class for majority support for through political strative or repressive means.
Under the dictatorship of the proletariat in its complete torm. power is exercised by democratically elected workers councils. The revolutionar Wally fights for a political line and for political leadership within these workers' councils, not to substitute itself for them. Party and state remain entirely distinct entities.
But genuinely democratically elected workers' councils can exist only if the masses have the
without distinction, and restrictive preconditions ideological or political convictions of the elected delegates. (This does not the apolv of course to parties engagea in armed struggle against the workers state, ie, to conditions of civil war, or to
national assemble!.
police lorces
1985 on
This clearly
members
History
the
The
new parties
classes are single parties has
transition to
sOCprinciple, tion democratically only and ad-
would be
of winning
its proposals, the workes state.
state
correct
separate and ever appear.
later on, representative,
walll without Ine soviet
working class.
1001
Solidarnosc congress in Poland: pointing the way to socialist democracy
conditions of the revolutionary crisis and armed insurrection itself, to which this resolution refers in a later point). Likewise, workers' councils can func-
if all the position elected delegates enjoy the right to form groups, tendencies, and parties, to have access to the mass media, to present their different platforms before the than through masses, and to have them debated and tested by experience. Any restriction of party affiliation restricts the freedom of the proletariat to exercise political power, ie, restricts workers' democracy,
contrary to the historical interests of the working class, to the need to consolidate workers' power, to the interests of world revolution and building socialism. Obviously such rights will not be recognised for parties, groups or individuals involved in a civil war or armed actions against
In no way does the Marxist theory of the state entail the concept that a one-party system is a necessary precondition or feature of workers' power, a workers state, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. In no theoretical document of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky, and in no programmatic document of the Third International under Lenin, did such a proposal of a one-party system
The theories developed such as the crude Stalinist theory that throughout history social classes have always been represented by be forbidden a single party, are historically wrong and serve only as apologies for the monopoly of political power usurped
bureaucracı and ideological heirs in other bureaucratised workers states, a monopoly based upon the political expropriation of the
History - including the convul-
party
and sions in the People's Republic of China, in Poland, Yugoslavia, Grenada and Nicaragua — has on the contrary connanned unc conccuncs. of Trotsky's
that "classes alt heterogeneous; they are torn by inne antagonisms, and arrive at the solution of common problems no otherwise
an inner struggle of tendencies, groups and parties s... An example of only one party corresponding to one class is not to be found in the whole course of political history -provided, of course, you do not take the police appearance for reality." This was true for the bourgeoisie under feudalism. It is true for the working class under capitalism. It will remain true for the working class under the dictatorship of the proletariat and in the process of building socialism.
If one says that only parties and organisations that have no bourgeois (or petty-bourgeois?) programme or ideology, or are not 'engaged in anti-socialist or anti-soviet propaganda and/or agitation' are to be legalised, how is one to determine the dividing line? Will parties with a majority of working-class members but with a bourgeois ideology be forbidden? How can such a position be reconciled with free elections for workers' councils! What is the dividing line between 'bourgeois programme and reformist ideology'? Must reformist parties then
as well? Will social democracy be suppressed?
It is unavoidable that on the basis also of historical traditions, retormist influence will continue to survive in the working class of many countries for a long period. That survival will not be shortened by administrative repression; on the contrary, such repression will tend to strengthen it. The best way to
In Depth
fight against reformist illusions and ideas is through the combination of ideological struggle and the creation of the material conditions for the disap. pearance of these illusions. such e struggle would lose much of its efficacy under conditions of administrative repression and lack of free debate and exchange of ideas.
If the revolutionary party agitates for the suppression of social democracy or other reformist formations, it will be a thousand times more difficult to maintain freedom of tendencies and toleration of tactions within its owt ranks. The political heterogeneity of the working class would then inevitably tend to reflect itself within the single
Thus, the real alternative is not either freedom for those with a genuine socialist programme (who ideologically
programmatically support the soviet system) or freedom political parties. The real choice is: either genuine workers' democracy with the right of the toiling masses to elect whoever they want to the soviets and freedom of political organisation of all those who abide by the soviet constitution in practice (including those who do not ideologically support the soviet system), or a decisive restriction of the political rights of the working class itself, with all the consequences flowing therefrom. Systematic restriction of pontical parles leads to systematic restriction of freedom within the revolutionary vanguard party itself.
When we say that we are in favour of a legalisation of all soviet parties, ie of those that abide by the soviet con stitution in practice, this does not imply that we in any case underestimate the political confusion, errors, and even partial defeats which the propagation of wrong programmes and alien class influences upon the toiling masses by such parties could and will provoke under conditions of the dictatorship ol the proletariat. Even more obviously de we not call upon the workers to build parties upon the basis of what we con sider wrong programmes, platforms, ot policies, nor do we advocate the crea tion of such parties. We only state that the artificial adminstrative suppressior of such parties — artificial inasmuch a ley continue to reneel cuntents allol; the masses even if they are legally sup pressed far from reducing these dangers. increases them
The political, ideological, and cultural homogenisation of the working class, bringing the great majority of its members up to the point where they are capable or substituting a tree community of self-administered citizens to the survival of a state machine (ie, able to achieve the building of socialism and the withering away of the state) is a gigantic historical task. It is not only linked to obvious material precondi tions. It involves also a specific political training: "The existence of criticallyminded people, opponents, dissidents, discontented and reactionary elements, gives the revolution life and strength The confrontation of differences and
Is "the ideological and political muscles" of the people. It is a permanent form of exercising, an an tidote to paralysis and to passivity."
Likwise, Fidel Castro had polemicis ed against Escalante, saying: the revolution must be a school of unfettered thought. Even if practice does not always match these statements, they represent the programmatic continuity of Marxism on the subject and must be defended tooth and nail against all who would deny them.
Historical experience confirms that outside of conditions of genuine workers' democracy, this process of training the masses self-administration, can only be retarded or even reversed, as it obviously has been in the USSR. Historical experience has
confirmed that no genui workers' democracy is possible without political pluralism.
1. Trotsky - The Transitional Pro-
Trotsky - The Revolution Betrayed 3. Tomas Borge.
Page 9 scan of this page
Philippines — mass mobilisations force imperialist
International
IF ANYONE was in any doubt, the revelations concerning the Iranian arms deal have confirmed that beneath US 'secret diplomacy' lies a hornets nest of lies, illegal activity, and imperialist aggression. The exposures have already claimed the heads of Lt Col Oliver North and Admiral John Poindexter whilst at least half a dozen of Reagan's closest 'advisors', not to say the president himself, look increasingly insecure.
When 'Doctor Death'
David Owen wrote in the Daily Telegraph last week that the 'rapid restoratior of Mr Reagan's authority is in all ot our interests
behalf of the SDP. 1s deep tear withın world imperialist circles that the PlESES illd become Ronald Reagan's 'Watergate'
Over the coming weeks there'll be a rallying round to try to keep the lid on any further exposures. But the truth will out. And the truth is: • that the administration has lied about its actions and policy WIL clu tu Iran and to Nicaragua. • that the administration was shipping arms to Iran whilst arms dealer Herbert Smith gets sentences to 10 years imprisonment by a
York court tor tempting to sell military heliconters to lehran. • that money from the Iranian deal Wah shipped to the Nicaraguan contras; and that because, at the time, the US Congress had ruled that such
Conura ait was eco ut money was first 'launderea via the gnomes of Zurich. • that the same people who processed the contra aid, the staff of the US NaTOna SeCr old— known as 'White House Luwouys people inplicated ( in the LeSuHONV of Eugene Hasenfus, the US pilot Icccly shot down over Nicaragua and now serving a 30-year jail sentence there.
manoeuvres PHILIPPINES president Corazon Aquino dismissed her 'defence minister' Juan Ponce Enrile last Monday, '23 November. On 27 ceasefire with the fighters.
son of the 600,000-strong
him with responsibility.
Huge protest mobilisations took place the following week. Thirty thousand went on strike in Manila on November and a reported 75,000 took strike action in a nationwide stoppage the following day. A massive 200,000
tuneral each mobilisation an accusing finger was pointed at Ennamed after the so-called KETONI ANedI Horces Movement.
Ao ulu S decision to get rid of Enrile can only e understood in this context. This also goes for her government's conclusion
Reagan's
Watergate?
The intricate webb of falsehood woven hide these basic trucas the US
which anyway confirm the
Dus vIciUll ui dly clk lle ps son. What is less clear
ministration should
By James Black
to have dealings with Iran.
Didn't Reagan, after all,
come to office on the back
of his attacks on president
Carter's failure to con-
front 'Iranian terrorists' as
Washington hypocritically cals ine peopie wno camne
to power with the revolu-
tionary overthrow of the
shah?
The reality is that
Reagan has not turned
soft. As he himself con-
tinually insists the arms
deal had nothing to do
WElla concern for
'hostages' though
Reagan is concerned that
the hostage question
doesn't become for him
what he helped make it for
Carter. tory Advisor Nauona
Security Robert
McFarlane who as head
OT the White House
Cowboys' was involved in
the affair from the start
and whose resignation last
year went unexplained,
hinted what was involved
in a recent speech he made
in Atlanta, Georgia.
"The United States' he
said 'has vital security in-
terests in the Middle wast
that are entirely compati-
ble with the security in-
terests in Iran.' Oil and a
common fight against the
soviel Union was clearly November she concluded a New People's Army guerrilla
Enrile's removal had been demanded following the murder last month of Rolando Olalia, chairper-
militant trade union federation, the May First Movement (or KMU). The day after his murder, 14 November, 10,000 people demonstrated outside Enrile's headquaters charging
of a ceasefire agreement with the NPA. The NPA
had been campaigning for
ceasetire for ME ONLIS. Entle nao been op-
posed and under his direc-
By Nick Adams
tion the RAM-boys had
engaged in a number of provocative strikes
Enrile's dismissal was her nulu claimed that ш~ e e ce which he headed uD 0-23 weekend
November. Certainly En-
rile had been associated
with four previous actions
aimed at purging the gov-
ernment of 'radical'
members since Marcos was
what he had in mind.
This nas always been the US's attitude toward the region. Until 1979, the Us rulers had it entirely their OWIl way. The IraSildu MOndICuv installed in 1953 through a coup sponsored the CIA and the British secret SCL VICe rrom then on the shah ruled in close concert
governments.
Close and
Was the the day. So much allily HITICn tanks than British ar-
torn by the JE assive
imperialists' military Hiatull 45,000 US advisors' big
interests The gains
exploited
The Khomeint came lo
and us biọt hostile to but
alist
made serious on
ing adopted a
USSR. The LOWaLUS
produced by itself, the war, serious
Sutall
Ing DaLV. And
some allies
succeed Enrile: dismissed overthrown and Aquino came lo power. Ana Inere was a meeting of 180 pro. Marcos peonle in a luxur Manila suburb the saturdav
But Aquino's move was by no means a simple COHCNOI movement and a defensive CraCKOOWIl the hard liners. Above all her actions were designed to get the government into better shape Enrile's methods were just not adequate to deal with the country's
Reagan
HulUllall SOCaRCI Los o cal
aDenocauc Ileto: his replacement
and -oin economal isis
the 'political stability' continually addressed by US, Western European and Japanese imperialism to whom Aquino nas woked for aid
immediate ponse from Washington welcomed Aquino's measures. 'We are pleased that this reported coup attempt failed' a State Department spokesperson said 'and we reiterate GHI strong anlu unequivocal support for
- behind his secret diplomacy lies a hornet's nest of lies, illegal activity and imperialist aggression. aimed at achieving exactly
objectives. sallic
Imperialism is in fact playing totally hypocritical role in the area. First incited and financed Iraq to attack lran in 1980 i an at tempt to overturn the revolution there Imperialism has continued to arm Irac Now it is clear that the US, as well as the Israelis, have been supplying alilis IO Iran. The Iran-Iraq war itself has become a totally reactionary both sides.
The Labour Party NEC unfortunately allowed itself to be stampeded into de. nouncing arms sales to Iran
applying no such criteria to Iraq. I'he rea issue in the area is the continuea domination by the United States, and its allies such as Britain, of the entire gulf area. Reagan has simpiv got cauaht out in one ot the manoeuvres to maintain this. But the impact in the United States precisely because it reveals the lying and hypocrisy of the whole of US policy, is going to be very great.
the Aquino government'
replacement, radical. He is a graduate 7 Rafael lleto is hardly the Philippine military academv and West Poin and a former vice chief of staff of the armed forces feating a communist insur- responsible for gency in the 1950s
Moreover Aquino has àco ve cnv c more radical members of
the cabinet while the figure to emerge with the most increased authority out of the whole affair is the arm ed forces chief of staff himselt, General Fidel Ramos
Ramos is a cousin of Marcos and was chief of
armed orce WICU Marcos was still dictator. Ramos is the individual most associated with Washington, and has made it nain that he does not inted to 'allow the communists to take over' as he puts it
KMU secretary-general Bob Ortaliz, has put out a call international solidarity with the popular movement in the country
TIOSU Importanll time.
Support for
time the ropes were too short.
argued. tying' solidarity. They've been out for months now against an
them.
results wCIC thousands of people.
monthly
JaDCI Workers Union.
Liverpool.
Another paper strikers' case is
Workers. The UFCW
trusteeship
La.fR new union, Union.
fight?'
The tour party solidarity showed to them in Britain.
ing to the USA.
tying lessons shed learnt:
kept nothing back
We should know
nenacks
ave sonenow reaed
we all stick together
of us will lose.'
Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986
Hormel strikers
SPEAKING IN Sheffield last month, Tony Benn told a parable about a young lad who'd fallen down a well. Three people came with ropes in successive rescue attempts. But each
"Tie the ropes together' the boy shouted from the dark and damp distance. The labour movement has to tie the ropes together in the same way, Benn
He got the story from Jim Guyette, leader of the strikers at the Spam-producing Hormel company in the US. Guyette had led a strike support tour to Britain at the time of the Labour Party conterence and lony Benn was prominent in drumming up support. Benn was also amongst a group of Labour MPs who wrote to the strikers expressing backing for their 'historic campaign for justice'.
The strikers are certainly in need of such "rope-
• nearly 1c employer hell-bent on union busting. Over that 16 months they've had to "face the wrath of the national guard, the courts and the media who have all pitched in against
Their two week British tour is certainly yeilding
able speak literally Their message has been printed in a number of labour movement papers.
The latest is the mass circulation T&G Record,
of the Transport and General 'Spurn spam from USA' urges its November issue. The article follows a meeting between Jim Guyette and a TGWU national officer. The TGWU organises workers in a Hormel subsidiary in
to recently publicise the Tribune. In its 24 October issue, Carol Rees tells the Hormel story in a major
Rees details the company attacks, the appalling 'safety' record and the workers fightback. She explains how the struggle has been sabotaged by the strikers' union, the United Food and Commercial
instructed the strikers to return to work and placed their branch under
SUPPORT silentnicht -TRIKERS
Barbara Collette (right) with Wapping and Silentnight strikers at Labour Party conference
Rees quotes Jim Guyette's explanation that the strikers refused to be cowed, despite all the odds. 'We're being starved into submission but we don't intend this company to let us be dust to the wind' he says, as Rees reports the strikers' fight for their
the North American Meatpackers
As the strikers put it: 'if not this fight, which
was overwhelmed by the 'I have a heart full of gratitude for being one of the people who went to England' said tour member, Barbara Collette, in a speech reporting the tour on return-
Collette warmly reported the contact she'd had with Women Against Pit Closures and the 'rope-
'We were welcomed everywhere. They shared everything with us. They
"They did the same thing for me that hundreds of us have done here. They opened their homes, they opened their hearts, they were totally honest.
that we must not allow ourselves to be separated from the farmers, from
•cannot separate ourselves from Nicaragua. We cannot separate ourselves from any struggle that's going on because all the struggles
'We have to know and understand that unless
• unless their is solidarity between England, American, wherever it is — all
Page 10 scan of this page
Aids and the 'moral majority'
10 THE GOVERNMENT at work.
Instead the response must be a rull-scale public health campaign based on Cean and forthright factual information, free of
called 'moral' solutions.
AIDS is both a medical scourge ana an excuse lor a reactionary offensive aimed primarily at gays and women on lne ground thal the only 'safe sex heterosexual and monogamous.
to AIDS is medical not moral. What is needed is a huge scale public health campaign aimed chiefly at giving the clearest possible information on the means by which it is transmitted, simple preventative steps, and where help is available.
This information should be particularly made available to young people in schools, where a whole generation reaching adolescence in mosphere of fear and ignorance about AIDS. Alongside material in schools there should be a HuLe public advertising campaign on the television, radio, public transport and bill boards.
Government funding should provide free clean needles to drug users, and free contraceptive sheaths should be available easily accessible outlets like chemists shops. Screening should be freely and voluntarily available, not just at clinics for sexually trans-
Letters
ANC
appeal
ON 8 January 1987 we shall be observing the 75th anniversary of our movement, the African National Congress historic anniversary oc-
in the struggle for the iberation of our country
The continuing struggle inside our country combined with the inspiring actions taken by the minemanona, communiy against racist South Alrica. nave driven the apartheid system into a leep and worsening crisis. Inside our country, the balance of strength between the forces of democracy on the one hand and those ot racism on the other has shifted to suci all calcull unlal our victory over the apartheid regime is now in sient.
That confidence in the certainty of victory coninues to inspire our people to carry out great feats of heroism in the struggle to liberate South Africa and bring peace to our region. The heightened offensive for democracv that has grinped our country for more han two years now is
Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986
last decided to do something about the issue of AIDS last week. Any action against AIDS had been held up for five years because the government and press attempted to present it as a 'gay killer', a 'judgement of god', and let several hundred people die as they tried to bolster their reactionary and idiotic system of morality. Now the campaign is still not remotely effective enough because an attempt is being made to fit it into a right wing system of morality which will not
mitted diseases, but at all clinics, and through your doctor.
Above all the couragement of openness about sexuality, and the accompanying freedom of informanon is une biggest step that can be taken to prevent the mushrooming spread of the illness.
Instead, , the long overdue action by the Tories will be based on spending the minimum of money, and
CHLIC paign in the framework of the old message of Moral Rearmament, the only 'safe' DEA ID 10 SCA
This reactionary 'moral' position has prevented the
every stage development of the AIDS epidemic.
In the first phases of the epidemic, both in the USA ana nere. It was largelv gar men and habitual drug users who became infected and unis gulaca ine sellstyled 'moral majority's response. According these moral rearmers society had no reponsibility as sufferers had brought it on themse ves' punishment on the wicked.
A vicious homophobic campaign was whipped up on the basis that gays were plague carriers a campaign that had a real im pact. Concrete intormation about how the disease is spread was withheld to back this up. This campaign never reached the peak in
both unstoppable and irreversible.
In the face of these developments, the apartheid regime finds itself with no alternative but to admit the utter bankrupt-
to extreme measures or repression that are doomed to failure. All its actions are those of regime that is fighting for its very survival.
Indeed, 75 years of our existence have been characterised bv resistance and survival aralllot ucavy oces. We have survived martial law and states of emergency We have been hounded, abducted, raided and massacred in various countried only to emerge, calli utic. more resolute to rid our country and the work of the scourge of apartheid.
It is therefore mosi appropriate that as we observe the 75th anniver. sary of our movement. we should lOcus our altention on the central question of the destruction of the oppressive and evil system of white minority colonial domina-
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
1912-1987 75th Anniversary Celebration Rally
8 January, 1987, 7.30pm
Camden Centre, Bidborough Street, London NWI
Britain that it did in the US, because by the time the epidemic was beginning here Tea dimensions were already dramatically clear in the States. DuL the USA homophobia has begun infect
CYCL - in New York this summer I was warned Lo sleel cicar or nistopnel Street unless 'you want get AIDS by someone who should have known better.
Such ignorance and prejudice is unforgivable with 10 per cent of New Yorkers infected, but even with this evidence the American media still presents the ilInes as a gay-killer rather than the generalised killer it really And US government still like to present gays as the cause of the epidemic, rather than its own inaction.
After a period of attempting to justify inactivity, while hundreds of gays were allowed to die, the ex-
pidemic forced some
and health authority action in the US. In Britain for the first two
three _years of the epidemic the only serious WOlK relation to the disease has been carried by charities chiet v sustained by the gay community itself, like the Terence Higgins trust. This has played a magnificent role in disseminating information about prevention to the gay community, supporting sufferers, and campaigning for greater government action.
Even when the govern-
Healt department had been forced to admit that action was necessary. the decisive steps were again inhibited, and prevented, by the anti-gay, anti-sex lobby. This time the problem' the 'moral majority' faced was how to ciculate explicit information in schools and in advertising, without
Let the legitimate. world further increase their support for SWAPO and the people of Namibia in their struggle to iberate their country from apartheid colonialism and military oc cupation. Let all rally to
The AIDS virus HTLV-III undermining Halula Cons lucky anon! the Mary Whitehouse/Victoria Gillick brigade, without undermining its own anti-gay wallarsis and without directly contradicting attack Labour educational authorities for stepping up the
The Tories new answer is to ensure that the entire scope of sex education in schools. message it spreads will be couched in the 'safe sex = no sex' tramework. and the lauding of heterosexual, monogamous relations not only moral, but healthy too. There will the minimum of explicit infor-
Frontline ther
rica all.
Africa. into a rout.
gress!
ph!
we calit.
Oliver Tambo President ANC
Gay
rights
A CAMPAIGN to combat legal discrimination against esbians and gay men has
campaign was launched at a mcclug calica Dy lut Labour Campaign for
mation about precisely which sexual activities increase the danger of crossMUCCLION because al would mean explaining that such activities actual v exis! outside of smutty jokes and levered imaginations.
So the Tories' answer Will be quite simple. it 1s avoiding ottending, the 'moral' right, , by failing to шаеаке une rull-scale in formation campaign that is
in particular failing to take this information schools where young people engaged in their first sexual experimentation are both at risk in reality and are most susceptible to rumour and
Lesbian and Gay Rights, the Campaign for Homosexual LIC National Council Civil Liberties and which was attended by Lieutalive
0 people attended launch meeting of the cam the campaign wi
campaign will highlight the many different ways in which the civil and criminal law, and the way in which they are implemented discriminate against lesbians and gay men.
Lesbian and gay
sexuality is against the public policy of the law, resulting in flagrant discrimination in such
areldren and eployment.
Public expressions of lesbian and gay sexuality are often crimínal, and unclaws uscu lo larias. and restrict lesbian and gay publications and
Lesbians ureailsallulls and gay men are subject to systematic harrassment by the police
Working groups are being set up to organise discussion and involvement by lesbians and young, black, disabled and older coolalls and gav men ine point or view or these groups on the law has usually been ignored in the past. The campaign will seek support fo changes in the law from organisations outside the movement. The campaign will use the general
half-truth about how the ilIness is spread.
Alongside this failure the government is continuing to step up its anti-ga campaign, and introduce a sharp and particularly nasty racist element by blaming black people from the African continent who are currently suffering the most widespread epidemic of the illness anywhere the world. The most recent part of this has been the threat to introduce visa and special immigration controls visitors from West Africa
Ine lones belalea, and completely wrong type of,
of AIDS is totally insufficent to nave any real impact. The campaign must continue for effective
campaigns including the necessary® funding for research into a cure. . There must be a public health campaign aimed at all sections of society that it totally free from so-called moral TICS CHON both from the point of view of the extent of the intormation thai is given, and the advice on what action to take.
al the notion that it is the victims of the disease who are the villains in society has to be determinedly fought. This will mean rejecting the notion that AIDS should be notifiable disease, defending the right to work of AIDS sufferers, and opposing the introduction repressive measures against both gays and West Africans. There must be full medical and social support for the victims.
The evidence from the USA is now overwhelming that a decisive and tactualt clear campaign by the government could prevent the explosive development of the disease in this country. The Tories have made it
election to push for the next parliament to enact legislation for lesbian and gay rights
The next two national planning meetings of the campaign are on valuraa. 6 December in London and Saturday 10 January in Manchester. Speakers from the campaign can be arranged from Room 221, 38 Mount Pleasant, London WCIX OAT. Jan Parker and Jamie Gough Legislation for Lesbian and Gay Rights Campaign.
Borderway
cuts and
..
runs'
ON 12 November over 200 Birmingham trade unionists demonstrated with banners and placards outside the Borderway factory in Catherine Street, Aston.
They were there in solidantv with 20 workers sacked by the companv in August tol joining a union. Some of the workers are on just £1.45 an hour. They had joined TASS in an at-
appalling wages and
The demonstration was a big boost to the picketing which has been organised daily since the
clear that they have no intention of taking this step,
chiely because of their reactionary so-called mo-
rality. In fact the only im-
allowing
thousands of people to die
for the sake of appear
ances about sex.
Reactionary govern-
capable of learning fron
nistory. When gonorrhe developed as a 19th century plague, the first to sutter
were the prostitutes, SO
nothing was done. Then the troops began to suffer so
they inspected the pro-
clean and only the cleane
'clean' and only the
could operate When babie began to die the clinics were
established, CULE Was
sought, and information
was posted in public conve-
MCles one the scourge was stopped. Why do
to wait for babies to die?
By Jude Woodward
The issue is the same as with abortion and traception for young people Those who
aen having to stop wat
men having them tney did ensure thousand abortions. dinose millegal abortions. Those, like
who tried to prevent contraception be LIle available without • pa rental consent would no have stopped sex between
people, • but they would thousands of unwanted pregnancies and lives and the figures produced this week show a dramatic increase in preg nancies among the under
court case. Those who attempt to impose their reactionary anti-gay, right wing sexua morality on AIDS will literally kill tens of thousands of people and already have done.
dispute started. At the rally Derek Robinson, who was himself sacked wie Converone Longbridge BL plant ap•calcu I01 suDOUl 'What we need to do here' he said 'is go out to meone warned with Borderway and ask
products. What we need in the trade union move ment is solidarity - sim ple but very important.
Borderway owner, Mr Nemashangi had closed the factory for the day of the mass picket. Then, later in the week, he ditched his 18 scab employees and put the
liquidation
The only logic behind this move i Nemashangi's hostility to the labour movement and his total contempt for a highly productive workforce. He is looking to cut and run to some other part of the slumphit city and then set up shop again. The company is a highly pro fitable brass stamping concern. He has already taken steps to remove some equipment from the premises but the bulk of it is still there.
Much-needed donations and messages of support to TASS Craft (metal mechanics sector), 70 Lionel Street, Birmingham B3 IJG.
Bob Smith
Page 11 scan of this page
Wapping 'Recall TUC' urged
In the Unions
in Murdoch's rejected
BRIAN GROGAN.
a fourth
The deepening support
was also shown by the suc-
cess of a tour by SOGAT
RIRMA branch member
Jim Vason and WAMI
supporter, Jean Lock-
wood. in the tirst week of
a two-week tour of South
Yorks and North Notts,
lney were welcomed at
Trades Council, Labour
Against Pit Closures meet-
DUDOULL sacked
as if, at long last, the trans-
members who are driving
UVCI
papers and by-pass solid-
ish Rail is now taking legal
EETPU
uns ana sical Ine Jos ment in the mining and energy industries.
IMO president,
formal affiliation trom miners organisations in 33 countries. representing 3.8 million mineworkers.
The weekend's ference was open to af- LUIfiliates and non-affiliates alike, and included a very weighty presence from the African continent. Egypt which has recently massiveay expanaca is coal mining under the Sinai desert was represented.
Representatives from the Philippines First of May trade union movement were coming until the murder of
movernell s leader, Roland Olalia.
Vietnam
Was cell and there were representatives Eastern Europe. A group of
miners trom the United States participated as observers. They had been invited by WAPC who were also in attendance.
Pride of nace amongst the delegates South African delegation, headed up by the NUM's president, James Motlatsi. The union's general secretary, Cyril Ramaphosa, had not been allowed out of the country and so was unfortunately unable to attend.
There are over 700,000
DESPITE 11 months of picket-line hardship, 75 per eent of the original five and a half thousand sacked News International printers are still going strong. This was the official verdict as ACAS announced that only 1580 had been tempted to take the money
"tinal' final offer, writes
printers has
of the sacked printers Minutes of meeting published in The Guardian confirm that Eric Hammond Was cooperating with Murdoch a long time before the printers •smissed And in a book, The End of the Street, ex-Sunday Times journalist, Linda Melvern, documentary proof is provid-
ths before the start of the
council took no measures
council meeting for a lobjected by the narrowest
on the EETPU. Moved by weekend of 22/23 November. They were attending a
Organisation on the struggle to promote employ-
Arthur Scargill, described the
miners in South Africa of are iNt is based, wh , where James Motlatsi told the conference the 325,000 NUM members are also in coal, platinum, diamond and other mines.
By Jon Silberman
The NUM leaders confidently predict that they wil unionise the rest or South Africa's miners over the next tew vears.
Conditions in the industry are appalling. Low wages, the infamous 'compound system' whereby miners are separated from their families for 12-month and housed in compounds will Delween 010c. room and 'safety' record of 600 deaths a year were highlighted by the tragic Kinross accident earlier this year. Three hundred thousand miners were
of other workers on moe
other workers on 1 October in a Day of Mourning strike.
The Susue of the South African miners inspired the delegates and an emergency resolution (see box) adopted unanimously, aim1ng at a complete bovcott of South African coal.
postal workers enera
secretary, Alan Tuffin, th
motion won the support of
representatives ma-
TUC's af-
filiated membership. Leif
Mills, leader of the bank-
ing union whose delega-
tion backed the printers at
asking them to participate.
already
brancher OTI
conunuing support trom
aAra Socialee for a
accasino necke week, the women decided
rkers'
Conference
sewell. Alan Simon, a member of the rrench union
argued that unemployment was
on maximising profits.
Peter Heathfield reminded delegates that in Western Europe, North America and Japan, over 31 million people are officially unemployed, the real figure being much greater.
Arthur Scargill said that to. deliberately consign millions of people to the dole represented criminal
and spell out the need international solidarity action to support workers in struggle.
'It's no good passing resolutions and making passionate speeches' he emDuasised unless inese are translated into effective action'. In addition to practical action South Africa, Scargill urged solidarity with workers in Chile and Bolivia, Salvador 'and above all Nicaragua'
We must renew our sup-
The said, for miners in the Philippines, South-East Asia and the Indian subcontinent: and he called on the socialist countries not only to provide financial assistance workers in dispute but to stop trading
acailng with their companies.
The success of the conference can be expected to
filiations to the IMO.
TUC Congress voted against the motion.
At the lobby outside Congress leader Mike Hicks mouse won loud applause urging the recall of TUC Congress because the general council 'leadership has
Women march against Murdoch
Betty Heathfield at Wapping with WAM's Pauline Good THREE marches will converge on the Wapping for-
and support groups. third — a special women's march — will move off
have written to Brenda Dean and Glenys Kinnock
gone on tour to boost sup.
DUL L
member, Jackie Weedon
lau conalea a sonaarity
internatio nal
Motlatsi
Resolution on
South African coal
Conference notes that 18 countries imported 40.9 million tons of South African coal in 1985, with EEC countries importing 25.5 million tons or 62% of the total.
French and US governments to ban South African coal imports from the end of 1986 (affecting 10.6 million tons). Il also notes the decision by the EEC Foreign Ministers or 16th September 1986, not to include coal in the economic sanctions against the apartheid regime.
1. Write to the Prime Ministers of the 12 EEC countries and African NUM, Conference agrees to to the EEC Council of Ministers, demanding that full sanctons are imposed against south Atrican coal imports, and that this issue be considered at the Council's next meeting; 2. Write to the Prime Ministers world-wide importing South African coal and demand similar action; 3. Support African trade organisations and the United Nations Assembly for comprehensive maximum economic sanctions to be imposed upon South Africa; 4. Call upon all national and international trade union centres to bring about united and comprehensive trade union action to maximise pressure on all those governments or economic concerns who continue to import south Africar coal, thereby expanding the life of apartheid; 5. Call upon all national and international trade unions to refuse to handle South African coal, and to urge all trade unions to join in the campaign for a complete boycott of it.
gone against the congress
COCISION
Though disappointed
by the decision, printers at the Saturday
march said were uplifted
support. they did
achieve. commission have put the
- it appears that it's okay for Trafalgar
ing's Wellose Square. 50
ing's Wellclose Square. ine strikers will make do with a home-grown tree instead.
So far WAM have collected £2000 in the Christ-
appeal for Illas sakers children.
is 'United essage Stand"
message Christmas card produced as part of their Christmas appeal by Women Against Murdoch. The cards cost £l for 5 and can be obtained from WAM secretary Eileen Beer, c/o Kingsway London Women's Centre, Wesley House, Wild Court, London wCl. Scargill Conference further notes the decision by the Danish,
of the requests for support from the South
of the othe countes
call by the African National Congress
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Hanger strike
are stepping up the campaign for support
They have forged links
printers and their women's support organisation
miners' women's
behalf of the sacked workers
Works. Committee
charges. This was the latest action in an anti-union
campaign by the Murdoch-style management who
broke agreements reached with national officers of
the workers' unions.
plemented impossible times on jobs.
representatives was endorsed by a ballot vote, with
just 17 voting against.
Strike Appeal,
London Road, Mitcham,
01-646 0260.
Socialist Action , 5 Dec 1986 11 The 'Building an Alliance for Socialism' weekend, in addition to being a resounding political success, also raised over £1,400 for Socialist Action. But we now
through organising jumble sales, bazaars, parties and banquets. We appeal to all
cona be torted behic
can and end January.
Meanwhile, we have little more than three weeks to compicie ine arive on our Xmas raffle. The prizes of the new Amstrad computer or the latest Sharp video are well worth having.
Target Raised
120 360 640 480 240 160 360 400
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640 1240 £225 600 £90 440 £167 520 £112.41 760 360 £77.40 £671.81
make the following donation/pledge to the Please fill in this form and send to your own bank. We will
Please send *............pounds) on the ...th day of each
70372315 at the Cooperative Bank, to the account o THREE hundred workers at the artificial limb company of J.E. Hanger are in their eleventh week of dispute. Sacked by the firm in Roehampton, south-west London on 16 September the worers
with the Wapping
has had help and assistance from the Yorkshire
suppoll group and Women against Murdoch. On Monday 1 December, Tony
spoke at a successful public meeting on
The dispute started when four members of the
sacked trumped
TASS and FTAT, and im-
The immediate action in support of the four
Wessex House, Surrey CR4 4YQ Tel:
Page 12 scan of this page
against disbandment
THE LATEST Labour Party national executive committee witnessed the first significant victory in the campaign against the political expulsions that are being carried out across the party: Amir Khan and Kevin Scally were accepted back into party membership following Sparkbrook mous decision the night before to reinstate them. But the wave of witch hunts in the Labour Party is still continuing.
The same meeting decided to continue 'disciplinary action' against the Liverpool city council
Labour group, agains st
officers Helens parties, and against Redcar CLP.
By Carol Turner
The November NEC also set up an enquiry. to be conducted by national party officers into whether or not Knowsley.
Labour Party should be 'disbanded and thereafter reconstituted'.
months of waiting, the prediction the Knowsley party has proved well-founded. The three
Derson hit sque December
back December
NEC
Writing in Campaign
Group. News last month, Knowsley
ficer Dave Kerr explained:
media has widely
reported the threats of Nei
Kinnock to "deal with
Knowsiey when une by-election is over. I believe
suspension and disband-
ment of our party is a very
eal possibility
The local party attemp
tea to resist be poston
of a candidate by the NEC,
by appealing to the High
Court. But their case was
never heard.
Nonetheless, even
general secretary Larry
Whitty is reported to have
told the NEC that he believ-
ed its unprecedented deci-
sion to install a candidate
over the head of the local
party was exceeding the
constitutional powers of the
national executive commit-
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vame ...
Address
SociAist
ACTION
Defend Knowsley North CLP
constituency's unani-
The question of witch hunts in the Labour Party, at root, is one of internal democracy: The Knowsley North decision represents an attempt to further erode the rights of local parties. As the appeal leaflet produced by Trade Unionists for Democracy in Knowsley North says: 'every CLP has ine democratic choose their own candidaLe
It is that right which is under attack from the NEC's decision to impose George Howarth. The decision to hold an enquiry. simply an attempt to justify the leadershin's action by creating yet another smearand-scare campaign against a local party
NEC is claiming that the Knowsley North general committee delegation is not properly constituted, that some branches have been prevented trom
sending representatives.
NEC's real were the concern then the amend-
moved Audrey Wise at the November exCulive that the party supervise the annual meetings of Knowsley North branches and of the consti-
should have tuency party -been sufficient to satisty the executive that party business being properly conducted.
Clearly that wasn't what concerned the NEC.
massively defeated.
The left in the party has
already lined up in support
of the democratic right of
select
their own candidate.
Labour Lett liaison nas
circulated the financial ap-
SUBSCRIBE
enclose cheque/PO payable to Socialist Action for * Send to: Socialist Action Subs, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP
peal from Trade Unionists for Democracy in Knowsley North. The Campaign Group of Labour MiPs is supporting the local party against this latest witch
Resolutions of support from other parties already beginning to find their way Walworth Road. And last weekend, the executive committee of the LCC passed a resolution opposing any disciplinary action against the constituency
It ever there was a clearcut case for supporting a COLLUCICi Dally aralisl unwarranted attacks by the Labour leadership, Knowsley North is it.
The massive success of The came ces ale Amir Khan and Kevin ScalV (CRAKKS) show that a united campaign can be mounted across the party to defend victims of this latest purge. CRAKKS points a way towards the sort defence of Knowsley North CLP that urgently needed.
Donations are urgently needed towards the £14,000 legal costs Knowsley North have
incurred fighting for their
parliamentary candidate.
Cheques and postal orders
should be made out to •Trade Unionists for Democracy in Knowsley North' , and sent to:
Mrs I Rowe, Treasurer, 12
Linslade Crescent, Northwood Kirkby, Liverpool.
ACTION
CAMPAIGN FOR UNIO
SOLIDARITY WITH EI
The deal signed at ACAS should be opposed -
• worses cocondinons of serious pay rises:
worsens our conditions
package and what it would mean for individu
against.
Left activists inside the union had hoped for strong opposition but were themselves surprised at the size of the vote against the deal. There will now be an individual • ballot on the conference recommendation.
The deal is a pay and conditions of service package which will radically alter the job of teaching and if pushed through be a and to everyone in er
everyone in the public sector.
A big factor in the present situation is the decision of the Education Institute
Scotland, the TUC affiliated teacher union in Scotland, to reject moves by Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Scotland, to im-
one-day
strike will be tar in Edin on 4 December In burgh and militants north of the border led by the Glasgow-based Campaign For Fighting Union
(CAFU), wi ill be calling for
Vote 'no' to
teachers
offer
REJECT ACAS REJECT BAKER
For the conditions of servic ur cose in detail the nature of th agreement rea * DESPITE Mr. Bake fought unitedl Alternative sale of the
in yar boy ance N.U.T. n Utopia
DESPITE A massive campaign by the right wing leadership of the National Union of Teachers in favour of the deal that they agreed with the Labour-led local education employers, the Special Conference of the union held in Blackpool on Saturday 29 November endorsed their position by the small majority of 21,584. The delegates voted 122,557 in favour and 100,973
further action to extend the campaign. Doug McAvoy
jection of the deal agreed with the Authorities would guarantee an intervention Kenneth Baker, Tory Secretary of State for
By Bernard Regan
Education. Baker has atene House his own pay package and he is also intending to bring in legislation to scrap the pay negotiating committee and set up an 'advisory body'.
The leaders of the NUT would not have been successful at the conference without the backin members of the munist Party, Morning Star upporters Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist), New Communist Party and others.
PAY
SPECIAL
AGREEMENT TINDERCUTS AAI IN
SOCIALIST TEACHER
SOCIALIST TEACHERS' ALLIANCE
VOTE R
Do you support the ratification oft
conferenates
The fight against this" betrayal is far from over. the same time that NUT are being balloted, members of the other TUC-affiliated union, the National Association Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NAS/UWT) will be voting their intention to fight
Baker's proposals eX
plained WaN
deal anyway. welcomes the fact that the right-wing union leaders are prepared to accept a contract that increases the working of most teachers by 5 days and adds an average of 4 hours onto the working week. Press reports present the agreement as a 16.4 per cent increase for teachers. But it is in fact worth less than 8 per cent. The increases are spread over 2 years and teachers were awarded 5.5 per cent of this years in crease back in May! The in creases on offer in the se cond year of the deal will only be paid for 7 months of the year. The new pay scale promises teachers a higher maximum wage but it will take a teacher starting work next September least 15 years to get there.
Opponents of the negotiated deal made clear on the deal and are being urged by their leaders to reject Despite inter bureaucratic wrangles, the rank and file of both unions recognise that a joint fight by the two unions could turn the tables on the
mployers and be a powe
ul force which could lin up with Scottish teachers against the government.
of the Inner London bs the Socialist Teachers Alliance, already distributed 40,000 copies of a broadsheet which exposes the nature of the agree ment. In the coming weeks they plan to link up with
like Bradford and alcas.
Coventry, to build a massive opposition to the deal with the objective of winning the union round to a militant defence of teachers pay and conditions Such an achievement would not only be important for teachers, it would be of reate campaign to defend significance
Education, and support the fight of other
the Civil and Public Services Association (CPSA) whick is submitting a wage claim in the nea future.
← Socialist Action No. 153, 21 November 1986Socialist Action No. 155, 19 December 1986 →