London Labour Briefing no. 34 (with the National Supplement)

INSIDE: NATIONAL SUPPLEMENT articles by Gerry Adams, Joan Maynard, Tony Benn,

Mandy Moore, Tariq Ali, Andrea Campbell.

LABOUR— TAKE THE POWER!

London Labour Briefing, page two

Fighting health cuts in Lewisham

(Continued )

public meeting has speakers from ‘Brent DHA (whose lead we have used to put pressure On our own authority), Hackney Health Emergency and local health workers.

We have tried to keep our leaflets specifically related to what’s going on locally, made them visually attractive, and with house-to-house and shopping centre leafletting and petitioning, have tried to raise as broad a campaign as possible. We have contacted sympathetic local journalists and received a good response. There have also been reports in the relevant union journals.

MAKE THEM TAKE A STAND

We have pushed the issue in the local Labour Party, Local Government Committee and Labour Group to try to build enough pressure on the Labour representatives on the DHA ‘to make them take a stand. against the Government. The recent National Executive statement supporting Brent’s action should be used everywhere to

force local authorities to realise that it is up

CRUISE THREATENS PEACH AND BREAKS THE LAW

to us to defend our jobs and services. We now hear that Sheffield and Northumberland have also refused to implement the cuts. We must get across that it isa myth that Tory cuts carried out by Labour representatives are somehow ‘kinder’.

We have linked the issue of privatisation in to the fight for jobs and services, making people aware that the Tories are using it for their own ideological reasons and as another way of making cuts.

It is cften hard to find out where the DHA meets (usually the middle of the afternoon), and how the representatives are selected. Our local Labour Group seems to

- appoint reps from its own members and

associates. We also have to decide what the role of the DHA is — to provide a decent health service or just to administer the financial restrictions set by the government?

It would be useful if Briefing could carry articles from local campaigns on how to organise against the Tories — we all know

ODUM PWD

Oth Nov Kes san nny

8d

There are

WOMEN DGAINST

why we should do it, what we need is to share our practical experience of how to do it. Lewisham Health Action Group can be contacted c/o 191, Hither Green Lane,

Lewisham SE13.

Hands off our Health Service

We say NO *No more cuts *No more wards to close *No more job losses Join the Lobby at the Florence Shepherd Room, Shepherd Building, Guys Hospital, St. Thomas St. (Lewisham & North Southwark Health Authority) Monday 31st October, 4.00 (note change of date) For further details and petitions contact:

Lewisham & North Southwark Health Action Group, 191, Hither Green Lane, Lewisham

SE 13. (Tel: 852-5088).

Scatsta (Shetiand) Thurso. Forss Thurso. W Murkle Stornoway (Lewis) Mormond Hill Aberdeen Inverbervie Edzell. :

Wattisham Bedi:

4 Fylingdales : 5 Leeming 3 Menw:th Hull

102 US bases in Britain.

On 9th November"835

there will be

102 Peace Camps one

each base.

Contact your regional office:

Manchester 061 445 0998 Scotland 041 423 1485 041 632 0493 South East 0273 556744 East Anglia 0480 300907

Northern Ireland 0232 56392

Wales 0228 45381

South West 06267 79232 Lancaster 0524 751 361 London 01-639 8561 Sheffield 0742 25079 Leicester 0533 702 585 Leeds 053? 740197

Liverp

An additional £20,000 is needed towards US Court costs. Donations please made payable to:

Greenham Women Against Cruise. 344 South Lambeth Road,

London SW8.

Tel.01-720 1374

NALGO ‘v’ Haringey Council

London Labour Briefing, page three

The week long strike of over 2,500 Haringey NALGO members in September reached a victorious conclusion on September 23rd. when sac hed worker Les Butler was reinstated pending an independent investigation into management’s handling of his dismissal. The issue at the heart i the dispute was the failure of the management of PELAW (Participation Experiment in Local Authority Works) section of Public Works and the Chief Personnel Officer to abide by the Disciplinary Code of Practice for Probationary Employees, when they dismissed Les Butler. A 4 alk out by PELAW workers on hearing of the dismissal was quickly followed by strike action in other Council Services.

The Council conceded that the Code had been ignored but despite this the Chair of Personnel Services refused the Union’s request to suspend the dismissal notice. As the strike escalated the stance of the Council became harder, in particular on the part of those Councillors most involved, Bernie Grant, George Meehan and Ernie Large. At a meeting of the Labour Group during the strike, only two councillors took the side of the union unconditionally.

ANTI-UNION STANCE

The intractable stance by the Council has highlighted once again the question of the attitude of Labour Council’s to their own employees as this is not the first time that a Labour Council has taken an intransigent anti-union stance. There is a commonly held view amongst Labour Councillors that they can automatically demand a special relationship with their workers and are affronted that any union should be in dispute with them. This is coupled with a disparaging attitude towards NALGO as a union. Deemed a ‘management’ union it is not to be taken seriously. Ironically in Haringey the Council chose to back the very management they so despise as opposed to the majority of NALGO members, most of whom are not managers or supervisors of any kind. Another argument used to justify their stance against NALGO is its non-affiliation to the Labour Party. Presumably, because without a voice in the Labour Party NALGO cannot bring to account those Labour Councillors. who advocate in rhetoric Trade Union solidarity but in practice flout such a principle.

But the matter goes one step further because these arguments are used to drive a wedge between the ‘real’ unions i.e. the manual workers unions and the white collar unions. These were arguments that came up time and time again on the picket lines during the strike and the TGWU in particular were hostile to the strike. Undoubtedly hostility exists towards NALGO because of the past attitude of some NALGO members to the disputes and picket lines of the manual unions, when management attitudes have prevailed over Trade Union principles. But it is not up to our employer to dictate the relationships between Council unions especially when the practice they dictate is one of attacking another union. It is up to NALGO members to develop NALGO into a union where members have democratic control over it. The development of the shop stewards system goes a long way to doing this and without it the strike could not have been so well organised and solid. This must be followed up by the setting up of a Joint Shop Stewards cttee. for all Council Unions to develop trade union solidarity and confidence. In addition NALGO Labour Party members need to build Labour Party workplace branches in order to forge greater unity with the rank and file of the Labour Party who in turn need to organise support for workers in dispute and bring to account Councillors who choose to take on their employees.

LOOKING OVER THEIR SHOULDERS

Undoubtedly Labour Councils are rattled by the present and impending attacks on

dojstpt atreyo

The strike had wide support throughout.

Charlie Hislop

age * 2» de

NALGO activists urge workers to defend their basic rights.

Local Authorities. With each step they take they are looking over their shoulders to the Tory Government and many Haringey NALGO members could be forgiven for thinking that Labour Councillors in Haringey, instead of gearing up to a fight against the Tories, are testing just how far they can take on their own employees. For all their alleged commitment to fighting the Tories they have put more effort into continuing to administer Tory cuts. Haringey Council is currently going ahead with plans to buy a ‘package deal’ scheme from Bovis to build a sports hall. Council workers in Architects and Borough Engineers were taken off the scheme in June. The carrot for the Council is a £25,000 grant from the Sports Council.

There will be more carrots in the future to persuade Councils to become involved in investing in the Private Sector. Labour Councillors have got to decide now whether they are going to face the Tories’ attack on Public Services or whether they are going to co-operate piecemeal with its decimation. It is no good appealing to Council workers to join in that fight while in the same breath supporting the breaking of agreements made with Council Unions. NALGO members will support Labour Councils who chose to take on the Tories, not those who are prepared to sell out on agreements and sell out on their own employees.

Mary Corbishley (Housing Shop Steward Haringey NALGO).

London Labour Briefing Page Four

Unfortunately that statement is absolutely correct, but unfortunately again, it is not an issue which the Left has in the past taken very seriously. Again at Conference this year, delegates were faced with two composite resolutions on housing to debate, both of which I consider were totally inadequate. What a choice! — they could either ditch our opposition to council house sales, or adopt Miltant style slogans to decrease rents, implement massive house-building programmes and nationalise everything in sight (not that I’m against the last three, but I don’t think sloganising is enough). As it happened, neither were accepted, but that now leaves the Labour Party with a housing policy which I consider is no solution to a major housing crisis.

LABOUR’S UNTENABLE POSITION

Whilst in the areas of education and health,. Labour is firmly opposed to private provision, on housing it is simultaneously ‘in favour’ of home ownership and council housing. I think that for socialists this policy is completely untenable. Whilst we make no attempt to tackle the whole financing and subsidising of housing, the system is inherently biased against tenants. And it’s not just economically that home-owners are advantaged, they also have considerably more control over their choice of housing, mobility and maintenance. It’s not a matter of choice between ownership or tenancy -— if you can afford to, you buy, if not, and if you are lucky, you rent. In fact, council housing allocation systems make it impossible for you to choose, even if you want to. They are based firmly on a criterion called ‘need’, which in practice is no different from the Tory philosophy that council housing is a kind of charity fer ‘social inadequates’. Council tenants are stigmatised as second class and it is no wonder that many of them jump at the chance of becoming a homeowner.

EQUAL ACCESS FOR ALL

Surely we all need homes, and the minimum for a socialist housing policy should be to provide equal access for all to a comprehensive housing system. Labour’s present policy comes nowhere near this, and easy slogans aren’t much better either. We can call for a policy to ‘end the misery of homelessness with a massive housebuilding programme’, but

Labour’s housing programme:

What a choice!

One of the issues discussed at this year’s Labour Party Conference which didn’t hit the news, and which probably wasn’t mentioned by your constituency delegate in her or his report back, is that of housing. And it’s not surprising, because it was pretty much a non-event, Yet according to Labour’s election manifesto, ‘Britain faces a major housing crisis’

unless we consider the type of housing people want we’ll go on just substituting

it for the misery of life on a council housing estate. The mistakes of the past and “the appalling conditions in many inner city areas in particular, are directly the result of Labour’s previous housing policies. As was discussed in Briefing’s ‘Streetlife Supplement’ a few months ago, housing conditions, both in terms of quality and design, can make or break individual, family and community relationships.

I believe we must begin to discuss these issues urgently. I hope that my few comments here can begin such a discussion within the pages of Briefing. It would be nice if at next year’s Annual Conference there was a third choice of resolution, which really did provide the basis for a socialist housing policy!

Jane Stockton Holborn and St.Pancras CLP

SOCIALIST HOUSING PERSPECTIVE

A day conference will be held on Sunday, November 6th at Lewisham Labour Club, 9, Limes Grove SE13.

Creche facilities available.

Admission £1 waged, free unwaged.

The Conference has been arranged by the Lewisham Local Government Committee. Programme: 10.30-12.30 Plenary — Chris Hoimes

(Labour Housing Group) 12.30-1.45 Lunch, bar & food available. 1.45-3.15 Workshops:

Co-ops, Women & Housing, Housing

Finance; Homelessness. 3.30-4.30 Closing session.

Next London Briefing Editorial Board Meetings:

Monday 24th October at 6.30pm

Monday 21st November at 6.30pm

Both at County Hall. Deadline for articles: Monday 7th November.

London Labour Briefing Page Five

VICTORY AT ARLINGTON HOUSE

Led by a brass band, the 27 Arlington House strikers marched proudly back to work on Tuesday October 4th, taking back their jobs at the hostel they had been picketing for over a year. As they turned the corner behind the band into Arlington Road the thin windows of the giant six storey hostel went up in their dozens as the residents looked down on the parade. It marked the end of-the year-long struggle against the owners, Rowton Hotels pic, for the hostel to be taken into public ownership. It seems like a dream. extending the public sector under Thatcherism, Camden Council are the owners, pledged to ensure immediate improvements in standards, For the workers, who will now be employed by United Kingdom Housing Trust on behalf of the council. returning to work means dramatic improvements in working conditions: a minimum wage of £105 for 36 hours, compared with £26 for a 48 hour weex a year ago. Following months of pressure and negotiations the Rowton shareholders voted in June to sell their four remaining hoste.s the three in the capital will be bought by councils, the fourth in Birmingham has been sold privately.

The origins of the struggle can be found, of course, in the living and working conditions inside the hostels. Arlington House in Camden has nearly 1,000 beds, and is the largest mens hostel in Europe. Tower House in Tower Hamlets has about 700 beds, the Vauxhall hostel in Lambeth about 400. Residents now pay £15.30 a week for a room of 35 square feet in poor condition,

The hostels are grossly understaffed. The minimum working week is usually 48 hours, often spread over 6 or 7 days, for which the basic rate may be as little as £28 nett. Management’s attitude held that the staff were ‘wayfarers’, glad of a room and a job, One apparently said ‘If you can get me a man for £5 a week, then pay him £5 a week’. Yet many of the staff have worked over 10 years in the hostels, showing far more stability than they are credited with,

So little has been spent on mainten-

ance that an Lnvironmental Health Inspectors report on Tower House, produced for Shelter, concluded that the premises were unfit for human habitation, were overcrowded and presented a serious fire risk to inhabitants. The inspector found cisterns that did not flush, fire doors wedged open and men drinking from a hosepipe. The high incidence of uberculosis has caused a major scandal in this hostel. The dwellings are tall and gaunt, red brick monuments to a byegone era. Each has the same basic plan, cubicles lining the sides of long corridors, shared washing and toilet facilities, large tiled communal rooms which once held prayer meetings on Sundays and which are now TV rooms, one for BBC the other for ITV. Yet with ‘House Full’ signs up on many nights of the year they have been a lucrative source of profit for the Rowton accounts, with cash flowing in from room charges, food sales, cigarette and coffee machines, Last year Rowton made perhaps £250,000 from Arlington House alone.

JOINING THE UNION

One of the many grievances held by residents was the violence of some of the staff. One incident in December 1981 brought matters to a head at Arlington House when a worker viciously assaulted a resident during an eviction, Other staff made protests Dut to no avail, and in January 1982 almost all the workers walked into the nearby offices of the TGWU in Camden and joined the Union.

This action was applauded by the local Arlington Action Group (AAG), a group

Editor’s note: Despite this undoubted victory for the Arlington House workers, the struggle for the residents is not quite over yet.

Camden’s Labour Group have already reversed a promise to freeze rents for a year at £12.20 per week and some residents are now being

faced with rents of over £15 per week for a 7ft by Sft cubicle. The Labour Group have also failed to confirm their longstanding commitment that Arlington House will not be closed until 1100 new replacement bedspaces have been made available.

of local housing activists who had been campaigning for years for Camden Council to force the owners either to improve the hostel or sell it to the council. Using its links with the local Labour Party, the AAG had persuaded the Council recently to seriously consider a management order or CPO, but Rowton’s response to such pressure was to threaten to close the hostel, thereby facing the council with a huge rehousing responsibility. This threat proved to be an effective stalling tactic for Rowtons. The AAG worked for the establishment of a residents association inside the hostel.

But the organisation of the workers presented a potentially more powerful weapon against the company. Since all the staff lived in they too could face eviction but equally, had cause for complaint against living conditions in the hostel. Unionisation was a courageous first step for the workers to take. Rowtons rightly saw it as the first serious threat from the staff in all their hundred years of control.

FRUSTRATED THE AGREEMENT

Following an effective strike in April 1982, Rowtons agreed to recognise the TGWU, but then continually frustrated the agreement. Certainly it led to no real improvement in staff conditions over the next five months and finally in protest the workers walked out again in September 1982, demanding immediate talks on a wage claim, But these talks never took place. Instead the company went on the offensive, reverting to form by sacking all the 45 staff on strike.

The strike, with its 24-hour picket, attracted much adverse publicity against the company. Furthermore, in Tower House a residents association had been formed with the help of Labour Councillors and the local CHAR group, and they were displaying increasing militancy over a demand for a control order which they wanted the council to serve. In Lambeth, Labour regained control of the council and further inspections of the Vauxhall hostel took place, as a result of which some 30 rooms without windows were closed. And in September the women staff at Vauxhall also joined the TGWU.

In late September Rowtons announced their intention to sell the They were asking over £6 million tor 2: buildings, The GLC undertook to ¢ccre: discussions between the London Labour 2 orities who agreed to buy the hostels. to seex Government backing for the negotiations and to carry out urgent improvements once the hostels were acquired. If successful, this stra:- egy would meet the main objectives of workers and residents. Negotiations with Rowtons were initiated.

os

xe 2 GL

MASS EVICTIONS

Then in November Rowtons took the extraordinary step of evicting the strikers. They were faced with a massive picket supported by councillors and MPs and the event again brought them unfavourable publicity. After 6 months of haggling, Rowtons finally agreed on 29th June to sell the hostels for £2.93

million.

For the Councils, £3 million will buy them about 2,000 bedspaces of accommodation for single homeless men, serviced by about 150 staff at the present. The Councils plan to spend about £4 million on improving the hostels — enlarging the rooms, adding basic facilities, giving the hostels a thorough spring clean and redecoration. £2 million will be spent at Arlington House alone. Staffing levels will rise to about 250 in total, so that about 100 new jobs will be created by the Councils. And many other jobs will stem from the work involved in the improvement programme. Workers will be campaigning for this work to be done by Direct Labour or unionised labour.

Real and important improvements in working conditions have been negotiated by the union reps. Each of the hostels is now unionised (TGWU). At Arlington House a minimum wage of £105 for a 36 hour week has been negotiated with United Kingdom Housing Trust, which will manage the hostel for the Council. Similar wage rates are being negotiated with the other Councils: the GLC, which wiil buy Tower House in Tower Hamlets, and Lambeth Council which is buying the Vauxhall Hostel. Staff will have a reasonable holiday and sickness scheme, a proper grievance and discipline procedure, and full trade union negotiating rights.

Eventualiy, the size of each cubicle will double so that there may be a loss of 800 to 1,000 beds, -but a commensurate improvement in quality. Clearly, the purchase and modernisation of the dwellings is only one part of a wider strategy to provide for the single homeless in London, which must also involve the building of more smaller units, first of all to replace the beds lost through improvements and then eventually to replace the giants themselves,

Through its combined efforts, the Labour Movement has finally slammed the door shut on the Rowton era, consigning its Victorian values and conditions to the museum of history.

London Labour Briefing page six

STOP TORY BUTCHERY OF THE ARTS

To accompany its white paper setting out proposals to abolish the GLC and the Metropolitan Counties, the Tory Government has

issued a ‘consultative paper’ on the arts. To have done so was to acknowledge the influence of the

arts in the coming campaign, but the

so-called ‘consultative paper’ is an insult to the intelligence. It is ridiculously brief, simplistic and utterly unacceptable.

The Government’s concern is entirely for the ‘high culture’ provided by the national centres which it undertakes to safeguard. For everything outside of such centres there is not a word of comfort except the absurdly unrealistic statement that the boroughs and district councils will assume nearly all the GLC’s and MCC’s responsibilities.

WHO WILL REPLACE GLC?

In London the Labour GLC has built up a pattern of arts funding that now helps to sustain, in addition to the national centres, 24 regional theatres, 40 community theatres, 6 major arts centres, 12 museums and art galleries, 14 film workshops and over 50 ethnic arts organisations.

Our arts budget has been doubled since 1981 and present plans envisage continued expansion. Who then will replace GLC funding?

Not Thatcher’s Government which recently cut the national arts budget and looks in the ‘consultative paper’ to business sponsorship for relief. The London Boroughs themselves are already suffering the effects of savage reductions in grant support and if rate-capping is introduced, will be hard put to defend existing housing, education and social services, never mind the arts. To assume, as the Government does, that the Boroughs will replace GLC funding is bordering on the criminally insane.

If the GLC is abolished in 1985 the.

impact on the arts in London will be utterly devastating. Theatres, arts centres and workshops will close. Arts workers will lose their jobs and thousands of Londoners will lose access to arts activities just beginning to establish themselves. This Government of spivs and louts apparently cares nothing for the damage it will cause in its determination to give statutory effect to Thatcher’s vendetta against Labourcontrolled local authorities.

NO THREAT — JUST A PROMISE

If the campaign to stop the Government’s plans goes badly, the GLC will be forced to re-examine next year’s arts funding.

We have a responsibility to those arts activities which the Government neither wishes to support nor the Boroughs are able to. The Tories have made clear their commitment to the national centres in London and thus the only course open to us will be to divert our funds away from those centres to the community-based arts which are central to GLC policy. To take such action unilaterally will be a matter of regret but the responsibility for the impending confrontation will be that of this Government and we are not going to stand idly by and watch our arts policy being butchered.

Tony Banks, Chair — GLC Arts and Recreation Committee

Defend the GLC (again!)

As a newcomer to life in London I obviously write this article with little knowledge except what I have read in previous copies of Briefing. However what is obvious to me is the stirling work that the Greater London Council is doing. People are naturally critical of some of the shortcomings of the GLC but personally I feel these criticisms are unfair.

Ken Livingstone; and his colleagues have made life in London immeasurably better for many thousands of Londoners. As a student at South Bank Poly I know only too well what will happen if and when the GLC is abolished. My poly, which must make about two million pounds’ worth of cuts, will axe jobs, courses and places resigning thousands of employees, students and _ potential students to the dole.

The GLC has made vital gains and important strides in the fields of -peace, minority rights, and transport policy. It has scored important propaganda victories in areas such as police accountability and

Irish policy.

As Valerie Wise states in the previous edition of Briefing:

‘The ferocity of the Tory attack must be outdone by the passion and determin-

ation of the Labour defence’.

Briefing has a proud record as far as defending and supporting the GLC goes. It also has pointed out to certain comrades the errors of their ways.

What needs to be done now is for Briefing to become even more influentia in these actions. Comrades must now defend the GLC with more vigour thar ever before.

Democracy, as the events in Chile tez years back show, is the only weapon th: working class have to fight back agains the advances of a bold ruling class offersive. The London Labour Party and 2 sections of the Briefing movement mus unite to smash the Tories and the> anti-working class legislation. The fir step is to ensure that the GLC and 17: ILEA. (whatever their flaws) survive :: perform their functions — and to é: able us in London to put our socia> principles into practice.

Michael Calver. South Bank Poly Labour Cur

The number of women on the Greater London Labour Party Executive is still unacceptably low. Only one woman in the trade union section out of a possible 16, one from the co-operative party, four from women’s sections through the CLP districts and five from the CLP areas direct.

At this year’s conference, amendments were put to ensure women were more fairly represented in all sections of the executive.

Amendments to ensure that at least one of the four delegates from each of the four CLP districts and at least four of the 16 trade union representatives were women were lost.

But an amendment allowing eight women to be elected by the Greater London Labour Party Women’s Conference was passed by 510,000 to 238,000.

NEEDS NEC APPROVAL

However, this constitutional amendment needs

The setting was the Lady Diana Suite in the Queen’s Hotel, Brighton, A seemingly inappropriate place for the Briefing fringe meeting especially as the final speaker was “Red Ken” himself — he of the royal wedding invitation refusal and of alternative fun in Crystal Palace and Boulogne syndrome.

He wasn’t on top form — a failure to achieve a synthesis of content and delivery? Suddenly a discordant note was struck as five dissidents held up colour postcards of the Royal newlyweds and broke into a chorus of “God Save the Queen”. The audience was clearly bewildered,

Had five monarchists really paid 50 pence each to sit through two hours of exposition on sexual politics and the AES in order to pounce on “Red Ken” as the arch-enemy of monarchy? The platform showed smiles of recognition about the point of the demonstration, Even the municipal leader himself grinned and seemed to take it all in his lumbering stride. What had he done to warrant such a cacophony of sound and colour? They didn’t even know all the words.

Puzzled by what they had witnessed, innocent by-standers at the scene questioned both demonstrators and the demonstrated against at the end of the meeting. So it came out that the GLC Labour Group had voted by 18-14 to invite the Royal Family to open the GLC’s Thames Barrier — overturning previous policy that the ceremony should be with no fuss, conducted by the Chair of the Council and featuring the Barrier workers.

Ken had moved the change in Group, passionately supported by Tony Banks who painted the scenario of the elderly, disabled and children sailing down the Thames in 200 vessels to watch Royalty open the Barrier — and wouldn’t the publicity be wonderful and wouldn’t it all help save the GLC?

Come on comrades, you can’t use the most undemocratic institution in the realm to save that which tries to be democratic, The “Save the GLC Campaign” has got to be principled not expedient otherwise those who have supported the Labour GLC’s resolve and commitment will begin to wonder where the difference is.

Three Cheers for the Red... White & Blue?

Women and the London Executive

NEC approval. And as yet they have not commented. When the Scottish amendment was considered recently officers ‘‘forgot’’ to present the London amendment. The next NEC is supposed to be considering them. But judging by the antifeminist attitudes displayed by the NEC at Brighton, they are unlikely to be in favour.

If they do oppose, it will be necessary for women’s sections, women’s councils and women’s conference in London to make their voices heard. As once more, grass root democracy is being stifled.

The Greater London Labour Party Women’s Conference itself is on 5 November and as yet nothing has been done by officers at Herbert Morrison House to enable women to be nominated for these 8 places.

NOT A NEW MANOEUVRE

It is, of course, not a new manoeuvre to ensure

THE op SAVE, fA US QUIK; MAKE us VICTORIOUS appy AND... & >

Voting for the Royals

Voting against the Royals

Ken Livingstone

liltyd Harrington Mair Garside John Wilson Paul Moore John Branagan Bryn Davies Tony Hart Andy Harris Norman Howard Jenni Fletcher Harry Kay Ed Gouge Valerie Wise Alex MacKay Gerry Ross Michael Ward Tony Banks Tony McBrearty

George Nicholson Gladys Dimson

Deirdre Wood Frances Morrell

Peter Dawe Lewis Herbert Peter Pitt John Ward Alan Williams

Paul Boateng

John Carr

Simon Turney 16 Members absent

Deirdre Wood

GLC/ILEA Member Greenwich Lesley Hammond

GLC/ILEA Member Dulwich

Andy Harris GLC/ILEA Member Putne

Barrie Stead

London Labour Briefing, page seven.

that any political gains for women are caught ina constitutional ‘safety net’ constructed bs the right. The difficulty of becoming a women's delegate to Annual Conference is a recent example of the Right's bureaucratic second line vf defence.

Women's Conference will need to take action to protect the gains it has won in Greater London and select 8 women representatives as. at least. a temporary measure to ensure that. Women are not disenfranchised for yet another year.

Can women delegates contact me if they “ant more information.

NADINE FINCH

CLP Rep for NE London, GLLP.

Islington goes Briefing!

Islington Labour Left which started to meet again immediately after the election has reconstituted itself as Islington Briefing. The impetus for the setting up of a local Briefing group came fromthe Labour Briefing’s decision to ‘go national’.

Most of those who have been involved with Islington Labour Left over the last two or three years have felt the need for a stronger left focus and greater co-ordination, especially for campaigning. With the scale of Labour's defeat and consequent demoralisation and polarising debate on whether to abandon the leadership or the policies, and with the rise of the nouveau liberal left personified in our new leader and his thinktank crew, unity in action of the whole of the radical left was seen to be vitally important. It was felt that Briefing provided the best forum and organising focus for such united action.

Islington Briefing produces a monthly news sheet and one of the first issues of concern has been the policies of the Council subsequent to the election — what will the Council’s position be on the Government’s rate-capping proposals? Will it fight on more ££££ from central government? Or will it be just on the Council’s right to raise rates? Islington Briefing felt strongly that a campaign must be on the former basis and that the campaign, particularly in relation to the unions, had to start soon. Other questions being discussed are will the Council build mass action in defence of services or just issue leaflets? Is the Council beginning a new softly soft shoe shuffle approach? What should the two CLPs be doing? How can we win support for our policies amongst the community? What about housing repairs? The EEC? Ireland? The new lesbian and gay centre?

Contact Islington Briefing on 278-3854.

Sarah Roelofs Islington South CLP

ISLINGTON NORTH LABOUR PARTY

Islington North Centre will soon be established at 129, Seven Sisters Rd., N7. The Centre will eventually include a Labour Club as welt as providing accommodation for Jeremy Corbyn’s advice bureau. Rooms and the Hall will be available for hire. We hope the Centre will be a central focus for the labour movement in Islington. But we do need money to _make the project a success in the first year. | Send donations to the above address.

London Labour Briefing page eight

Private Tenants Ri

Private tenants represent twenty per cent of Londoners and it has always been Labour’s policy to combat private landlordism: and to champion the rights of private tenants against harassment, high tents, insecurity of tenure and appalling housing conditions. The policies are always contained in election manifestos but when are they heard of once the electioneering has died down?

Councillors in progressive local authorities are now waking up to the need to pursue positive policies for private tenants. The GLC has set up a private rented sector panel, consisting of Housing Committee members and voluntary sector representatives, to formulate a strategy for London’s private tenants, and it is conducting a Londonwide survey of the effectiveness of the Rent Acts. The LB’s of Brent, Camden and Hackney are all developing private rented sector Strategies. Camden’s Strategy is the most advanced, with a Private Sector Sub-Committee with co-opted tenants’ representatives.

Private landlordism, with its exploitative

imperative, is a grossly unsatisfactory form of housing provision. It leads to the oppression and deprivation of tens of thousands of tenants and is in clear contradiction to the principles of a socialist society.

The Labour Party is the only major Party that has the policies to help private tenants. It is up to Party members throughout London to get this message through to tenants so that they

see that the only hope of improving their housing situations lies in the return of a Labour Government.

There will be an unparalleled opportunity for concerned Party members to discuss Strategies for the private rented sector at the first ever ‘Rally for Private Tenants’ Rights’, to be held on 3rd December at the University of London Union. The Rally is being organised by leading tenants’ rights groups, with cash support from LB Brent, LB Camden, Association of Housing Aid and Shelter.

The Rally’ will adopt a ‘Private Tenants’ Charter’ and there will be workshops on the development of local political initiatives, officer initiatives, advice agency initiatives, tenants’ involvement and campaigning at both local and national levels. The Parliamentary campaign is already underway, with Allan Roberts MP planning to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill -in November on private tenants’ rights.

“ The main aims of the Rally will be to develop strategies for local authorities to improve their performance in the private

EVIEW

For the last month, tenants from the exGLC estates in Roehampton have kept up a picket outside their local housing district office. A few regulars are there but the majority have not engaged in direct action before, and there is a willingness of shoppers from the nearby Co-op to join in with the crowd and hold up placards.

The picket prevented Mr Peggey from Grand Metropolitan Hotels entering the office in order to carry out a feasibility study into the privatisation of housing management on their estates — the latest ploy of Wandsworth Council in their relentless privatisation quest,

The pamphlet describes the history of privatisation in the borough, The street cleaning, the dust and gardening service, It describes the failure of the Labour movement to stem the tide, the failure of the unions and Labour Party to agree a

unified strategy against the gains of free enterprise.

Most clearly it demonstrated that this failure has arisen because the receivers of services had not reacted to save them, either because the Council service was inadequate and therefore they wanted to try something different, or because the anti-privatisation campaigns had never penetrated consciousness below the im-

In this way the pamphlet is a helpful exposition of the struggle. What is not brought out is that there is probably an

PRITCHARD

ghts

rented sector, to encourage tenant organisation and to mount a concerted campaign to keep the plight of Private tenants on the political agenda in order to put through legislation that will remedy the abuses in the sector.

For more details about the Rally contact the Organisation of Private Tenants at 30 Camden Road, NWI on 01-267 5328.

Terry Deane, for the Rally Steering Group

Don’t miss the first ever RALLY FOR PRIVATE TENANTS RIGHTS conference. Discuss a Private Tenants Charter. Join workshops developing Private sector strategies.

University of London Union, 3rd December. (£2 waged, unwaged free)

For more details and booking form contact Organisation of Private Tenants, 30 Camden Read, NW1. 01-267 5328.

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mediate workers affected and the politically active consumers. inevitability in defeat in the first stages, This is because the public feel no loyalty to the organisation of the public services to be picked off or towards the workers involved. Their relationship has often been one of conflict and dissatisfaction, The summer of 1983 saw privatisation fail in a big way in Wandsworth and elsewhere. ACAS told Wandsworth the dust workers were too low paid, the street cleaning company knocked up enormous penalties for poor service and the caretakers went on a successful three

week strike against their private employers.

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The greatest gain of all this has been to demonstrate to the working-class in the borough that privatisation fails for them and that they must fight now against housing management privatisation or risk an even greater fiasco in their own services. It has brought worker and tenant closer together,

The pamphlet finished on an optimistic note of willingness to work on previous errors, The Roehampton tenant’s and worker’s success show that the historical lessons have to a large extent been learnt and that the prospects for beating

back the vanguard of privatisation are good.

London Labour Briefing, page nine.

A FIGHT FOR LOCAL SERVICES

Since Thatcher came to power in 1979, local government has been under attack. Already over-stretched services have been cut. and rates and rents have dramatically increased. The pressure that has been applied to local authorities has generally given rise only to largely ineffectual and half-hearted publicity campaigns, such as that to ‘‘Save London From Heseltine’’.

Since the General Election in June we are faced with a worsened situation. In assessing spending levels for 1983/84 Councils are having to calculate the effect of penalties where expenditure is to exceed a Government approved level. In Hackney this means that to finance each pound of expenditure above the Government target, £1.62 has to be raised from the rates to compensate for the effects of Tory penalties. A socialist authority cannot either raise rates or rents to meet expenditure, nor trim services to meet Government targets. The crisis in local government will not wait until the White Paper on Rates limits the rate rises of selected authorities in 1985/86; the crisis is here now.

To defeat the Government, the Labour Movement must both mount a campaign of Councillors, workforce and the CLPs working together, and also gain the support of residents in the Borough. As the recent

strategy conference of the Hackney Labour Parties recognised, both are difficult, some

argue almost impossible to achieve, but both are essential. The urgency of the task must be stressed. We only have until next Spring to defeat the Government on 1983/4 spending and io defeat the White Paper on Rates. The Hackney Conference indicated important points for the campaign.

First, we must be united. We will have divisions in the party over what position Councillors should take when rent and rate evel decisions are taken next Spring. But these discussions must not prevent us eading a united campaign for locally controlled services and facilities, particularly for tenents, the elderly, unemployed and children.

Second,we must be honest. We must not pretend existing services and service delivery are ideal. We must contrast existing services to what the Government would allow. Glasgow’s proposed closure of the main city park dramatically demonstrated this. At the same time we must radically improve highprofile areas of Council activity over the next six months, such as cleansing or street

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maintenance. We must also be honest about Council rents, and stop using them to subsidise rates.

Third, we must fulfil our manifestoes. In Hackney, as in many Boroughs, decentralisation was a key commitment. What more powerful demonstration of the alternatives to Whitehall centralisation than successful decentralisation. Some on-thestreets relocation of service delivery must take place for further community involvement in decentralisation to follow.

Finally,we must campaign. The lousy national campaign organisation is recognised throughout the Party as contributing to the loss of the General Election. We need to have a campaign that involves all party members and reacheg out to others. Our actions must be co-ordinated both at local, regional . and national levels. Labour

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authorities must produce attractive and effective publicity materials. The coordination structure is largely in place. We now need ward-level activity of all kinds (petitions, street theatre, meetings, lobbies, festivals, occupations etc) so that we start to have a popular involvement that demands

co-ordination.

Over the next six months we are not just campaigning to overturn Government policy on 1983/4 rate and rent levels. We are fighting to preserve the principle of providing services on the basis of need, not of wealth. We must campaign with the intensity local parties did in the General Election, hoping that this time our representatives, both local and national, show equal commitment.

Jerry Hughes Chair, Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP

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London Labour Briefing Page Ten

Dismantling the NHS

The health service is now facing the single biggest threat to its existence since it was established in 1948. However, long before the cuts from the

The first step was eagerly awaited, indeed advocated by extreme right wingers such as David Evans of Exclusive cleaning. He is well known for his fascist activity and has spearheaded the present Tory privatisation programme. Many of the prominent Tories who argue in favour of private contractors in the NHS have vested interests and are directors or shareholders in firms which are involved in private contract work.

Crothalls is the company with the biggest input into the NHS. Only about 4% of NHS work is contracted out at the moment but the Tories are eager to increase this. It is not because it would be cheaper.

in Essex, a return to direct labour for cleaning has saved the health authority approximately £80,000 annually. In Worthing direct labour saved about £30,000 a year. The list goes on and on.

The main reason for pushing the contracting out of ancillary jobs is to destroy the base of the health workers that had been the most.vocal and militant sections of the health workers. Those workers who are always first to defend the NHS (arguably the only socialist institution ever secured by the working class in Britain). Ancillary workers have had-a long tradition of fighting attempts to undermine the NHS. Most notably the fight against the Labour/IMF cuts in the late 70’s and the fight for the preservation of. the NHS.

Privatisation in Merton

Determined action by teachers in Merton NUT in refusing to teach in dirty classrooms has led an embarassed Tory Council to sack the private firm, Academy Cleaners. Unfortunately, another private firm has been asked to take over — so NUT members must remain vigilant.

Merton Council — surely the most reactionary in London — has also run into problems with its privatised school meals. Sutcliffes are serving tiny portions in airline containers to many primary children and as a result school meal provision has fallen.

Now the authority has privatised its DLO with 100 job losses. A unified public service union campaign against the use of lump labour in schools and on building contracts will be necessary to destroy the discredited Tory plans.

MERTON NUT MEMBER

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ARE ANS PLANT

The ability of the Tories to undermine the NHS is based on a number of past and present circumstances. 4 million unemployed, lack of leadership among trade union and labour party leaders, antitrade union legislation. But another major factor is the lack of any kind of accountability in the running of the health service. The Labour Party failed to create a structure with any kind of worker/user control. They compromised in the beginning and have been compromising ever since. Under the Callaghan/Healey leadership Labour attempted to restrict and reverse resources and

finance to the NHS and health workers still feel very bitter about their treatment at the

hands of the Labour government during

1979s Winter of Discontent.

The Tories are capitalising on these evenf¥ and are determined to contract at least a quarter of all health service functions in the near future.

Contracting out is done by tender. But, accountings submitted by private firms rarely use fair cost comparisons. They can afford to submit tenders because of the conditions which they expect people to work under. They provide no maternity leave, no holiday sick pay and expect workers to go at a speed which is impossible. For low paid workers private contractors are a return to slavery.

If private contractors win a contract they are under no obligation to take on the workers employed by the NHS. They can pick and choose and would certainly not choose to employ trade union activists.

Hon... NO Co OS URE S AT THE CREMATORIUM | BET...

secret Tory manifesto had been unveiled the Tories had already taken a calculated conscious decision to begin the dismantling of the NHS.

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Health authorities have now been told that they must put services out to tender. Even if they do not want to privatise they must get quotas. Many districts have not opposed this with authority members saying that they are against privatisation but it is only an exercise , so they have not committed themselves! This is a disgraceful position. All Labour party members and trade union members on DHA’s should oppose any connection with tendering. It is the first step to contracting out.

Trade unions are putting out a lot of literature about privatising but there is no real leadership in fighting it and no clear instructions are given to health workers.

We must recognise that we can not fight in isolation on the issue of privatisation. We must concentrate on building links locally and nationally with other public sector workers facing privatisation, particularly British Telecom and the Gas showrooms. I know for example that many health workers are very impressed by the fight spearheaded by the London POEU branches against project Mercury. We must encourage close collaboration and inter-union action including joint meetings, joint leaflets, joint strike funds and joint industrial action.

The way to win the battle against Crothalls. Exlusive, Pritchards and their Tory owners is through broad community and trade union alliances. The welfare state is under threat. The fight for the NHS workers is linked to the figh: for a comprehensive and cheap telephone service and cheap fuel. Build for a policy of socialist services with workers control.

Michael Walter (Hackney COHSE:

@ Bow & Poplar Labour Party Sue Carlyle

London Labour Briefing page eleven

Jenny Fisher

Tower Hamlets Councillor

Last month’s London Labour Briefing carried an article by East London Workers Against Racism, on racist attacks in the East End.

It said the ELWAR ‘is organising defence for these and other victims ofracist attacks’. But there’s another side to the story of f:

ing racism in East London.

The way ELWAR ‘fight racism’ can best be shown by looking at their way of running the campaign to stop the deportation of Afia Begum.

The campaign was organised at ELWAR’s regular fortnightly meetings. It was the major topic of debate there, for a few weeks, and then the meetings turned to other subjects. Some of us, who thought we’d been going to ‘Afia Campaign’ meetings, had to bring her case up under ‘any other business’.

Support in Name Only

ELWAR sought support from the Bangladesh Welfare Association. Some support was given; the BWA shared a platform with ELWAR, for example, but once the BWA’s support had been given in name, ELWAR did not attempt to consult them about the campaign. For example, the BWA did not approve of ELWAR’s tactic of whisking Afia into hiding as soon as the campaign got underway.

From the start, ELWAR Labour Party involvement.

Moves to gain Labour Party support for Afia were made by local Labour Councillors and the Women’s Section (who also organised a petition). Valerie Wise was told of the case, and it was brought up at the GLC Women’s Committee (which gave support and publicity via the Women’s Newsletter). It was raised at the Regional Women’s Committee.

stymied

Labour Group gives support

Afia’s case was raised at the Labour Group meeting, and Group members gave their support. They all put their names to a letter to the Home Office asking for Afia to be given leave to stay. Councillors joined pickets of the Home Office.

Afia’s MP, who was trying to make representations on her behalf, found ELWAR were keeping him in the dark.

Demonstration

The Campaign held a demonstration, where roughly one third of the marchers were Labour Party members. Labour Party members were prevented from speaking at the rally; but a Workers Against Racism speaker told us how ‘The Labour Party’s done nothing for this demonstration’.

The support the Bangladeshi community gave to the March consisted of 2 speakers from th BWA, and one local Bangladeshi councillor. ELWAR’s attitude throughout was that this was

their campaign.

Indeed, at one point, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (admittedly in a moment of anger) said to us ‘You’re trying to take over the Campaign. It’s ours. Why should the Labour Party get the credit if she’s not deported?’

Around the time of the demonstration, the Bangladeshi community was organising pickets of the Town Hall, protesting at a Social Services

Asian family protected by ELWAR

decision on a fostering case. Local Bangladeshi leaders came to Labour councillors for

hlep on Afia’s case. Another aspect ELWAR stressed in the

Campaign was Tower Hamlets Council’s ‘refusal to house Afia’. Yet ELWAR refused to

work with local councillors who had been working to get Afia’s family rehoused after the

fire which destroyed their house, to the extent of refusing to bring Afia out of hiding to be in terviewed by the Housing Officer.

The latest stage in the Campaign has been the ‘Sari protest’, where women have chained themselves to railings. The women do not come from Tower Hamlets; local Bangladeshi women activists have been trying to find out who they are. They come from other parts of

The Tory Mayor of Ealing, Cllr. Hetherington, is in the fortunate positon for a man with a nominal two vote overall majority of knowing that six Labour Counciljors prefer to take his word rather than that of their colleagues — Cllrs. Pathak and Dheer. Both these Councillors heard Cllr. Hetherington make Tacist remarks about the competence of Asian schoolteachers at a school governing body and when the Mayor was asked to explain himself at a full Council meeting on 12th July a vote was taken on the subject of the Mayor’s version of the words spoken.

As each of the six Labour Councillors refused to vote with their group cheers went up from the Tories and the local press praised them at length later that

week. Finally, on September 2Ist, the Labour Group came to discuss the matter.

After ten minutes ‘Next Business’ was

RACISM IN EALING LABOUR GROUP

London: but who they are remains 2 Tssten to people in Tower Hamlets.

Up-to-date

ELWAR have been involved with cthe: campaigns too:

*At a recent well-attended GLC rstin meeting (with 5 speakers from the GLC. including Livingstone and Boateng). ELWAR brought along a woman who'd been racia:.> attacked, to make a complaint. Yet the womer was a Tower Hamlets tenant — not GLC. The Tower Hamlets Assistant Director of Housing - who is sympathetic to the problem of racist attacks — was present. Yet ELWAR kept him. and others, away from the woman, and prevented him from discussing her case with her.

*2 houses in a new row were allocated to Asian families. Racism reared its head; and eventually tenants wrecked a house. The Council publicly stated its policy of allocating to Asian families a certain percentage of new housing, and distributed leaflets to counter arguments of ‘swamping’ and ‘queue jumping’. ELWAR called a meeting; but as it tried to bar white tenants from the meeting, the meeting broke up in disarray.

ELWAR were not behind what the Council were doing; their actions were provocative.

*On a neighbouring estate, Bengali tenants met informally to talk about thequestion of attacks on their estate. ELWAR were admitted only as observers; they had advocated the setting up of a separate black TA, but local Bengalis wanted to join in with a multi-racial TA, and to fight together with other tenants.

People are beginning to realise that some of ELWAR’s actions are actually provocative. They are not building an anti-racist movement of anyone but themselves, which can only be unhealthy. What they are doing is, in some instances, to provide a ‘servicing role’ which should be undertaken by the labour movement. Until the labour movement does undertake this role, then isolated communities will look to organisations like ELWAR.

moved and carried.

All the Asian Councillors stormed out of the meeting in disgust. Subsequently they returned and the matter was discussed but with the recommedation only that the LGC be informed.

Five of the six are senior front bench Labour Councillors and members of a Party which expects the Asian vote in Ealing to support Labour uncritically.

Labour can have no claim on Asian votes if it is ever soft on the issue of racism. Anti-Racist members of the local Labour Party are looking to the LGC for some sign that this Party is really serious and not just mouthing platitudes at election time.

The post-Brighton euphoria means nothing if it sees a continuation of the fine old Labour tradition of papering over the cracks and facing both ways on such fundamental issues as racism and dis-

armament. Ealing/Southall member.

London Labour Briefing, page twelve

Labour councillors visit Palestine

John Connelly and Peter Smith, both Labour Councillors in Hounslow, visited Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza between 3rd and 12th August this year.

Below is an account of John Connelly’s impressions of the situation together with some suggestions on how future solidarity work for the Palestinian struggle might develop within the British Labour Movement in the near future.

As we crossed the Allenby Bridge from the Jordanian side, the ‘Welcome to Israel’ sign which greeted us demonstrated that, whatever the official position, the West Bank has now been absorbed into the Zionist state. The awesome military presence in the border areas served as a foretaste to us of the reality of martial law as experienced by Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

During our visit in which we met many Palestinians of all walks of life, we were impressed by the overwhelming support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation and its Chairman, Yasser Arafat. To the Palestinians living in the front line of Istaeli repression, the rebellion in the Beka’a valley led by Aby Mousa seemed yet another setback for the liberation struggle. Nevertheless, many felt that Arafat’s response, in which he blamed the Syrians for the affair, was an overreaction.

Support for the national struggle appears to be strong in every group within Palestinian society — workers, students, intellectuals and even wealthy businessmen. Although a number of younger militants argued that the class struggle within Palestinian society must accompany the national struggle and not be postponed until after independence, for the majority the prime task is to achieve a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza in the near future.

Mood of Defiance

Despite the suppression of local democracy by the Israeli military governor and the terrorist attacks by Israeli agents on the mayors of Nablus and Ramallah in 1981, the mood of the mayors and councillors we met was one of. defiance and a continued commitment to represent their people. The threat of house or town arrest, imprisonment, deportation or death do not appear to have deterred their political will.

Within Israeli society, a greater degree of disharmony was apparent. Hyperinflation, further military casualties in the Lebanon, and no obvious end in sight to the Zionist state’s permanent war footing have sapped confidence and morale. Although only a small number of Israelis are

as yet prepared to actively support the idea of a peaceful political settlement with the Palestinains, the far greater support for ‘Peace Now’ demonstrates the growing disenchantment with Israeli society. Jewish emigration from Israel has intensified the problem of finding settlers for the new towns being built on confiscated Palestinain land. Perhaps the best measure of disillusionment within Israel is the fact that most of the new settlers are either religious zealots or guntotting thugs such as those from Kiryat Arba thought to be responsible for the Hebron market atrocity in July.

No Change

At the time of writing, reports of Yitzhak

. Shamir’s first speech as Israeli Prime Minister

indicate that no change can be expected in the settlement policy in the near future: — ‘The holy work must continue’. At the same time, there is a financial crisis brought about by the huge defence budget, high costs of the settlements policy, and the growing charges on Israel’s foreign debt now fast approaching 15 billion US Dollars in size. Despite the huge US military aid programme and the large private remittance from Zionists living outside Israel, even the IMF has lost confidence in the Shekel. A social upheaval in Israel seems inevitable even if a short term remedy can be found.

It would be incorrect however to interpret this crisis as an opportunity for the Palestinians. Although military occupation inthe West Bank and Gaza, as well as in the new ‘North Bank’ in Southern Lebanon will continue to stretch Israeli finances, the United States can be expected to prop up her client state in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

-— The PLO is in imminent danger of being

attacked by Syrian forces in the Tripoli area. The split within Fatah is as yet unresolved. The war in the Lebanon provides increased opportunities for greater imperialist intervention in the region as we have already seen. Palestinians living in the occupied territories therefore cannot rely upon significant outside help in their struggle at this state.

What role, then, can the British left play in promoting the Palestinian cause? Clearly, we can do much more than is presently being done. The poor support given to the Sabra-Chatilla commemoration demonstration in London on September 12th is evidence of this fact. Although the attempts by Poale Zion and their

allies to reverse present TUC and Labour Party policies supporting Palestinian self-determination were defeated at this year’s Conferences, we still have work to do to give real meaning to these decisions.

Friendship — Support Committee

Initially, we had hoped that our visit might produce a basis for a town twinning along the lines of that between Dundee and Nablus. However, there are no longer Palestinian towns to twin with. As an alternative, we intend to set up a friendship-support committee in Hounslow. We believe that if Labour Parties, Labour Councils and Trade Union Branches take up the cases of ‘individual Palestinians suffering imprisonment, house arrest or town arrest, this will be much appreciated in the occupied territories and will also help to expose those Zionists in Britain who deny that systematic denial of human rights exists in the area.

We will be glad to provide names of prison-

ers and speakers for meetings on the Palestinian issue.

Tony Benn on

**Briefing’s’’

Conference bulletin

‘*There’s. such an awful lot of paper, and I’ve been attending fringe meetings and giving conference speeches, and so I take them all back and read them after conference. But I try and pick up as much as I can, and it’s a very, very valuable document.

It is an excellent service. From the very beginning when people began using fringe literature, if I can call it that, to inform and educate and not simply propagandise, the conference has become much more meaningful. That sort of paper, an alternative broad paper, is very very valuable indeed.

One wonders, therefore, if Shore’s ““traditional (working class) Labour voter”’ happens to be a fairly young white single ‘married man? IF this is the impression we are left with, then it flies in the face if the recent developments inside the Uabour Party which has seen an inerease in awareness concerning sexism and racism. Clearly on both issues there’s still a great deal of work to be done, but a basis is finally there.

It is due to this growing acknowledgement of discrimination against women and blacks which forces me to put pen to paper. Existing policy towards women and blacks highlights Liabour’s ignorance and backwardness concerning another oppressed group in society, the disabled. Returning briefly to our ‘Labour voter’’, it would appear obvious to suggest that ‘he’ was also whole in body and mind!

Disabled people have not as yet made an impact on society’s thinking in the same way as women’s liberationists or black struggles have. One reason for this lies in the fact that they have not formed for themselves a common identity. It is only fairly recently that groups such as the Liberation Network for people with disabilities were formed. A common feeling, even amongst many spokespeople for the disabled, is that they are too feeble to speak for themselves. It is this stereo-type image of a hapless cripple which dominates society’s attitudes towards the disabled. I want to show how this applies to the thinking and also the policy of the Labour Party.

THE PARTY CLOSES ITS EYES

The question of employment is one of our major concerns. Unemployment is well over three million and it is generally recognised that women, blacks and the disabled are more likely than most to appear in the dole queue. Labour’s Programme 1982 states that disabled people face an unemployment rate 50 per cent above the average and are three times more likely to be Part of the long term unemployed. Perhaps what is more remarkable is what the programme doesn’t say. It is here where the Party closes its eyes,

The section on people with disabilities comes after those on women and blacks. The first striking feature is the sudden change in language and terminology. It would appear correct to speak of ““A woman’s equal right to employment’’ and “Equal opportunities for black workers’’, but the concept of ‘‘equal opportunities for disabled workers’? workers doesn’t apply. Instead, disabled workers are promised that ‘The next Labour government will introduce measures to provide fair opportunities for disabled people.’’ (my emphasis) Now the basic reason for saying ‘fair’ and not ‘equal’ is due to the fact that prospects for employment are reduced by the person’s disability. This is the official view of those who “‘deal with” disabled people. Whilst a person’s handicap does have an impact upon their opportunities, nevertheless, research has shown this to be less of a problem than is generally accepted. Likewise, both Tory and Labour governments have played down the importance of such studies. With such a narrow view of disabled people’s capabilities one would rather not hazard a guess at what fair means!

So, if ‘equality’? doesn’t apply to disabled people, then neither does the idea of “positive action’! Positive Action Initiatives were to be part

London Labour Briefing

The disabled: we are organising!

Since the defeat in the ’83 General Election the right inside the Labur P. Election Manifesto. The first issue under attack was, of course,

radicalism shown in Labour’s Programme 1982 prompted Peter Sh and away from the policies aimed at the ‘minorities”’

Page Thirteen

arty has attacked the policies contained within both Labour's Programme 1982 and the that relating to nuclear weapons. The right, however, wasn’t only upset about this. The ore in his leadership bid to insist on a return to the interests of the traditional Labour voter

- In other words, Shore does not like the image of a campaigning Party which takes up issues such as women’s rights, equality of opportunities and single parents as major parts of the Party’s programme.

ee

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a a a “is. Sake, at ¥

Blind trainees receiving at Letchworth Skillcentre. This is the only course of its kind in

the country.

of a Labour government’s programme to reduce under-employment amongst women and blacks and caused through discrimination and _prejudice. Labour does not offer the same approach or analysis towards disabled workers. Not only is positive action missing but there’s no acknowledgement of discrimination and_preJudice against us! This is the biggest problem we face: yet Labour turns its back! It is important to realise that disabled people need antidiscrimination laws for the same reasons — materially speaking — as do black people.

It is still legal to refuse a job because someone is disabled even when that person can prove themselves capable of doing the job. Even the Department of Education and Science does it! The problem is, of course, if one says that discrimination exists against disabled people, then one upsets the goodwill sought amongst employers. This is the foolish approach that Labour adopts. Perhaps if these leaders of ours swapped places for a few days, then they might wake up! ™

Deep down the idea is that disabled people need looking after and need ‘‘help’’. The ‘thelp”’ offered usually means the loss of the right to control our own lives. How often do disabled people have doctors, social workers and Disablement Resettlement Officers telling them what they can or can’t do? Often it is considered wrong to say you disagree with the ‘‘expert’’ who is, after all, ‘working in your interest’’,

This attitude informed the backbone of the Employment (Disabled Persons) Act of 1944. Labour’s programme is only a continuation of this. More D.R.O.s promise Labour. Apart from the bloody awful name, one is left wondering whether the role of the D.R.O.s is adequate or right for the 1980s. Personally speaking, I feel the whole system is outdated and increases the stigma attached to disabled workers. Pm not against disabled people having special information services and assistance, but this should be there if the

disabled person wants it. Many disabled workers are forced into the ghetto provided by the D.R.O.

Labour’s promise of capital grants for adapting premises and other ideas such as Job Introduction Schemes are good, but there's room for improvement. Information for employers is still weak. Not enough disabled peopic ure employed in the field to offer personal experience.

CRUEL FARCE

This leads to the final policy statement, Labour's new legislation was to include a quota system. When will they learn? The existing quota system and Register have been seen to be nothing short of a cruel farce. The BBC, however, provides the best laugh on this subject. A reporter wanted to do a report on the misuse of the quota was immediately told not to. Why? Well, it wouldn't look right. Why not? We ignore it ourselves! No, quotas are not the answer, comrades!

It is time the Labour Party stopped pussyfooting around, Disabled people are oppressed and the Party only aids this situation by denying the facts. A new approach is needed where we are no longer treated in a patronised way and our views are heard. Stop talking for us and allow us to speak for ourselves, Support is urgently needed for anti-diserimination legislation, We must take up the question of rights for aif disabled people and oppose the means testing and unfair systems which exist in the Welfare Benefit system, Issues such as mobility are far from satisfactory (oo,

Most ofall we must stop using the throw-aw ay eatch phrase of Labour MPs who harp on about “the sick, the old and the disabled’, We, the disabled, are not going to allow society or the Labour Party to treat us like an afterthought. We are organising.

R.B. Findlay L.P.N.D.

Labour Party Photo Library

London Labour Briefing, page fourteen

Write about the campaign for gay rights in the NUT, he said. I didn’t know where to start, till I remembered my old catchphrase, ‘the personal is political’. So...

For a start, it’s still bloody hard to be openly gay in our society. The Bermondsey byelection illustrates this truth bitterly. Peter Tatchell had been a gay activist for years yet he didn’t stand as such, reportedly on the advice of his local party, advice in which he acquiesced. Can a labour movement that demanded such a silence of Peter Tatchell begin to understand what is involved in any gay rights campaign?

INTEGRATE THE STRANDS OF OUR LIFE

Before a lesbian or a gay man can take part in political activity we have first to come to terms with our oppressed sexuality — in a process measured in tears and years. We then have to try to integrate the various strands of our life. For instance, I’m committed to my teaching, to trade unionism and to gay liberation — all important to me. It is difficult to strike a balance, but I believe it is truer to try to'do so than to deny one or more of my elements,

The battles don’t end there .. . while I no longer think that if we all came out together capitalism would be brought to its knees, lesbians and gays who seek to come out in all spheres of our lives do make a radical challenge to our society, even to its left wing! With honourable exceptions (Briefing being one), the Labour Party, the trade union movement and other sections of the left pay only lip-service — if we’re lucky — to the defence of gay rights.

-That both Labour Party and trade unions in their indifference to and neglect of gay rights mirror attitudes in society at large is a cause for depression, Where is the boldness, the commitment to liberation, even to fighting censorship? Why for instance has the labour movement abandoned PIE to the jackals? Even if the argument is eventually resolved in a way PIE may not like, the issue

raised is fundamental — the oppression of children (in which we as teachers play our part) — one of the last great wrongs.

It’s in the light of all this that one should see the campaign for gay rights in the NUT. Because of prejudice, gay people in education seek a low profile. Few have managed to come out to any extent at school — to colleagues, let alone pupils. The result: extremely few gay activists willing to campaign in the NUT; and a correspondingly greater need for allies/supporters.

COMMITTED TRADE UNIONISTS TOO

Most of the activists in the Gay Teachers movement have been (and are) committed trade unionists too — and mainly in the NUT,working in or with organisations like Rank & File and Socialist Teachers Alliance,

From 1977 compaigning has focussed on getting NUT local associations to pass the Gay Teachers’ Group model resolution, asking the Union locally and nationally (a) to defend gay teachers discriminated against, and (b) to work for curriculum changes for positive representation of homosexuality. This resolution has been passed by various local Associations, more each year. It is slow, frustrating but essential work

For the last five years gay rights has been raised at Annual Conference. Fringe meetings and interventions on the conference floor make more local Associations aware, so work here is useful. But Conference is controlled and dominated by the National Executive who with the Secretariat at National HQ constitute a bureaucracy tending to inertia and selfperpetuation, resisting and stifling change. Gay rights, like abortion and disarmament, are perceived as dangerous threats, not seen in terms of the needs of lesbian/gay teachers to be defended by our union from discrimination or helped by it to lead lives of openness at work, or of tesbian/gay pupils to a meaningful curriculum (and other pupils to a curriculum that dispels prejudice).

* DOMINATED CONFERENCE

Bizarrely, gay rights dominated Conference this year, not originally thanks to our campaigning, but to the choice of venue: Jersey, where male homosexuality is still completely illegal. The Executive’s pig-headed refusal to change or apetogise led to the case for gay rights being put powerfully and extensively,

Stop the Deportation of the Hasbudak family!

The Home Office has ordered the deportation of Mr and Mrs Hasbudak on 2 November to Turkey. They have lived here for eight years, and have two children Zeynep (7) and Fatih (5), both born here. They have only just received a council flat in Hackney after living in one room throughout all these years.

The ‘Stop the Hasbudak Deportation Campaign’ was formed in October. It already has the support of the local Labour Party and some trade unions. A picket was

held on 20 October, including by many children and parents from Zeynep and Fatih’s school, William Patten. A petition is circulating and further demonstrations are being planned. If you can help please write to the campaign c/o William Patten School, Stoke Newington Church St., London N16.

Halya Kowalsky Hackney North CLP

Gay Rights in the NUT

But if it is to be more than a passing storm, for the Executive and the left, if there is to bea genuine campaign for gay rights, several things are necessary: activism at local and national level around particular demands, coupled with creating conditions that make lesbian/gay

liberation more attainable. The agenda may be clear, but the will to implement it has been lacking.

Write about the campaign for gay rights, he said, No, You join it.

Although it may be too late now to puta motion on gay rights to your GMC for

the London Labour _ Party Conference, we urge our supporters to increase the chance of a debate on gay rights at that Conference by amending resolutions on other subjects to include gay perspectives.

Some examples of suitable amendments are given below.

Social Security Conference calls upon the next Labour

government to introduce legislation to ensure that, for social security purposes, all individuals are treated equally and independently regardless of sex or marital status and that the concept of the liable relative is ended.

Media Conference condemns the overwhelming

bias of the media against lesbians and gay men, and calls upon the next Labour government to introduce legislation entitling gay organisations to the right of reply to attacks in the media.

Housing Conference calls upon the next Labour

government to end discrimination against single people and groups of people other than nuclear families in the allocation of council housing. Furthermore, we call for cohabitees of either the same or the opposite sex to be given the option of a joint tenancy, and that the right of succession to a tenancy on death should apply to any surviving cohabitee regardless of sex.

Women Conference calls for an end to all discrim-

ination against lesbians in employment, housing and social security. Conference recognises the rights of lesbians as parents and calls for an end to discrimination in cases of child custody.

Education Conference recognises the responsibility o:

schools and colleges to cater for the needs or gay pupils, and to this end calls for:

(a)an end to all discrimination against ga: students and teachers;

(b) the experience of lesbians and gays to te

reflected in school syllabuses; (c) sex education to include positive mater-+

on homosexuality.

Armed Forces Conference calls upon the extension

existing acts to cover the armed forces and 2" further legislation to include this area.

Health Conference demands that Gays ~-

Lesbians receive equal treatment throuz”: the health service and condemns the Thz:=" government for promoting the idea th: virus AIDS has anything to do with Gs: ~~ style and its callous decision to rene support research into AIDS.

Labour Campaign for Gay Rust

Lesbians and Gays:

London Labour Briefing, page fifteen

We will not be invisible

No-one really expected the likes of Roy Hattersley to be enthusiastic and consistent in his support for ‘exotic’ issues like lesbian and gay rights but those of us who have been raising these issues in the Labour Movement for many years did have rather higher expectations of the kind of socialists who write for London Labour Briefing. It was a shock, therefore, to read three articles in LLB No 33 on local democracy in London, none which mentioned the hundreds of thousands of lesbians and gay men who live here. Particularly disappointing was the fact that two of the articles were written by Valerie Veness of Islington Council and Valerie Wise of the GLC, two of the councils which had appeared recently to be genuinely supportive of lesbians and gay men. Most significant of all, however, was the fact that the Defend London Charter of the Association of London Authorities has a section on Equality of Opportunity which refers to sex, race, colour, belief and handicap but 7o/ to sexual orientation. This omission is a serious one which casts into doubt the credibility of the whole campaign.

Conventional forces tell us that 10% of the population is homosexual. But if that figure is correct, the percentage of lesbians and gay men living in the London area is much higher. For 300 years and particularly since the First World War large numbers of lesbians and gay men have migrated to London from all over Britain and Ireland. In part they sought the anonymity of the capital city to enable them to develop their own sexuality:but they also sought the companionship, both sexual and otherwise, of people like themselves.

Until the last decade or so even lesbians and gay men who were active in the Labour Movement tended, along with everyone else, to take the view that sexuality was a private matter. More recently, the selfconfidence which lesbians and gay men have variously gained from both the Women’s Movement and the Gay Movement has meant that the specific oppression which we experience has been made visible in the Labour Movement. We have made it clear that we need the cultural space to be open about ourselves and to develop our sexuality and our own relationships.

Nor, having come out, are we prepared to accept the oppression which society heaps on us. We need, like everyone else, jobs and job security. We need to be able to walk the streets free from harassment of both the police and privatised queerbashers. We need equality of treatment in public services eg education, health, arts. We also have made it clear that the greatest barrier to what we need is the prejudice, which is found inside the Labour Movement as well as outside of it, and which contrives both to abuse us and to make us invisible. Until an attempt has been made to tackle that prejudice it is impossible even to quantify the extent of the oppression suffered by lesbians and gay

men.

With the election of the Labour GLC in 1981 and a number of other Labour Left councils eg Brent, Greenwich, Islington in 1982 it began to seem as if the voice of lesbians and gay men was at last to be heard in the Labour Movement. For the first time that | can recall, men on the gay male scene who were not political activists could be heard discussing a politician (Livingstone) in terms of his politics. It was an enormously hopeful period with enormous potential for the radicalisation of communities which had often been alienated from and even antagonistic to Labour politics. It may have been a brief period. The media has, of course, been virulent in its attacks on Labour for its support of lesbian and gay rights. The clearest example of their hate campaign was over Bermondsey and Peter Tatchell. Local papers such as the Islington Gazette and the Standard have vilified the GLC and Islington Council over these policies. The Daily Mail went a step further and used theses policies as a justification for scrapping the GLC. Asa gay man, I am not inthe least surprised by the quality of these attacks by the media. The prejudice that both inspires and is engendered by these attacks is, of course, one reason why so many lesbian and gay men find if difficult to come owt. No-one with any degree of political awareness about lesbian and gay oppression should have expected otherwise. |} would certainly have expected the leaders of Labour’s Left to be aware of it and to be ready to resist it. But first we saw the unseemly haste with which the Bermondsey Labour Party looked around for a visibly married man to replace Peter Tatchell and now we see the ALA attempting, to restore lesbians and gay men to their traditional invisibsbity.

I find it impossible to believe that the ALA, in all its collective socialist wisdom, just happened to overlook the lesbian and gay community. It seems far more likely that a decision was made to defer to prejudice and to drop all reference to a group of Londoners who are now seen as a political embarrassment.

The decision indicates a particularly shaky grasp of sexual politics. One of the most important parts of Thatcher’s platform has been her sexual politics with its emphasis on the family in relation to the Welfare State, home-ownership, youth unemployment, the declining wage levels of women, the Falklands war and so on, The Thatcherite family unit rigidifies traditional gender roles and also makes it much more difficult for young lesbians and gay men to come out. In the current atmosphere of fear, many peoplewithdraw into what they believe will be the warmth of the nuclear family unit largely because they can see no alternative. Wil! the Labour Left offer them an alternative to Thatcherite sexual politics? An alternative in which all people will have the right and the opportunity to determine their own sexuality and their own non-destructive lifestyles? Or will the Left alternative simply be Happy Famities in pink as opposed to Thatcher’s Happy Families in blue?

If such a decision has indeed been made then it augurs very badly for the so-called campaign for local democracy. If one commitment can be dropped so easily, what will be the next concession? Surely all socialists know that if they allow their enemies to define the terms of reference of a campaign then the enemies have won before the campaign is even started. If the ALA and the whole of the Labour Left is serious about its campaign for local democracy, then it must resist the pressure to make the lesbian and gay communities invisible.

Bob Cant (a member of the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights and the Tottenham Labour Party.)

NO SOCIALISM WITHOUT GAY LIBERATION '

London Labour Briefing, page sixteen

Dear Comrade,

NUT LEADERSHIP BLOWS IT

‘When teachers lobbied a Schools SubCommittee meeting Labour members, including “radicals” like Andy Harris refused even to speak to them,’ wrote a teacher at Scott Lidgett School in last month’s Briefing. This is factually correct.

What however was not stated is that on two separate occasions Wandsworth teachers had lobbied their councillors outside school hours on redeployment, and having listened we were fully aware of their argument. On the third occasion the Schools Labour Group took a decision that it would be wrong to meet teachers taking unofficial strike action that we felt to be unreasonable and unjustified.

I stick to that decision.

When the left won control of the Inner London NUT earlier in the year many councillors looked forward to a close relationship based on a radical approach to education.

Quite honestly so far the new NUT leadership have blown it. They’re all over the place, tacitly supporting many unofficial actions, pitching unmeetable demands on the ILEA and failing to get their proper negotiating act together.

All they’ve succeeded in doing is pissing off virtually the entire ILEA Labour Group and causing NUPE to move a successful motion at the Regional EC calling on the NUT members to drop their unofficial action and join in the defence of the ILEA.

The money ILEA has got to improve teacher conditions and thus education provision for the school students lays untouched as unofficial action is substituted for serious negotiation.

if the NUT members have so managed to alienate and harden the ILEA Labour Group isn’t it about time they reflected on tactics and also recognised that their leadership’s failure to bring home any of the ILEA goods on offer for their members may well be alienating many of the NUT members who voted them into office.

Yours fraternally,

Andy Harris GLC/ILEA Member, Wandsworth,

Putney.

Representation of ethnic minorities Dear Comrades,

All committed socialists passionately fight

racists and their fellow travellers. Discrimination by default is something else. Briefing comrades who feel that no stone should be left unturned will take note of the following resolution which is circulating widely within the movement:

‘In view of the fact that 50% of people working on London Transport come from the New Commonwealth and 15% of its users are from the ethnic minorities, Finchley CLP expresses its amazement that not one of the 6 GLC nominees for the Board of London Transport is from the ethnic minorities.

Finchley CLP reaffirms its solidarity with comrades in the Party who fight to ensure adequate and genuine representation for ethnic minorities in British society.”

Yours fraternally,

Colin Shindler (member of Finchley CLP)

Hello Comrades,

1 feel I must respond to some points Tom O’Malley raised in his article in October’s LLB. While agreeing with his attacks on Capital(ist) Radio, | must part company when he makes assertions against the idea of setting up new stations in London. At present, the GLC is considering a document that recommends that the Council should campaign on behalf of community radio. Groups will be encouraged to seek to set up both London-wide and neighbourhood stations on the vacant frequencies available. Tom O’Malley rejects such a strategy, believing that they are commerical radio stations in disguise and preferring more public regulation over the existing services.

' believe this viewpoint contains many misconceptions. For instance he seems to think that the present number of stations is somehow fixed. With the advent of cable and satellite TV and the growing cheapness of pirate radio transmitters, pressure will build up to release the empty wavebands for the use of more stations. Therefore the question is not whether London will have more radio stations, but when and of what type? The real question is what does Tom

O’Malley see as a desirable structure for a radio |

station. He is an old-fashioned pseudo-socialist in the Fabian or Stalinist mould, mistaking state monopoly for working class power. He calls for stations controlled by the state, free of advertising and private interests — but we already have a service of this type, its called the BBC!! Trapped in the false dichotomy of state versus private control, he fails to notice a third alternative. This is allowing any new station to be democratically run by the people who work at and use its facilities. The community radio movement merely wishes to apply ‘the principles of workers’ cooperatives and self-management to those production processes associated with the mass media. People who advocate this solution are fully aware of the difficulties such community stations are likely to face, both financially and politically. However, even in the capitalist jungle of America, such services have provided a real alternative source of news, views and entertainment. Tom O’Malley’s suggestion of ‘‘programme-making units’’ seems a poor substitute, condemning any reformed radio services to go down the road of Channel 4. For if the programmes do not own the station, they will never be able to control it. From there, it is but a short step to the enforced consensus of the present set-up.

I think that the Labour Party and the GLC should reject the pessimistic conclusions of Tom O’Malley. Instead they should reaffirm their sup-

port for ideas to democratise the mass media, especially the plans for community radio now being considered by the GLC. FREE THE AIR WAVES!

RICHARD BARBROOK, (Hampstead and Highgate CLP)

For further information about the GLC Local Radio Forum, write to Room 190A, County Hall, LONDON S.E.1.

‘How To Be a Radio Pirate’ can be obtained from OUR RADIO, Box 103FM, LONDON WCIN 3XX, price 50p plus P&P.

APPRECIATION TO BRIEFING...

Dear Comrade,

The branch has recently passed a resolution expressing appreciation for the useful service played by ‘London Labour Briefing’ to the Socialist movment in London and has agreed a donation of £10 to assist in the present acute financial difficulties.

Keep up the good work please find cheque for £10 enclosed.

yours fraternally,

Saul T. Ackroyd (West Hampstead branch)

...And more appreciation

Dear Comrade,

It must be 1] year since I took my first subscription of ‘Briefing’ I therefore enclose a cheque for £20 to cover further subscription for 1 year, ‘enrolment’ as a briefing supporter and the balance as a donation.

May I say how much I appreciated the past 12 issues and the effort that must go into producing

the paper. Briefing really is a beacon of light in these troubled times.

yours Steve Rand.

| ETHNIC MINORITIES/LABOUR MOVEMENT CONFERENCE

The Labour Party’s GLC Ethnic Minorities Working Party wants to know your views

SATURDAY 29th OCTOBER 1lam to 5pm

Priory Community Centre, Petersfield Road, w.3

Morning: Plenary Session on ‘Defend the GLC’ with Paul Boateng, Richard Balfe, Vidya Anand and Bernie Grant,

Afternoon: Workshop sessions on: Confronting Racism, Black organisation in the Labour Movement, Employment, Education and Training, Housing and Health and Women’s Rights,

Children and Adoption: - IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE

TO THE NUCLEAR FAMILY?

I work for a small voluntary adoption agency which specialises in finding homes for children who are ‘difficult to place’. All the

children we work with are ‘in care’ to a local authorit

Sometimes efforts have been made to find alternatives for them like a home with friends, relatives or a foster family, but these have failed. The childrens who are most difficult to find altennative families for are those who are physically or mentally handicapped, children over 11 and large groups of brothers and sisters who need to be placed together.

It is so difficult, that before this agency was set up children like these simply were not adopted. Social workers thought that no-one would choose to care

for a handicapped child, for example, and so they remained in Homes and Institutions which doubly handicapped them by depriving them of their emotional qieeds as well. We believed that there were people who would like to care for such children but that they wouldn’t come forward unless we publicised the need.

LYNNE

Lynne was born a spastic, quite unable to walk and very limited in what she can do for herself. Her parents looked; after her at home and when their marriage broke up, all the children including Lynne remained with mum when she remarried. But mum died when Lynne was 9 and no-one else in the family or in the neighbourhood felt able to look after her. She was taken to a special home for handicapped children, miles away from everyone she knew so it was difficult for her to be visited. She was desperately upset about her mother’s death — her whole world had collapsed — but she knew that she didn’t want to stay in a Home for the rest of her life. What she wanted was another family. The local authority thought it was practically an impossible task. Two years went by and Lynne got to 11 before someone thought of us. Another year went by before she came to the top of our waiting list and she was 13 before we found her a family in the form of a single woman with unusual talents and gifts which dove-tailed with Lynne’s needs. This story has a happy ending because she has now been

adopted and, with all the security and love that this brings her, has finally settled in and developed a sense of belonging again.

Lynne knew what she wanted when she was given a choice, but if the choice isn’t there what chance does a 9 year old have of influencing the system? Our

y with no prospect of ever returning to their parents.

service is to her but traditionally adoption has been a service to childless couples,

A married woman rang us up a few months ago in a very distressed state, She had just had her first child and decided that because the child was so handicapped she and her husband could not contemplate caring for her. She was very upset about this but her misery had been increased when she found out that her local authority did not try to find familjes for such children and she knew clearly that a family was what she wanted for her child. Through sheer persistance and determination she discovered us with our beliefs that all children have the right to a family and our record of achieving this speedily.

Perhaps if she had known other par-

(CONTINUED OVER)

oT ee

London La

Briefing Page Eighteen

The Editor, Streetlife Supplement, Briefing.

Dear Sir,

I have decided to resign as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Not because I am ashamed of my relationship with Sarah, On the contrary, I am resigning because I cannot be both a Cabinet Minister and care properly for my son. Yes, after three daughters I am now hoping for a son.

Mary, Emma and Joanna are all grown up now. I regret that I didn’t spend enough time with them when they were babies. ] was the dashing businessman and I left most of their upbringing to Ann, my wife.

Comment from my colleagues has been pretty predictable, Most of the MPs whose wives live in the country also have affairs. Being a father is something extra — proof positive that you’re a bit of a lad. I also hear awful puns. I am reminded that I’m following in the old Victorian tradition of the Master having his way with the housemaid, then sacking the shameless hussy when she conceives.

Sarah knew she. was pregnant before the election. I could hardly resign then. I originally believed I could give up the Chairmanship and take the post Margaret had lined up at the Board of Trade. I was then sure I would be satisfied with making financial provision for the boy’s upbringing. You know, a nanny, prep school and all that. Then I realised I didn’t want to pay someone to offload my responsibility. I mentioned that I missed my chance to be a proper parent when my daughters were young. I want

CHILDREN &

ents of handicapped children, together they could have demanded a service for themselves and their children locally.

ISOLATED IN NUCLEAR FAMILIES

But in our society we are isolated in individual nuclear families. If the family can’t cope alone we are seen as inadequate and the social services descend to take the problem out of our hands. The result is that we are moving into a situation where the state is taking more and more control over our personal social services. The state in the form of social workers, probation officers, psychiatrists and doctors is developing a power over our lives which no isolated individual or nuclear family can fight.

We need to recognise that it is the

another chance, while I am still pretty fit and active. To be honest, fighting the Falklands war and a general election is fun, but gallivanting to Japan and South Korea by jet to sell Maestros isn’t. Furthermore, babies do wake up in the middle of the night, and it wouldn’t be fair that Sarah should always be the one to get up. You can’t go to the Ministry in the morning if you’ve been up all night. Parliamentary duties aren’t so onerous. With our majority only half of us have to turn up at any one’time and we won’t have too many all-nighters. Besides, I could take the baby to the House — as soon as he’s off the breast. If your women MPs can do it then why not me? We are the Party-of-the-Family after all. P’'ve heard some of your lot complain that the changing facilities aren’t too good, We'll soon change that. And why not a creche as well?

LETTER FROM CECIL

The Rt. Hon. Cecil Parkinson, MP., House of Commons, swil

You might wonder why I’m writing to your journal, I’ve always liked Briefing for the internal Labour Party gossip. 1 was hoping to read more of the same in your ‘Streetlife Supplement’. By the way, why do you call it “Streetlife’’? There isn’t much life in my street in Potters Bar, I was hoping to find out who Neil Kinnock is having it away with or what else Ken Livingstone or Michael Meacher did at Labour Party Conference. We all know what goes on at conferences, Not a word! I presumed you didn’t know what happens, as you are not usually inhibited in what you print. However, although your articles were by people no-one I knew had heard of (maybe they were pseudonyms?) they struck a chord. I too was trying to make two relationships work. Or, to be more precise, moving from one relationship to the other and back again. Who knows where it will end? I doubt if its all as easy as you suggest.

Its quite a step that I’m taking. No cabinet minister has ever resigned to look after a baby. I still half wish that I could take my baby to a Cabinet meeting. Plonk him in Norman’s lgp. But it wouldn’t be fair. Perhaps my, example will lead to childcare being taken more seriously. I’ve often suspected that we men could do the job better than many of the young girls anyway.

I would welcome your advice. Please write to me at the House.

Yours sincerely,

Ceci] Parkinson

ADOPTION (CONTINUED)

nucjear family structure which is in- .dequate to meet our needs.

What we want is a society where the isolating and oppressing nuclear family is broken down. Then we can join forces with others whose needs are the same, to put real pressure on the agents we employ to be more responsive to our needs, To provide services of all kinds within a framework where the consumers are the only arbiters of what services are needed and through which all professionals are made totally accountable.

Central to my working life is the belief that the emotional quality which can be found in family life is better for children than Homes or institutions. 1 don’t believe though that it is only the nuclear family that can provide it.

It is important that we don’t throw

out the good with the bad in our efforts to revitalise and radically alter the basic building block of society which is the

family. We need to keep as central our understanding of the importance o: commitment to each other. Whethe: adults or children we all need the securit> that this gives us. But we don’t need th male favoured way that this works out ic. practice where women do all the nurtu:- ing. For true equality women need :: break down their isolation and fir: solidarity with other women.

We need to break out of monoge= | which keeps us isolated within the fax and take the first steps towards fulf-_-+ our needs and those of our children ~:~: collectively.

HILARY ALTON

REVIEW:

SEX & LOVE

I had been looking forward to the publication of this book for some months now.

At a celebration of Sue’s life after her death in February of this year, her coeditor read a passage from Sue’s chapter in the book entitled ‘Duty & Desire: Creating a Feminist Morality’.

‘Obviously there is a limit to the amount which we, as individuals or collectively, can change in one generation, We cannot reconstruct ourselves overnight as beings free from possessiveness, jealousy, pain loss (and do we want to, anyway? As beings with only rational emotions, would we have lost something in the process?) What is desirable, even assuming we could’ all agree on that, is bound to be limited by what is practical,

However, a realistic appreciation of the limits to change imposed both by Surrounding circumstances and the past in our own heads and hearts does not let us off the hook of responsibility, And I assume that as feminists we would not

want to be let off. We have already taken

responsibility for our own lives, by defining and rejecting our oppression and struggling to create new worlds and new ways of living. Our politics would have no

meaning if we did not believe that there is.

scope for change and that we can make changes, And I believe that the creation of a feminist ethics is important on every level of politics. In the arena of our own lives and relationships it is important because this is the most immediate sphere of action, If we cannot maintain our personal search for better ways of living, then we are failing ourselves and those we love, But I also believe we shall be failing the human community generally. Our individual actions create ripples which extend beyond our own field of vision.’

This made a very great impression on me as it raised for me some of the issues I had been turning over in my own mind recently in attempting to practice my feminisiu in an alternative way in my every day life.

Sexual love relationships

The editors say in their introduction that this book “is about sexual love relationships: what we bring to them: the strengths, the problems, the dilemmas we experience within them; our hopes of how to change them .. . The anthology as z @=lle is 2 tarticularly feminist fusion mit: elect, theory and pracad lat TIS is written by both les- | Leterisexuzl anc bisexual women. whole range of ex-

writes about falling in love, Angela Hamblin writes about long term relationships with men, Lesley Saunders writes about sex and childbirth and two women describe their relationship with each other and Tricia Bickerton writes about women

living on their own and not being part of a couple. Lucy Bland writes about how women throughout history have had their sexuality proscribed for them by men and how we can begin to change that. The feelings of love, dependency, sexual jealousy and powerlessness weave their way throughout the book.

Politics and - Personal

During the late 60s and early 70s many in the women’s movement and on the Left generally, began to question the ways in which we lived together and brought up our children, But the connections between our politics and personal

lives have remained more or less totally separate. And this is the theme which the authors of Sex and Love are looking at: the ways in which our emotional, sexual and child care needs can be met in different ways outside of the nuclear family.

For most of us a discussion on our family and sexual relationships has more immediate relevance to our daily lives

than traditionally defined ‘politics’. We spend a lot of time thinking and talking about problems with our lovers, children,

London Labour Briefing Page Nineteen

‘Sex and Love. New thoughts on old contradictions.’

Edited by Sue Cartledge and Joanna Ryan.

Published by The Weomen’s Press.

mothers and fathers, What connects all of us as human beings is that we have very similar needs for love, security, affection and stability and what the authors of this book try to do is to find other ways in which our needs can be met without being at the expense of oppressing others. For instance it describes how our love and sexuality is used against us and oppresses us within patriarchal structures. It’s about the imbalance of power between people, generally by men over women and how that imbalance has up till now dictated and imposed upon us our whole emotional, psychological and physical environment, This book reflects some of the changes we are beginning to make in our lives to alter that. These changes which we started to make for ourselves, hopefully will benefit my/our daughters and other women’s sons, so that whether my daughters define themselves as lesbian or heterosexual, they will be able to express their sexuality on their terms and be able to give and receive all the love, security and stability that they need from a wider group of friends.

Many of the problems that are dealt with in this book have been written about in the Streetlife Supplement and a meeting to organise a conference to discuss and develop feminist alternatives to the nuclear family is being held at Lewisham Labour Club, 9 Limes Grove, Lewisham SE13 on Tuesday 22nd November at 7,30. Anyone wishing to help plan the conference is welcome.

The conclusions the authors made is not that we’re against falling in love, not against sexual relationships with men, only that we’re against the structures in which these sort of intimate close relationships usually take place. It’s not a matter of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but of retaining the love, the intimacy, the sexual relationships, but’ finding new structures within which our

needs can be met. = ANN BLISS

MEN AND CHILDCARE A day workshop for women, young people and men.

At the Drill Hall, Chenies St., WC1. (off Tottenham Court Road) 10am - 6pm Saturday, November 26th Registration Fee: £1.50, £1 (UB40).

Creche Provided. Access for wheel chairs.

Help will be given, negotiating the stairs. A few suggestions for discussion:

Domestic violence and male sexual abuse of girl children. The oppression of women in the family, The effects fathers have on our lives, and our sexual and social identity. The construction of gender and sexuality. The politics of childhood, children and adultism. Male sexuality. Changing the nuclear family.

Organised by the Men and Childcare Group For further information contact Dick, 326 0240.

London Labour Briefing, page twenty

BEING RESPONSIVE

Dear Streetlife, Surely partners in a relationship should be responsive to each other. When they stop putting in time and energy then their relationship has ended. Women object when men give less than they take.

In “The Theory of Gossip” article (July) that Michael Knight commented on in his October letter | was expressing (amongst other things) my sorrow that my relationship was ending. Perhaps men ought not to feel sorrow at such loss or ought not express such feelings? What would be your reaction if your marriage ended, Mike? “Oh well, mustn’t grumble. Mustn’t take her time and energy.”

Rather than endorse ‘alternative lifestyles’ my article was very sceptical about them, I now feel bitter that I suspended my cynicism that my ex-over and her husband really would ‘break out of their monogamous relationship.’ Perhaps they were wise and saw the continually damaging turmoil in the lives of friends who have ‘broken out’? Yours,

Bernard Misrahi

WOMEN AND MENTAL HEALTH

Dear Streetlife,

I’m enclosing a notice about a Women and Mental Health group set up by women who have had dealings with the psy chiatric facilities, ‘mainly. as patients, and are campaigning for'a different approach to mental health, particularly as: it affects women. The majority of people who spend time in mental hospitals are women, and more likely to be working-class or black women: than middle-class white women. The tréatment is still likely to. be drugs and ECT with very little therapy, and mental hospitals. are still ill-provided compared, with general hospitals.

Do you think it would be useful to have a Street-Life Supplement on the issue of mental health, as it is. still a ghettoised. subject. Women who have had breakdowns often find it difficult to talk about, as other women and men look at them’:as ‘though afraid they might be infectious ‘or something. The police are entitled to put someone suspected of being mentally ill under a Section, which deprives ther of all rights, and they can be removed to ‘a place of safety’ without

_ Published by London Labour Briefing, 23

Leghorn Road, London NW10. Printed by Wernham Printers Ltd (TU), Forster Rvad, London N17.

cant

Oct 26-Nov 26 121 Roman 01 980 6256

Tuesday 6

Wednesday to Saturday II-6 Buses:8 8a 106 253

Tube: Bethnal Green

the need to consult a doctor or social worker beforehand. This kind of power can easily be abused, and needs questioning. Yours in comradeship, Jan Wallcraft

PS: Women and Mental Health group can be contacted c/o Box 21, Sisterwrite, 190 Upper Street, London N1.

We hope to take up Jan's suggestion of a Supplement on mental health in two issues time.

NEXT ISSUE

In the next issue of the Streetlife Supplement we will be continuing the theme of childcare to allow more time for people to submit their articles. The issue after that will be on mental health (see Letters). We welcome other suggestions for themes for future issues.

Articles, letters etc. for the next issue should be sent to Jane Stockton, 110 Agat Grove, London NWI by 7th November.

An exhibition in two parts: A section on DIY montage drawing on a wide variety of work to provide an analysis and description of the processes involved. Followed by a number of bodies of work utilising processes and themes through a variety of media, using photomontage for specific purposes and. dealing with particular issues, all with the purpose of challenging accepted notions of the world represented through images.

Also; “Changing the Face of 1984” a course on photomontage with Cath Tate: from 12 Oct 6-9pm ten sessions. Details on 01 980 6256

panoni

Road Bethnal Green London E2

Typeset by Bread 'n Roses (TU), 30 Camden Road, NW1 and by Folrose Ltd (TU), % Gifford Street, London Ni and by Lithopem 329 Upper Street, London N1.

CRUISE MISSILES:

WERE NOT BEATEN YET!

The Cruise missiles are the best educators for CND. Remember that they cruise around the countryside. That’s their whole purpose: the Russians are not supposed to know they are there. So you’ll be driving along a country lane one day, and find a cruise missile trundling along. The appalling danger in which that puts this country, the extent to which we are exposed as a target, or risk being the victim of an accidental explosion, will be clear.

Nobody, but nobody, should feel that because they’ve got here, that means we've lost.

CND has got to go much more political. I understand that it can’t be linked to the Labour Party as such, and nobody is suggesting it should. But there is a danger that, almost as if it were a political party on its own,it might think it would be more popular if it toned down its message.

There would always be a CND spokesperson in any discussion on the media, like a churchman who is supposed to be in favour of peace — but CND would lose its cutting edge. Moral revulsion against killing, and arcane and sophisticated discussions about weapons technology, are no basis for a peace movement. The peace movement has got to be much more political, much more international, linked much more directly with the struggle of workers for other things like homes and jobs.

I think CND will make a very great mistake if it doesn’t make a much sharper edge in its campaign. If tffere is any suggestion that it’s dropping its opposition to American bases and going for the freeze, I would say I’m in favour of the freeze, but it’s a remedy for America. For us, it’s a nonnuclear defence policy and getting rid of the bases.

So I think CND has quite a big political decision to take, and I very much hope, that obviously, with its degree of support around the country, that it maintains its cutting edge and indeed makes it more explicitly political in character.

However, it’s very important not to have a campaign of competitive purity, with some people saying that others have sold out in any way. There will be a multiplicity of responses and the most important thing is that those responses, because they are multiplied and varied, don’t turn against each other, because to split the peace movement now must be the prime objective of the government and NATO, and therefore we need an acceptance that

by Tony Benn

you're going to have a diversity of response, and each will support the others as far as they honestly can.

What was interesting about the Brighton conference is that it just reconfirmed Labour policy. There were some people who said ‘‘let’s drop it’’, and all the rest. Yet the Labour Party remains quite clearly a unilateral nuclear disarmament party.

However, even the Labour Party has got to shift beyond

simply being in favour of giving up a particular weapon. I think the next stage for the Labour Party is to move towards non-alignment; a different foreign policy which breaks with the stranglehold of the rest of Western foreign policy, which is simply a backup for American global military and economic interests throughout the world. I hope one thing comes out clearly on October 22: that after the long campaign against Cruise, its arrival should not be treated as a defeat. It’s the next stage in the campaign.

a vr eee

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 2

EXPULSIONS ARE A DISGRACE

The expulsions agreed at this years Conference area disgrace to the labour movement. No one should be expelled unless they stand against official Labour candidates. The charge against the Militant tendency is that.they are a party within a party. Isn’t it strange that only the Left is accused of this, though we all know that there are organised groups on the right such as Solidarity. The expulsions were therefore on political grounds. In fact, all expulsions I can remember have been expulsions of left wingers. I remember, when Conference was controlled by the right, Konni Zilliacus, MP for Gateshead being expelled —« because he didn’t support party policy. There must be no more expulsions because they are wrong. And because they are wrong they create divisions not unity. We need a united movement to defeat the Tories and get a Labour government elected, committed to socialist democracy and the working class. You cannot have socialism without democracy, and Z 1 ; it is not democratic to expel people with different ideas. If we don’t ) : like particular ideas, we must defeat them with better ideas. Instead of attacking our own people we should be attacking the : : Tories, the real enemy of the workers. And if we think we will ap- a e pease our enemies by expelling a few Marxists, we are wrong. It ia o will only whet their appetite, and they will try to push us further

along the road of expelling our membership.

JOAN MAYNARD

The fight to defend Wythenshawe against the NEC continues. We lost at party conference on referring back the NEC report on suspension, but the moral victory was ours.

Sam McCluskie from the chair was possibly the only person in the hall who thought our motion was lost on a show of hands. Ours was the only anti-witch hunt item not to be put to a card vote because we had received such good support amongst the unions that it would have embarrassed the NEC. Lastly, Russel Tuck, reporting for the NEC, was forced to concede that no one will be excluded from the reconvened AGM on November 4th.

We are convinced that if we had been able to reply to the NEC allegations and point out the lies in Russel Tuck’s report, we would have received even more support.

While winning Russel Tuck’s promise of an open AGM, we were still worried that it be conducted properly. We don’t know which unions have newly affiliated under national agent David Hughes’ one-person reign over the constituency for the last six months. We don’t know how many new members we have signed up. But we do know that on March membership and affiliations that a clear majority would: support the constituency officers against the NEC. We are concerned that this may be reversed by back door moves.

For example, the EETPU delegation have in the past supported the officers. We know now that another EETPU branch is trying to send delegates who aren’t even

RUSSELL TUCK’S LIES: WYTHENSHAWE REPLIES

Sheila Gray

members of that branch. Chapple has tried to do this before in London. He shut downa branch which wouldn’t do what he wanted.

Wythenshawe are in the process of organising a conference to discuss these issues that have confronted us for the last five months, and in all probability will confront other Labour Parties in the near future. What is happening in Manchester is important nationally.

The NEC has already created two labour groups on Manchester City Council by expelling twenty six councillors who have

LABOUR _AGAINST THE WITCH HUNT

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

CAMDEN TOWN HALL,

SUNDAY 26 NOVEMBER

Open to all affiliated Labour Parties,

wards, women’s sections, trade unions,

young socialists, socialist societies and to individual affiliates.

Speakers include Audrey Wise Alf Homes, Chair, Wythenshawe Labour Party

For affiliaton, delegation, etc., write to: The Secretary, Keith Lichman, 11 Wilderton Road, N16 or phone (01) 802 1709.

defended party policy of no cuts and rent increases. Proceedings are taking place against another seven councillors, asking them to give unequivocal statements that they won’t go against the labour group whip (in Manchester that means they agree to vote for cuts against party policy).

If the NEC are serious about party unity they should stop the proceedings and readmit the twenty-six. Otherwise, with two opposed Labour groups, the NEC will be encouraging the right wing to put through policies in coalition with the Tories and the Liberals. On top of that, what will the NEC do next if the Labour councillors outside of the group outnumber the official labour group?

We need a conference to campaign against NEC interference into CLPs and district parties, and in particular to defend the Manchester Labour Party. Wythenshawe has been the scapegoat in Manchester to scareoffothers in Manchester from selecting those councillors who best represent the Labour Party and its decided policy. It hasn’t worked yet, but we don’t know what more is to come. What we do know is that the NEC have been taking extreme measures to prevent yet another industrial city being won to radical positions such as implementing party policy and defending services.

ALF HOMES Chair, Wythenshawe Labour Party

For information contact: Clir. Alf Homes. 39 Mullacre Road, Benchill, Manchester 22.

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 3

A few thoughts on my expulsion

TARIQ ALI,

For almost three years the NEC denied that I was a member of the Labour Party. Then they decided to expel me, a decision ratified by the block vote at the Labour Party Conference. The vote itself (3,493,000 to 1,670,000) indicates that the bulk of the CLPs as well as some unions were opposed to the decision, but that is not the heart of the matter. What has happened, in reality, is that the Broad Church wallahs have laid down the limits of the dissenters they will tolerate within their ranks. Former Tories are welcome (indeed the Hornsey and Wood Green Party recruited one such person not long ago); disillusioned SDP careerists will be greeted with open arms; repentant racists will find no bar to entry. It would appear that only Marxists are regarded as a dubious category, despite the ‘act that

many dead veterans of the party cut their first political teeth in the ranks of the old Social Democratic Federation.

On closer scrutiny it would appear that Labourist barriers only go up when a particular type of Marxist is concerned. I have no doubt that Professor Eric Hobsbawn, star performer at the Fabian Society this year, the toast of Guardian columnists and Financial Times \eader writers, would have no problems in joining the Hampstead Labour Party. Has not Kinnock referred to him as ‘the most sagacious Marxist in Britain’ or words to that effect. In short there are legal Marxists like Hobsbawm, Rowthorn and Martin Jaques who pose no problems whatsoever. They want a coalition from Edward Heath leftwards and call for the return of the SDP to the ranks of Labour. All three, men are, in fact, members of the British Communist Party and represent its extreme right fringe. Socialism has become an unattainable utopia as far as they are concerned. The middleclasses loom large in their horizons as the saviours of modern civilization.

It is those of us who still believe that capitalism needs to be abolished; that Britain is a class society and that the working class has not disappeared, despite the periodic structural changes it is undergoing today; that socialism will mean the expropriation of the expropriatets by the majority of working people; that NATO is an immoral agency for the defence of imperialist interests and that Labour should become an explicitly socialist party and aim to campaign for socialist principles; it is we who are regarded as pariahs to be kept at a distance. Russell Tuck stated openly that the reason for my exclusion was that I remained a Marxist committed to socialist democracy. ‘He did not say’, Tuck continued, ‘that he supports parliamentary democracy.’ I have consistently said that I am in favour of a vigorous Labour presence and majority in Parliament. What is at issue is how socialism will come about. Kinnock argued in a letter to The Guardian defending the decision to exclude me that ‘socialism would only come about through repeated parliamentary victories.’ This is akin to saying that it will never happen. Why did the 1945 or 1966 Labour Governments not push it through?

The point is that the transition to socialism can be aided by a parliamentary majority, This would give the process the necessary legitimacy, but its implementation will require a massive mobilisation from below on every level. Parliament has no control over the Armed

Forces. If the situation ever arose would the British equivalents of Pinochet and Zia defend a socialist government against the native ruling class? The very notion is laughable.

What is doubly entertaining is that

Conference did consider the question of Tariq Ali’s membership — sorry, it’s his expu/sion now that the NEC have doubts about their ability to refusemembership. We tried a reference back of the page in the NEC report which talked about the ‘Authority of the NEC to expel an individual from membership of the Labour Party being clearly defined in the constitution’. We didn’t, of course, win that reference back. On a card vote we got some unions on our side, along with the CLPs, with 1,600,000 for reference back and 4,000,000 against. Somehow the 1,600 membership of Hornsey and Wood Green paled into insigificance when those kind of block votes were weighed against them.

The NEC did reveal — in the person of Russell Tuck — that they had scheduled a meeting with Tarig Ali at their October NEC meeting, before they continued with their procedure. In the newfound spirit of Party Unity, this meeting could, of course, discover what a reasonable person Tariq is, and they didn’t really mean it after all. Or they

Tariq Ali expelled

Messrs. Tuck, Golding, Hattersley, have made it clear that they believe in a benign capitalism. Do any of them really believe in Clause Four except as a necessary decoration? Yet they are in the Labour Perty and lam not.

In itself my expulsion is an irrelevant footnote. There are more fundamental issues at stake. Will the attempt by the ‘dream-ticket’ to return to an old-style Labourism succeed or will the CLPs and the trade-union Broad Lefts recover from the defeat at Brighton and move forward in the years to come. What if Kinnock can not qualitatively improve Labour’s standing at the next round of elections. Will this indicate that a further move to the Right is needed before the ruling class is truly pacified. The battle of Brighton did not take place because capitalist democracy had already ensured that Benn and Livingstone were not in the new Parliament. The ideologues of British capitalism have not yet finished with the Labour Party. In that sense these are still early days. Socialists in the Labour Party and the trade unions have a lengthy struggle ahead. It is the outcome of these future battles that will be decisive in shaping the pattern of working class politics in the coming period.

could go on, with the mandate of conference to pursue his expulsion to the bitter end. If expulsion is the conclusion, then we are faced with how they'll carry it out and how we can resist. Hornsey and Wood Green has vet to discuss the potential developments,

Whatever the outcome, the story so far is one of intolerance from the NEC and other members of the Party who talk of the only place for socialists being /# the Labour Party, fighting for our polices and against the common enemy. When those socialists start coming in, however, the tune changes and the NEC start looking for ways to get them our, despite their having agreed to accept the objects and programme of the Party. It’s the NEC who have picked the fight over Tariq Ali for the past two years. We must ensure that we don’t sacrifice our principles and stand on the new found altar of Party Unity.

DIANA MINNS Secretary, Hornsey and Wood Green (in a personal capacity)

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 4

FIGHTING FOR A CHANGE

Jo Richardson, in her speech at the Women’s Action Committee Rally at Annual Conference, voiced the views of a growing number of women in the Party when she said that we would no longer accept the situation where women were not able to play their full part in the Party, and that

the fight for change had begun. Far from feeling deflated by defeat women have begun to feel the strength of solidarity and the whole campaign for women’s rights in the Party is beginning to broaden out to encompass every aspect of the Party’s structure.

Over the coming year there are a number of areas that need tackling.

First, and most important, we must build the CLPD Women’s Action Committee into a broad-based country-wide campaign so that we can fully represent the views and aspirations of all radical women in the Party. This has already begun to happen with our decision to hold meetings in as many different parts of the country as possible and to encourage the setting up of regional WAC groups which can develop their own campaigning strategies and build membership, rather than being led from London all the time. Already women in a number of regions are finding the need for such organisation; the recent problems that our sisters in Scotland have faced in trying to get the NEC to agree to changes in the composition of the Scottish Regional Executive have highlighted this need and it is imperative that this becomes one of our priorities over the coming months.

Second, we must start work now for next year’s Women’s Conference and Annual Conference. As far as Annual Conference is concerned we will be hit by the three year rule on some of our main campaigning issues; we need to plan our strategy now to maximise pressure on the Party on this issues and to develop demands which we can take to next year’s Conference. We must also plan now who our candidates for the Women’s Section of the NEC are to be. The ludicrous fiasco of this year, where we didn’t even have five women to vote for, let alone five women we could really support, must not happen again. And next year it must be women who put forward the first list of likely candidates NOT men. This will mean putting women’s names forward and then working hard to ensure that they are delegates to Conference so that they can stand. And on the subject of women delegates to Conference — we must have MORE. This year there were fewer women delegates than last year, and a number of constituencies who wanted to send the additional woman delegate allowed for in the Party’s rules were unable to do so because of bureaucratic manoeuvring. Next year we must ensure that we submit water-tight cases for additional women delegates and that as many parties as possible do so.

Third, we need to maximise our strength on the National Labour Women’s Committee, and on the Regional Women’s Executives. Radical women in all the regions need to get together to discuss who their candidates are to be for these bodies — another reason for regional WAC groups! If we can form a strong group on the National Labour Women’s Committee we will be able to fight for the implementation of Women’s Conference policy at the highest level and

not just from on the sidelines as we have to do at present. But it isn’t only the implementation of the policies that is a problem. It is also Knowledge of what those policies are. Because no written report is produced containing the decisions made, we are denied a history. Each year everything happens afresh — and is forgotten once Women’s Conference is over. Knowledge is power: knowledge of our organisation’s policies will give us a platform from which to fight — which is of course why we are denied a report of our Conference’s decisions. We need women elected to the NLWC who will fight for a report of our policies so that we

can then fight to implement them. /* . . . Last, we must not ignore what is going

on in the other sections of the NEC as far as the election of women is concerned. There are still no women in the Trade Union Section — a situation which is a disgrace to our movement, and there are only two in the Constituency Section — Jo Richardson and Audrey Wise. And have you noticed who always comes bottom of the poll in the Constituency Section! It’s obvious isn’t it — Jo Richardson and Audrey Wise. We must expose the incredible depth of male chauvinism in the Party and more importantly on the left. Why the hell should Jo and Audrey always come bottom! I suppose we will be told the same old story we get about women being selected as Parliamentary Candidates — you have to be elected on

your merits, as a socialist, etc. etc. Well I’m sick and tired of this phoney argument and will not accept that Jo and Audrey are any the less socialist than the five men above them — in fact I think that in many respects they are more socialist! But they, like the rest of us, are discriminated against because they are women and it has got to STOP. It also isn’t good enough that they are the only two women in sight in the Constituency Section elections. We must work to get more left women standing — and then get them elected.

There’s a long way to go for women in the Party, but the most encouraging thing is that the will for change amongst women is there in abundance — and change there will be!

WAC can be contacted at: 39 Caldervale Rd., London SW4,

WAC ‘Women discover your strength’ T Shirts £3.50 and badges 20p available from above address.

WAC AGM Sunday Dec. 4th. County Hall, London SE1.

WAC postcards and Bulletin (containing articles about WAC and its demands, information about the positions of the leadership contenders, and much more!) available from 89 Woodside Gdns., London N.17. £1 + 20p p&p.

Mandy Moore Tottenham CLP

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 5

Organising the fightback

The Labour Left is in considerable disarray following the Tories landslide victory in the General Election, and the subsequent replacement of Michael Foot and Denis Healey at Conference. Reaction to these bruising defeats has been defensive: in fact, far too defensive. One gains the impression that large sections of the Party wish to forget the experience of the past ten years, and long for the return of the simple life before our innocence was destroyed.

The Party has shifted sharply to the right, mirroring the right-wing shift in public attitudes which has been successfully generated by the government. In this hostile environment it is not surprising that the Party should have responded by electing the Kinnock/- Hattersley ticket: their election has been due to fear at what the future might hold, a simplistic concern that our leaders should perform prettily on television, and, it must be said, a defeatist attitude towards what are regarded as ‘vote-losing’ policies such as unilateralism, opposition to council house sales, and withdrawal from the EEC.

It is remarkable that Mrs. Thatcher’s government should have not only succeeded in defeating the Labour Party at the polis, but also in changing its leadership. The Tories also seem, by their election victory, to have found the abilitiy to shift the Labour Party’s policies to the right, 30 that they appear to be in step with the new consensus of populist and reactionary attitudes. Is it not remarkable that an avowedly socialist party should find itself ander pressure to shift policy rightwards at a time when the chances of reconstructing welfare capitalism grow slimmer every day?

The New Landscape

There is a new contour to the landscape of the Labour Party. It is plain that Neil Kinnock will seek to lead from the front, and legitimise changes in policy and direction by the use of the block votes of the big unions rather than by any fundamental change in the political ideology of the Party and trade union activists. Just as Attlee and Gaitskell dominated the Party Conference by being able to count on the unqualified support of Peaking, Lawther and Williamson, so Kinnock and Hattersley will rely on the block votes of the TGWU, GMBATU and AUEW in order to push their views forward. This strategy is, frankly, likely to stand a good chance of success given the distance of time which now separates 1983 from the experience of the trade unions under the last Labour Government. It was that distrust of the last Wilson/Callaghan government which enabled the Left to split the block vote monolith and change the Party. The conditions for again achieving that kind of success are temporarily in abeyance.

What Must be Done?

We are in complete agreement with the new leadership of the Party in stating that victory at the coming general election is crucial to the interests of working people. But we want that Labour victory to bea genuine victory for socialist ideas, which will give really practical backing to the implementation of a socialist manifesto by that government.

We also give notice that we are not willing to give up those socialist ideas be-

cause of opportunism by the leaders. Nor are we prepared to tolerate the pathetic and damaging witch-hunt of Party members which played a major part in destroying unity and so undermining our election chances. If the new leadership is prepared to support the existing socialist policies of the Party. and stop the grey apparatniks of witch-hunt wartare in their tracks. then they will receive genuine support from all sections of the Party.

The likelihood is, however, that such a commitment will not be forthcoming. Kinnock wants one development more than anything else: freedom for the leadership trom commitments. It is the thread which links his attitudes together: and the left must change this policy of the ‘doctor's mandate’ because it is the antithesis of our tradition as a programmatic party which calls on its leaders to implement a specific programme when they have the chance in government.

Rating our Chances

The Labour Left’s. voice is now less powerful than it was just two years ago. The trade unions have been deradicalised because of mass unemployment and political pressure from the government. Tony Benn is out of Parliament. The constituency Labour Parties have shifted

Labour Party Photo Library

somewhat to the right because sections in the centre have capitulated and collapsed to the right. The old alliance of CLPD, ‘Bennites’ and left groups has broken down; but, paradoxically, the PLP has shifted to the left under the pressures of reselection. In short, an effective alliance of the left has to be reconstructed.

Objectives

It is not easy to predict the terrain on which the battle will be fought. But we would be ignoring reality if we ignored the crucial value of radicalising work in the trade unions; and here the importance of workplace branches is central. We must prepare to defend policy against raids from the right, and to be plain in our opposition to witch-hunting tactics if they are tried.

In one sense the left is in a strong position. The Party can not now be governed amicably without the consent of the left: and that will be discovered very quickly. if attempts are made to test our resolve.

But defence is not enough. The Left has made some serious mistakes in the past decade. In the next ten years we must build a more collective leadership that is not so dependent on individuals; we must cease to think in purely organisational terms and begin to popularise socialist ideas: and we must not be defensive about Party policy. Policy is just frankly inadeqaute over public ownership and the financial sector. NATO, civil nuclear power and women’s rights.

The PLP still needs bringing under control through democratic changes. And we still need to make considerable progress in persuading the Party that it is legitimate to link the struggles of industrial workers with the politics of the labour movement.

Time is short. We have probably two clear years to re-organise the left. win rational support for our objectives, and then win the movement. The prize at the end of it: a new kind of Labour Government wholly unlike our experience of the jast 20 years. And that is worth fighting

for. by Reg Race

Nanonai Labour Bnefing Supplement, page 6

RATES: THE TORIES’ STRATEGY

The Government’s White Paper with its proposals to ‘cap’ the rates of selected local authorities has received considerable publicity in recent weeks. What the media have not explained is that the White Paper represents part of a two year strategy by the Tories against inner city Labour local authorities. The first stage of this strategy is to use the existing legislative framework to force selected Councils to make large rate rises in 1984. The second stage is to use the new legislation outlined in the White Paper to ‘cap’ the rates of selected Councils in 1985, with the Government confident that popular support for these Councils in any struggle with central government will be minimised by the high rate rises that they have levied in 1984. The purpose of this article therefore is to explain both the current legislative framework applying to Labour Boroughs setting their budgets for 1984/5 and the proposals for rate capp-

ing in the recent White Paper.

Heseltine while Secretary of State for the Environment introduced a series of legislative measures designed to strengthen central government control over the total volume of local government expenditure and over the ability of individual local authorities to spend more than the Government wanted. The legislation changed with bewildering rapidity in response to opposition and practical problems in implementation, but now consists of two main control mechanisms; the Grant Related Expenditure Assessment (GRE)/Block Grant system and the system of targets and penalties.

Each year the government determines within total proposed public expenditure the level of current expenditure which it would like local authorities to undertake, and the overall level of support it is prepared to give local authorities with this expenditure. Under the Tories, central government support to local authorities fell from over 60% of total expenditure to 52.8% in 1983/4. The majority of this support is distributed through the block grant system. Thus total local government current expenditure for 1983/4 was estimated as £22,307 million and £8,730 million was distributed to local authorities as block grant (£3,052 million was tributed in other grants).

Highly Subjective

This total block grant is then distributed to individual local authorities by reference to GREs. An authority’s GRE is, in theory, an assessment of the amount the authority needs to spend to provide a standard level of service and is the total of the GREs for different Council services. Thus an authority with a larger than avcrage number of old people should have a higher than average Social Services GRE for the elderly. In practice the needs assessments are highly subjective and open to criticism that they are biased against the inner city areas. For example, Social Services GREs make no allowance for the fact that in inner city areas the scope for volunteers to work as home helps or provide meals on wheels is much less than in country areas. 26 out of 32 London Boroughs, including most Tory Boroughs, spend in excess of GRE.

Having set the GRE for each authority the government determines what is a reasonable contribution from ‘he rate payers. This is done through a highly complex system designed to even out differences between authorities with high rate bases and ones with low rate bases in

DON’T CUT THEM OFF! Home telephones for the elderly in Hackney.

order to ensure that all local authorities will levy the same rate poundage if they spend to their GRE. Thus an authority like Westminster with a high rate base should get less block grant than an authority like Hackney, as it is assumed that the ratepayers’ contribution in Westminster is greater. If an authority spends above GRE, grant for this additional expenditure tapers off rapidly.

Targets and Penalties.

The Government found that the GRE/Block Grant system did not have the effect it wanted and introduced the system of targets and penalties. Each year as well as setting a GRE for each authority it lays down a target, normally determined in relation to previous year’s expenditure. If an authority spends above target it becomes liable to penalties, that is its block grant is cut. Some authorities like ILEA whose spending is well above target receive no block grant at all, so high are their penalties. The system

means that an authority budgeting above target has to raise from the rates money to compensate for penalties as well as money to finance the extra expenditure. For example, to finance each pound of expenditure above target in 1983/4 Hackney council had to raise £1.62 from the rates to compensate for the effect of penalties.

Use of these control mechanisms, GREs and targets, enables the Government to force local authorities in a position of having to make large cuts or large rate rises.

The White Paper on Rates

The White Paper published in August outlines the Government’s plans to limit the rate rises of selected authorities from 1985/6. The scheme envisaged has three stages: selecting authorities for rate limitation, setting levels of expenditure for the authorities selected, and translating the expenditure level into a maximum rate. Authorities with budgets under £10 million (mainly Tory) are excluded from the scheme.

David Hoffman

A new campaign is about to be launched in Oxford against further privatisation of the refuse service. South Oxfordshire has some experience of the true cost of this latest Tory fetish. On April Ist 1983, the District Council handed over refuse collection to Pritchard Industrial Services, despite warnings from its Chief Technical Officer Mr Malcolm Campbell. He expressed the serious doubts as to whether this least exPerienced of the tenders had fully appreciated the extent of the service required, especially in urban areas (Oxford Star 3 March 1983). However, the lure of a promised annual saving of between £150,000 to £200,000 per annum was too much.

Pritchard’s plan for South Oxfordshire was to use only one depot at Wallingford, cut the workforce from 59 to 43 and vechicles from twelve to nine. Dust collectors were to work a nine-——hour day instead of eight. Pritchard’s naturally offered new contracts to the then redundent direct labour-force. Initially they turned the offer down. The attitude of the District Council to what had been a loyal workforce can only be described as shabby. This and the derisory basic redundency payments of one week’s money for every year of service, had ‘eft them feeling very bitter. However 2conomic necessity forced many to accept Pritchard’s job offer, although after several months of operation, the labour is now mainly casual.

In the year preceding the year when rate limitation will apply the Goverment will select those authorities who will be affected. Seleczion is likely to depend on a number of factors including degree of ‘overspending’ in relation to GRE, recent trends in expenditure compared with other authorities, staffing levels, levels of rates, and performance against guidelines set by the Secretary of State.

Having selected local authorities the Govemnment will lay down the expenditure level on which their eventual rate limit will be based. An authority which considers that it cannot contain its expenditure to the level set will be able to seek derogation from the Secretary of State, who may set a higher expenditure level if he is satisfied that a good case has been made, or set a lower level. In granting a derogation the Secretary of State may extract undertakings

from the authority concerned, for example, that ‘value for money’ studies are carried out.

About December of the year before rates are set the Secretary of State will notify the selected authorities of the rate limit which he proposes to set based on the expenditure level which has been established and he may take account of any balances which the authority has accumulated. If the local authority does not accept this rate limit the Secretary of State can set an interim limit while he considers further representations but if agreement cannot be reached he can set a maximum rate by order through Parliament, and the local authority will have no power to levy a higher rate.

The White Paper also contains proposals for the Government to control rate in all authori-

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 7

Private rubbish in Oxfordshire

But the story hardly stops there. Since April there has been an avalanche of complaints reported in the local press. The District Council, which retains its statutory control of the contractor through a system of fines, has been forced to use its powers several times. As early as the 8th April, one local resident, by his own admission ‘a strong believer in private enterprise and denationalisation’ wrote to the Oxford Mail complaining about the mountain of garbage outside his gate and disparaging the new arrangements.

On the 26th April villagers in Towersey near Thame, threatened to sue the Council for non-compliance with its statutory duty under the 1936 Public Health Act. Malcolm Campbell ‘soothed’ the protestors, saying that things were improving and complaints getting fewer. In May complaints were still coming into the Council offices at the rate of 50 per day, admittedly an improvement ona staggering three hundred a day in the first few weeks.

By August of this year Pritchards had been fined at least five times by the District Council and 20p had been wiped off the shares of their parent company. Their response to all this was to lean heavily on the workforce. The Oxford Mail reported one of them as saying ‘the boss has told us he wants to see us run’. Safety standards are now ignored in the new rush for efficiency.

ties should this be considered necessary.

The Government has now set provision targets for local authorities for their 1984/5 budgets representing cuts of up to 6% in cash terms (and therefore more allowing for inflation) on their 1983/4 budgets. In order to maintain services while complying with the law therefore some authorities will have to raise their rates by much more than the rate of inflation. Yet it is precisely these authorities. including most Labour London Boroughs, who are likely to be hit by rate capping in 1985. What these Labour authorities will have to decide is whether to fight on the Government’s terms against restric~ tions on rates in 1985 or to fight this Winter for more resources to meet our needs and if necessary refuse to set budgets on the Government’s

termé*

Hugh Flinn Vice-Chair Hackney South CLP

Read Socialist Student Articles by Tony Benn, Sarah Veale (NUS Deputy President) and Tony Dale. Copies available at 1 0p plus postage from Bryn Griffiths, 35, Quebec Street, Brighton, Sussex.

Socialist Students In NOLS DAY SCHOOL November Sth Discussing the newspaper and the NUS Christmas Conference. For further details contact: Jane on 01-263-9484,

Chris Morgan (West Oxford CLP)

Vechicles are overloaded, which is not only unsafe but incurs a hidden cost in terms of increased wear on roads. Dustcarts are left uncleaned giving an added health risk. Council regulations on _ safety and operational practice are broken regularly. Not that these things would evoke much response from the Tory Council. What it cannot ignore is the still constant flood of complaints concerning the service. And several weeks ago, this most accomodating of Councils, warned Pritchard’s that it was coming close to having its services terminated.

The Oxford Campaign aims to show ratepayers that privatisation is expensive, to point up the political fetishism of the Tories and develop political awareness of the benefits of the Direct Labour Organisation. When privatisation was first proposed it went under a different title. The rallying cry of the tories was then ‘Lakerise Local

Government’—a slogan more prophetic than they could have known.

For adequate

ereche facilities!

There is an obvious and urgent need for the Labour Party as a whole to provide adequate creche and care facilities to get maximum participation at its meetings.

It is unworthy of a major political party avowedly devoted to the cause of improving life for everyone to discriminate against parents and those responsible for infirm people.

What is required is a network of helpers in each geographical area, both qualified and unqualified, to assist and run creches at every meeting or to organise and run a baby-sitting/care service.

Labour Briefing asks that those with experience, ideas or the need for such schemes to use the pages of this journal to build the basis for nation-wide action against this discrimination.

Doug Bailey

Stoke-on-Trent (central) CLP Andy Platt

Stoke-on-Trent (North) CLP

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 8

FIGHTING FO

The National Health Service offering free treatment at the time of need has radically altered health care for the working class. It is now in the forefront of Tory attacks and it is up to the working class to defend it. Thatcher, keenly aware of the strength of public feeling about the Health Service could not just come out in a manifesto and propose to abolish it — although that is certainly the intention. Instead there has been a constant sinister erosion of growth and development. The introduction of cash limits in 1979 meant that Health Authorities could no longer overspend and be bailed out by central government. The fact that nearly every authority, before cash limits, did overspend showed that no government has even given enough priority to giving the NHS sufficient money to run properly.

In their first term of office the Tories cut as much as they gauged to acceptable to the electorate. Instead of the nationwide massacre we are now seeing, they engaged in local skirmishes — mostly in London — making bed losses and hospital closures look like ‘local’ issues. Last year at the height of the pay dispute when it really was clear how much support the NHS could get Thatcher retrenched. When the Think Tank report was embarrasingly leaked, she publicly disowned it. Then, in one of the most crass and callous lies of her political career she told the nation, in anticipation of an early election, that the NHS was safe with the Tories.

Now, a year later the truth is apparent. Thatcher and her monetarist ministers have launched the final assault on the Health Service. Within three weeks of the election victory the new Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, was announcing cuts of £100 million in the budget of the health service with Fowler ludicrously saying that the saving could be made ‘without patient care suffering.’

Thatcher, Fowler, Lawson and co.,have no concept of patient care or of suffering. When was the last time any of them waited four hours in pain in a casualty unable to cope because of staff cuts? Which one of them would have to endure the agony of arthritis for three years before they could have surgery? Working class people have to do it every day. Areas like Hackney are riddled with victims of the Tory health strategy.

But while we were still reeling with the blow of the ‘Lawson cuts’ Fowler announced that 8,000 jobs must go! And just to make sure there is no doubt about the future of the NHS a circular was slipped in directing all Health Authorities to put cleaning, catering and laundry services out to tender even if they do it just as an ‘exercise’.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Clarke has time to rummage through his dictionary to look up the meaning of cuts and then tells us that there are no cuts in the NHS. ‘There have been no cuts only a delay in growth’.

But since 1079 over 6,000 beds have disappeared from the NHS and in London

Campaigners against closure of the South London Hospital for Women, July 1983. >

alone over 50 hospitals are scheduled to close.

The Tories have said consistently that there is no money to give to the NHS. They swept io an election victory largely fuelled by the boost to nationalism and imperialism

of the Falklands War — which cost billions to wage and is costing billions to defend. There is no ‘delay in growth’ to the pharmaceutical companies who earn billions annually from the NHS budget. The Tories find money to defend and bolster only capitalist interests.

Now, with doctors and nurses jobs scheduled for the chop even the reactionary British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing are objecting. And, reaction against the severity of the latest cuts

is even fashionable amongst Tory ‘wets’. Ancillary workers jobs, mainly women’s jobs, have been going for years, but working class women are hardly relevant to the BMA and rarely news worthy. They are however usually in the front line of the battle in the NHS for better services and decent pay.

The official objections and reasoned speeches of the BMA the RCN and the Regional Health authority chairs (usually staunch Tories) will not stop the cuts. Working class unity and action can.

In Bradford workers have been occupying their hospital for over two months to stop it closing. In Brent the District Health Authority has refused to make the Lawson cuts. These leads have shown the way forward and other workers and Health Authorities are following.

CT aI) t08e9 ourjays

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National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 9

R THE NHS

THORNTON VIEW

Thornton View is an 82-bed geriatric hospital in Bradford. It is the first hospital in the Region to be scheduled for closure. The workers, determined that it will not close, took the decision to occupy it on August 5th.

They immediately set up an occupation committee to run the hospital and ousted the Nursing Officer from her office which is now the ‘headquarters’ of the occupation.

Thornton View, although small, represents 10% of Bradford’s long stay geriatric beds. The patients are extremely well cared for and the relatives have proved staunch supporters of the fight to keep the hespital.

Management attempted to win public support by launching a smear campaign in the local press immediately after the occupation started — claiming that the patients were suffering and being used as pawns. They were quickly left isolated when the consultant geriatrician was sent in and announced publicly that he was perfectly happy with the level of care and the hospital was running normally as far as he was concerned.

TREMENDOUS PUBLIC SUPPORT

Public support has been tremendous. There is a continuous 24 hour picket and a weekly supporters’ meeting.

Management are only allowed into the hospital with permission of the occupation committee and are accompanied wherever they go to ensure there is no harassment or intimidation. The District Health Authority attempted to frighten the workers and some supporters by sending them letters saying that their presence outside of working time was illegal. The workers had a meeting and instructed the full-time union officials to meet management and tell them that such tactics would not be tolerated, and con-

tinued to picket as usual!

The occupation is well organised and has issued ten demands which include no further proposals for cuts and closures, no victimisations or intimidation of staff, adequate staffing levels,

that the health authority release all their unlaundered books to the occupation committee

and that the Health Minister sets up a public enquiry with Trade Union representatives into geriatric care in Bradford.

The action was made official by NUPE, COHSE and the GMBTU.

NEARLY ALL WOMEN

The workers, nearly all women and mostly parttime have become very strong since the occupation started. As well as doing their normal work they are organising the picketing, speaking at meetings all over the country, writing leaflets, organising demonstrations, and looking after their children and coping with domestic work. They have provided a lead for workers everywhere and an example of how to fight the Tories.

The occupation will not crumble or go away. It will not either win or lose. The only way it will lose is if it does not get support from the labour movement. Trade union leaders are never keen to organise supporting strike action and Thornton View is no exception. Workers locally must take the initiative in pledging strike action if there is any attempt to break the occupation.

Labour MPs must publicly say that if one worker is intimidated, one piece of equipment moved or any attempt made to smash the pickets with private ambulances and the police then they will be there — at the hospital on the picket line defending the workers who are defending the NHS.

BRENT AHA DEFIES TORIES!

Faced with 300 unfilled jobs and a further 130 redundancies, Brent Area Health Authority voted at its September meeting to refuse to implement further cuts. The meeting also refused to consider the circular on privatisation and voted to save the casualty department at Wembley Hospital.

This rebellion has received massive support from health unions, the Jocal Community Health Council and users of the NHS. Other AHAs, in Sheffield and Northumberland, have followed the Brent exam-

ple. The Brent cuts were part of Fowler’s 2000 jobs to be destroyed in the NHS — for Brent, one in twelve of every ‘frontline’ medical jobs.

NUPE and COHSE have pledged a stoppage in support of the AHA and a new unity has been forged to resist Tory health cuts.

The Tory response has been to threaten legal action and to threaten to replace the AHA with Commissioners. In addition more Tory nominees to the authority have been approved. However, even if the vote is reversed Brent has provided a lead to fight Tory cuts and a united union/community campaign can still defeat the Fowler cuts.

GRAHAM DURHAM Brent AHA

®@ Organise a work place meeting, and invite a speaker. We need pledges of supporting strike action if the Health Authorit ty makes any attempt '0 break the occupation. If you pass a resolution in support then send a copy to Royston Moore, Chairperson, DHA Bicknor Station Road,

Baildon, Shipley.

@ Picketing — we need supporters at the hospital 24 hours a day. Volunteer either individually or as an organisation to take a turn on the Dicket rota. Phone the Occupation Headquarters Bradford 817574

@ Raise the issue in your tenants association, Labour Party, community group etc. @ Send a donation — we need money to keep the occupation going. @ Messages of support and donations to Betty Elie, c/o Resource Centre, 93 Little Horton Lane, Bradford 5.

Brent members were not swayed be the ‘illegality’ of overspending. If the Tories make actions in defence of working class living standards illegal then the law must be defied. If Health Authority members vote to cut services and close hospitals then they relinquish their claim to run the health service and the workers must take over.

In Hackney the local campaign built mass support for the DHA meeting on September 26th where the closure of four hospitals, the loss of 98 beds and 500 jobs were going to be voted on. Over 1000 people were at the town hall for the meeting. Council workers took strike action in support and over 200 people crammed into the council chamber to make it clear to the authority that they would not tolerate the cuts. Workers made it clear that they would defend the threatened hospitals by

occupations. After angry scenes following a split ¥te the DHA was forced to withdraw the consultation document and the chair said he had no choice but to find something

more acceptable to the people of Hackney.

Anti-tory rhetoric and speech making will not defend the NHS. Labour politicians and trade union leaders who stand on platforms and rostrums and talk about opposing the cuts and ‘fighting them in the streets’ have to back it up with action. In Hackney Brian Sedgmore said he would fight but when angry working class people barred the exit of the council chamber until they had a decision he pushed them aside to escort the DHA chairperson out. In Bradford, the workers at Thorton View had to ask Bickerstaff and Williams, the general secretaries of NUPE and COHSE to go to the hospital after a demonstration in support of the occupation. It had never occured to them to give that kind of support to the people fighting to keep the hospital open through workers control.

The Tories have control and use it well to defend their class. They pass laws which repress working class action, they impose financial controls which oppress working class people.

But we have the power to take that control and we must use it. Workers will occupy hospitals to defend them, trade unions must then organise supporting strike action. DHA’s will vote against cuts and the labour movement must defend them against being disbanded.

The NHS will not wait five years for Kinnock

and Hattersley to dream. It will not wait for the Trade union leaders to discuss solutions with the Tories. The solution is available. Last year over three million people took strike action in defence of the health workers. That support and more is still there and needs to be mobilised.

The message to the Tories must be absolutely clear. Health workers are not in retreat-we are on the offensive, Socialists created the NHS and will defend it from Tory scalpels. We can and will bring the government down to save the NHS.

ANDREA CAMPBELL (COHSE

‘ational Labour Briefing Supplement, page 10

LIVERPOOL IN THE FRONTLINE

In May this year the people of Liverpool gave their verdict on 10 years of Liberal/Tory rule. Labour was swept to power on a no-cuts platform. Revulsion at the policies of the local ‘alliance’ of non-Labour parties was maintained through the general election campaign as evidenced by the victory of Terry Fields in Broadgreen which was, on paper, an ‘Alliance’ seat. This success combined with the determination of the local Party to resist cuts makes Liverpool a likely candidate for the next major battleground in the fight for local democracy. The lines of engagement are already being drawn and in this article I shall argue that the movement cannot afford to let Liverpool go the way of Lambeth and Lothian. This

time we must win,

Labour’s return to power had its roots in the total failure of the other parties to tackle the massive problems facing the city. The previously Liberal-controlled council had presided over a series of massive cuts with the loss of over 5,000 local authority jobs. It had a disgraceful record on housing, council house building was essentially suspended and the repairs and maintainence service a disaster, all in a city with the highest council house rents in the country. Arguments over the reorganisation of secondary education remained unresolved. The Liberals plans for wholesale closures were thwarted by local resistance, most notably the occupation of Croxteth comprehensive.

Positive Platform

It was against this background that the Labour Party won electoral support in May, a victory due, in the main, to an increased turnout. People were actually motivated to go out and vote Labour in. The reason for this was probably the positive platform on which the election was fought. Labour’s manifesto promised no cuts, no rate rise and a cut in council rents as well as a plan to begin a major council house building programme and a pledge to create at least 1,000 jobs in its first year.

Since coming to power the progress of the Labour group in implementing its polices has been steady rather than spectacular. Seventeen ‘priority areas’ have been identified in the city in which council spending will be concentrated. Council rents are coming down, council houses are to be built and a start has already been made on creating jobs. The Labour council, however, is faced with a serious financial crisis. The last act of the outgoing Liberals was to set the budget. Looking over their shoulders at the possibility of a Labour victory they budgeted for yet more cuts, so leaving the Labour group with insufficent resources to fund its programme. In previous years it might have been possible to raise revenue from the rates but the Tories’ rate-capping proposals will remove that option. Only two alternatives remain: for Labour to capitulate and impose the Tory cuts; or for the council to mobilise for a confrontation with Thatcher and her axe-weilding henchmen. The Labour group, like the Liverpool District Party is dominated by the left, with supporters of Militant particularly strongly placed. On the one hand this ensures a determination to resist the cuts, and on the other makes it more likely that the Tories will single out Liverpool as a priority target.

Local Initiatives Yet nowhere in the country is there a better

case for local initiatives. Liverpool has suffered from years of neglect, and the high

ee

Liverpool: South East section joins People’s March for Jobs.

level of unemployment and deprivation make it imperative that the council intervenes in job creation and meets the greater demand for social and welfare services. The strength of Labour’s case in Liverpool and the support given to that case last May are what makes the city an important focus for the fight-back against the Tories.

The task of the left is to mobilise the whole of the Labour movement in the fightback. To gain the backing of the local authority unions; to win the support of local people and to link the struggle for Liverpool’s services with similar battles taking place elsewhere.

One significant step has already been taken; the council organised a successful rally of stewards from the local authority unions. Over 800 activists turned up to hear the problems facing the council and the extent to which their support will form the basis for any resistance. It is imperative that this support is broadened as far and as rapidly as possible. The next most obvious step in this process would be for a link to be made between the City Council and the Labour-controlled County Council which is also faced with the Tory hatchet. Unfortunately there are few signs of a working relationship being formed. The left, and especially Militant, don’t seem to take the

John Smith (1.F.L.)

Viji Kumar is a Malaysian national who has lived in this country for nearly eight years. He started teaching 2% years ago, after*being made redundant. In September 1982 he was appointed to the Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College at Fenton, but has now been forced to leave his job because the Home Office and the Department of Employment have refused to renew his work permit. The only basis for such a decision is racial. Despite appeals by the Labour controlled Staffordshire County Council, the employing authority, they were informed that they must advertise Viji’s post.

A campaign of protest was organised. It was supported by all sections of the local community. The college authorities and the LEA have attempted to keep Viji in his post and a petition has been enthusiastically signed by colleagues, friends, and people of Stoke-on-Trent. Coverage of Viji’s plight by the local media has been favourable and the Home Secretary has been questioned by his MP — Jack Ashley (Stoke-on-Trent South). Unfor-

Join us! Individuals from £1.

County Council or County Party seriously, perhaps in the mistaken belief that its demise will bring more powers to the City Council. This needs to be swiftly reversed: a oint meeting of the respective Parties and zroups should be organised to set in motion

4 joint campaign for local democracy. The Electorate ; Neither can a confrontationist position be

sustained without massive support from the electorate. It is this area which poses the greatest problems. Ever since May the local media, portraying the Labour council as ‘Marxist’, have whipped up a storm over every decision that has been taken. Sadly this has sometimes succeeded, mainly because, with their centralist views, some leading councillors have not paid sufficient attention to explaining policy decisions in advance of them being implemented. If Liverpudlians are to back their council against the government this attitude needs to be changed. The council and the Party must show themselves to be responsive to peoples needs.

Support Viii

fighting in the Labour movement for lesbian

Affiliate your ward/CLP £5, Y.S. £2. LCGR National Office, 21 Devonshire Promenade

Lerton, Nottingham NG7 2DS (0602-780124).

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 11

ii Kumar!

tunately, Viji is now in a ‘Catch 22’ situation. He needs a work permit to get a job, and a job to get a work permit. Furthermore his leave to stay in this country is pending consideration of his case by the Home Office and therefore he faces the prospect of being deported. Meanwhile Viji is unemployed. He is ineligible for unemployment or supplementary benefit, because without a work permit he is not in a position to take employment. The fight to regain his work permit goes on and we continue to present the Home Office with signatures to the petition and letters of support. We fee] the issue is fundamental, not just to Viji, but also to the development of satisfactory race relations in this country. Teachers have a duty to make a stand

over such issues, particularly in light of

the conclusions to the Scarman Report. Stuart Coles

Stoke-on-Trent (Central) CLP

& NUT rep S-o-T 6th Form College,

Fenton

and gay male liberation

Two examples may serve to illustrate this point. Liverpool’s black community overwhelmingly voted Labour in May, vet since coming to power the council have taken no concrete steps to reverse the underTepresentation of black people in its workferce (under the Liberals only 300 black people were emploved out of a total workforce of more than 30,000). Indeed, moves within the Party towards a policy of positive action for both women and the ethnic minorities have been persistently thwarted. If the Party and the council expect support from Liverpool’s black community it must show them that it is interested in removing discrimination against them (a recent C.R.E. report classified Liverpool as the worst city in the country for racial discrimination).

Similarly, in their desire to start a crash programme of council house building the Labour group (and Party) have refused to support local housing co-ops whose mainly working class membership should be our natural allies in taking on Thatcher.

Militant expulsion

in Gillingham

Right-wingers in Gillingham have decided to use the NEC ruling banning the ‘provision of facilities for Militant’ to fracture and demoralise the focal left-wing. The 50 member GMC decided by a large majority to enforce the ban back in August. Seeing this as an attack on his democratic rights, Bob Herley, the only Militant supporter present, continued to sell the paper after the meeting.

In response to this the right-wing dominated Executive recommended to the September GMC that Bob be expelled. Squeezed between the fear of disobeying the NEC and the fear of precipitating a major bust-up, with all the consequent publicity, the soft centre swung behind a tesolution referring back the Executive's recommendation.

On the face of it this could look like stalemate. But the left is involved in a defensive battle, and the recommendation from the nex: Executive is likely to be a resumed. if watered down, attack on Militant.

Unity may have been the messaze to come out from the national conference. but the - Wing here, know that that means unity witho socialism. A lot will depend on the statemen‘s that Kinnock makes in the next couple a7 weeks, as many honest Kinnock supporters d= not yet see him as a witch-hunter. Before shen we have a real chance to use Hattersley’s television statement, about being opposed to expelling people ‘just for selling a paper’. and defeat this first attack.

We will not rely on this however. Bob Herley is not officially being expelled for selling ‘Militant’, but ‘failing to comply with a democratic GMC decision disallowing the sale of Militant’. This argument obviously has a lot of weight within the ‘centre’ of the Party.

Locally we are very lucky, in that Militant is working with all other left forces who want to fight the witch-hunt on an equal basis.

Our main agreed task is to build a political campaign against the expulsion of socialists generally. We have planned a major meeting with leading Labour Party members, a petition, and a letter writing campaign.

Les Hartop, Gillingham Labour Party

If broad support is to be achieved then something more than a crude economist approach to the city’s problems must be taken. All Liverpudlians need to feel that the City Council is their council, only then will they want to defend it.

Finally, whilst it may have emotional appeal to a few, there is no prospect of a successful confrontation if Liverpool goes it alone. Isolation finished off both Lambeth and Lothian. This time other councils, the trade unions and the Party nationally must combine to build a massive campaign. Liverpool can be central in achieving that. The Sheffield meeting of threatened authorities failed to provide a lead for the fight. A new conference should be called now in Liverpool and Liverpool’s Labour councillors should be ready to stand in the front line. Together we can win.

STU CLARKE Merseyside Labour Briefing Editorial Board (in a personal capacity)

OMEN ont WN i (COLI DS“SWOhk..

Conference Arrangements Committee introduced a startling new procedure into the 1983 conference by ruling all emergency resolutions out of order, it is said on the grounds that they did not constitute emergencies. This included a resolution on Sri Lanka. It was eventually put on the agenda for debate, but the resolution concerned was withdrawn in the confusion.

We hope the new leadership’s concern for ‘democratic socialism’ will lead it rapidly to rectify the present situation; to date no leading Labour Party spokesperson has come out against the murder of democracy by the present government of Sri Lanka with the military and economic backing of the British government. As background we print an article by the editor of the ‘Tamil Times’ which arrived too late for the conference edition of Briefing supplement.

In 1948, 1.2 million Tamil plantation workers brought into the country from South India 150 years ago by the British were deprived of their citizenship and ‘franchise, and so made stateless and voteless. Approximately 400,000 have been compulsorily repatriated to India, 175, 000 granted registered citizenship and the rest with the natural increase since 1948 remain stateless and voteless, but working in the tea plantations under slave conditions.

Britain left a legacy without any guarantee for the protection of the minority

7° INTERNATIONAL YOAVELT

mii w

Tamils and plantation workers. The constitution imposed at independence has resulted in the permanent ethnic domination by the majority Sinhalese community.

The United National Party (UNP) government elected in 1977 is the most right wing Thatcher-type government ever to rule Sri Lanka. Its ‘open economy’ policy has led to enormous debts to the West. It is strongly pro-US, and one of the very few third world countries to support Thatcher in the Falklands war. It is enormously repressive

LABOUR SRIEFING

and anti-working class; it is currently negotiating the lease of Trincomalee harbour, one of the best natural harbours in the east, to the US government and the prospect of US bases at Trinco brings the threat of superpower conflict to the Indian Ocean. India, which is thoroughly worried, might do anything to prevent this happening.

None of the known Labour leaders or the NEC has made any comment or condemnation of the anti-democratic practices, human rights violations, or the recent pogroms against the Tamil minority. Yet not only is the Thatcher government supplying military equipment to the Sri Lankan regime to kill and maim defenceless people — it is training 600 Sri Lankan service personnel at Wiltshire under the gentle hands of the SAS. 30 combat landrovers — similar to those being used in Northern Ireland — have been recently supplied to the government.

The International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International, the UN subcommission of human rights and the World

Council of Churches have condemned the discrimination and violence used against the

Tamils and other human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

It is to be hoped that Labour Party branches will bring pressure to bear on the leadership to take a definite stand on these issues and condemn the anti-Tamil and antiworking class policies of the government.

P. RAY

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 13

Lebanon: the longest war

The war in Lebanon is the longest in two senses — the longest civil war and the longest Israel has fought. Its origins lie in the Maronite state established by French colonialism. The civil war of 1958 onwards is a continuation of its pre-independence struggle in a different form. Power and wealth were divided on confessionalist lines with poverty being the preserve of the Shiite shanty towns

circling Beirut and the Palestinian refugee camps. Until the 1975/6 civil war, Lebanon was the banking capital of the Middle East.

In 1958 the US marines entered Beirut to prop up the regime. In 1976 the Syrian army did the same. Today the multinational ‘peacekeeping’ forces preserve the Israeli-installed Phalangist regime.

Microcosm of the Middle East

Lebanon represents a microcosm of the struggles of the Middle East. Within Amal, the Shii militia’s Islamic fundamentalism took hold after the revolution in Iran. Over 300,000 Palestinians were driven into Lebanon by the Zionists after the 1947/9 war, only to face continued discrimination. After 1967, the PLO took control of the camps driving out the Lebanese army. Growing Palestinian power and the tise of the Lebanese National Movement — a combination of a number of leftist parties and militias, including many Christians — helped shatter the Maronite regime. The army disintezrated as the Muslim conscripts deserted. With some reluctance the PLO was drawn into the ‘war. As the Phalangists faced defeat the Syrian army entered the battle with Israeli/US back- ‘ng. The worst massacre of the war occured at the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel a Zaata in rast Beirut, when 3,000 died. But the Syrians znd the Phalange soon came into conflict as

-srael became drawn in on the latter’s side. Today the Syrian regime, in order to pre-

-ent their own marginalisation tactically support the Druse and Muslim militias. Theirs is the support, as Lenin remarked, that a rope zives a hanging man. Syria’s bid for influence, ‘eg., bombing civilian parts of East Beirut), at che same time as using the PLO rebels’ legitimate disagreements in order to neutralise the PLO as an independent force — politically and militarily. They are helped in this by the PLO’s previous reliance on and identification with these regimes.

Partitioned

Lebanon is effectively partitioned between Israel in the South, the Syrians in the North and Bequa’a valley, the Druse in the Shouf and the Phalangists in Greater Beirut. Only US and

BEYO71703-07/17/81-BEIRUT: Aftermath of the Israeli air raid on Beirutyin che area wi <i several Palestinian organozations have offices,O7f17. More than 100 persons were kilies

and 350 wounded in the fifth raid in one wecks against Palestinian targets in Lebanon, caf str-t.Tawil

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French bombardment saved Gemayel but that is no permanent solution. A reformed but confessionalist state, giving more influence to the Muslim bourgeoisie, is the aim of the US. It is hard to see the present ceasefire lasting any length of time whilst the causes of the civil war remain. At best the Phalangist army will consolidate their hold in Beirut whilst the US strikes a deal with Syria to neutralise the PLO and co-opt the Druse, Israel will remaini in the South with its valuable water resources and 4th largest market. The Palestinian revolution and the social/democratic revolutions of the Middle

Ls

East meet, and their common enemy is Lebanese capitalism and its US backers. Israel wishes to see a divided Lebanon whereas the US wants a reformed, centralised Lebanese state. It is this contradiction which explains the dilemma and problems for imperialism. The question is whether the anti-Phalangist forces can unite on a common programme to overthrow both the sectarian stae and the economic system which feeds it whilst taking advantage of the divisions between the imperialists and their Arab pro-

teges. . Tony Greenstein

French troops out of Chad .........

Chad, among the poorest countries in the world, is today the subject of a military intervention by French imperialism. Gaining a notional independence in 1960, Chad has been torn by armed strife ever since. This is the fourth time French troops have been used.

Chad is an entirely artificial creation, the product of France tying together the loose ends of its African empire. The country falls into two zones, the north and the south split at the height of Lake Chad, The productive southern part of the country is christian and animist in tradition, The cotton growing middle class were the favoured administrators of colonial tule, The arabophone north, inhabited by muslim nomads, has more in common with Libya and Sudan than with the rest of the

country,

The objective of French imperialism today is to preserve at any price the agreements that link Chad to France within the French monetary zone and to prevent any development in Chad which might destabilise in their turn all the local oligarchies linked to imperialism. It should also be seen in the context of greater imperialist intervention around the world as a response to greater instability. We see this also in Lebanon. The new means that are available for such operations include the US Rapid Deployment Force and the French Rapid Action Force of 80,000 professional soldiers.

It would be a mistake for socialists to see anything particularly progressive about either side in Chad. Both the ‘rebel’ Goukouni Oueddi

and the ‘President’ Hissene Habre came out of the FROLINAT, a national liberation movement that has degenerated into feuding cliques. Libya has changed sides at least six times and the French have backed whichever combination of military chiefs it thinks will bring stability at any particular time. This time they are rooting for their former agent Habre, but are open to negotiations.

The interests of the people of Chad are best served by the immediate departure of French troops and the demilitarisation of a society that spends a third of its budget on arms when its people are starving. It is not for us to say whether Chad should be partitioned, federated or whatever. It is for the peoples of Chad to decide their own destiny.

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 14

> COMMON MARKET

Why Labour should oppose the EEC

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Conference settled one issue once and for all: whether opposing the EEC is a right or a left wing stance. Ditching Labour’s anti-market policy was a cornerstone of Hattersley-Kinnock’s rightward drive.

Those who want to be neutral make a classic mistake. They reject the arguments of some of the EEC’s ‘little England’ opponents and forget

what the EEC really is.

The British ruling class want the EEC, not as a luxury, but to survive. They want to use European big capital to restructure British society, making Western Europe into a strong, centralised economic and military bloc: a rival to America, a bulwark against Eastern Europe, and a trebly effective superexploiter of the third world. The EEC is not a step towards ‘European integration’ or ‘internationalism’ but an attempt to forge a new, reactionary superpower.

How is this being done? First, as Lord Carrington so clearly put it: ‘Europe is going to emerge as one of the largest and richest communities in the world with the potential of the present superpowers, and it is unthinkable that this new Europe should lack adequate means of self-defence.’ For ‘self-defence’, read ‘aggression’. For ‘adequate’ read ‘nuclear’. The EEC is not a peaceful alternative to Cruise and Trident but a frightening new nuclear threat. It is not a retreat from gunboat diplomacy but an attempt to put the whole weight of Europe behind activities like those of the French in Chad, so as to ‘save’ chunks of the third world from US control — i.e. to put them under West European control. Second, the EEC is centralising capital to

EEC:Forum for our internationalism

Pete Lambert & Tony Greenstein In the late ’60s, Cabinet Ministers Heffer and Benn supported EEC membership while Douglas Jay and Reg Prentice opposed. Even today,

right wingers inside the Party such as Austin Mitchell and Peter Shore remain opposed. Why is it then that EEC withdrawal is seen as a left-

right issue?

In the early ’70s, with the massive battles over the Industrial Relations Act looming, the left Trade Union bureaucrats and Party leaders saw the EEC issue as a convenient diversion from the struggles taking place. This diversion took the form of an entirely false counterposition of British and European capitalism. Little wonder that the ’Anti? forces could unite the Daily Express, Powell, the NF, and Teddy Taylor with the Labour Left (and much of its right).

It is a nationalism, which harks back to the days of the Empire, seeking to restore the trade and economic links of old. It is an unrealistic nostalgia which, while popular in the opinion polls melts with the first rays of dawn. We saw this in the EEC referendum of 1975 (and the last General Election) with the Left being forced to defend British sovereignty and Roy Jenkins et al assuming the role of the internationalists. Defeat in the referendum was a watershed for the Left in Wilson’s government, with Benn being demoted from Industry to Energy and Heffer being sacked. But it is this nationalism, a belief that the British state and ruling class are somehow preferable to their European counterparts , which is the Achilles Heel of Labour’s economic policy. It is class col-

resist the USA’s successful economic offensive.

The steel industry is classic. Replying to US tariffs, quotas and blockades, Brussels produced the ‘D’Avignon’ plan and closed steel plants throughout Europe, cutting production from 32m tons to 20m tons and throwing hundreds of thousands of steel workers on the scrapheap.

British capital wants to be part of this centralisation; not to save jobs, but to join in a carnival of rationalisation that has raised unemployment in countries like Belgium to near the 20 per cent mark.

Third, the EEC’s CAP is designed to lead Western Europe through an agricultural war with the USA, driving the European peasantry off the land and forcing European consumers to subsidise rich farmers. Between 1960 and 1967, 882,000 family farms were closed in Europe. By 1982 the CAP had driven food prices 25 per cent higher than they would have been on the world market.

Each of these moves demonstrates the EEC as an alliance of Western European capital against American capital, Eastern Europe, the third world and West European workers and small farmers. How can it be fought? Is it ‘jingoistic? to call for

tionalism are the baggage of the AES: import controls and the siege economy.

These positions involve and foster, a belief in a golden age when food was cheap and the natives knew their place. A xenophobic atmosphere is thus created, a context in which Labour support for Thatchers war in the Malvinas suddenly seems natural. The anti-marketeers seek to put the clock back as surely as any Luddite. What is progeessive about the British monarchy and the Lords? Is it not the European Courts which abolished birching, condemned torture in Ireland, and granted minimum human rights to prisoners?

The EEC represents an attempt to create a single market in Europe yet capitalism exists on the basis of nation states, national economies and markets. Within them are located the operations of the American and Japanese multinationals, virtually invulnerable to control by isolated nation states. The first proponents of the EEC had envisaged the creation of European multinationals: the structures they had created proved instead to be a mere convenience facility for already existing, extra European ones. The aim of a European wide market and economy can, ironically, only

withdrawal?

Socialists cannot fight British imperialism by counterposing a European superpower which will develop a stronger militarism and a more effective world reactionary role. The EEC will not lead British workers away from isolation into the world unity of workers. It will cut them off from Eastern European workers. It will cut them off from third world workers and peasants: and more effectively than British imperialism, which is on its last legs and clamouring to get into the Common Market to give it new life! The alternative to the EEC is not little England but a real opening towards an alliance with the workers of Eastern Europe and the third world against the decaying remnants of English jingoism.

But nor can socialist policy ignore the cornerstone of big business’s attempts to shore up its decaying rule. British capital needs the EEC to survive. Its desperation to build a strong, centralised European capital is reshaping every aspect of British politics from the Alliance, through the Labour Party, to the Tory Party itself. ‘‘Neither for nor against’? the EEC is the politics of the

ostrich. John Ross

of production and distribution. If we are to condemn the EEC it is precisely because it is unable to achieve the objectives it sets itself.

The EEC is NOT primarily a political unit—though when the Greeks vetoed a Thatcherite resolution on the Korean air disaster, Kinnock was the first to attack the Pasok government.

We do not, then, wish to argue for anything so crass as support for the Treaty of Rome. We are simply not interested in it one way or the other. The Left cannot steer a line between right wing pro marketeers and ‘left? AES peddilars by mouthing Militant style slogans about a ‘United Socialist States of Europe’ whilst doing nothing practical to achieve it.

Instead, the Left must move from the abstraction to the beginning of a strategy for the European Labour Movements. Through END, the Peace Movement has shown us the way. Multinationals must be attacke< internationally, no less than must the stationing of Cruise missiles. We need to sees allies on the left in Europe not to isola:: ourselves from them. The institution: framework of the EEC provides us ¥::" an—albeit far from prefect—FORUM °°" our internationalist perspectives.

laborationist. The ramifications of this na- be achieved on the basis of social ownership __

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National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 15

SINN FEIN WOMEN VISIT PARTY CONFERENCE

— Not that you would have known of course. Not unless you were there. There was not a word, not even a by-the-by reference, anywhere in the media. The papers did tie themselves in the most fantastic knots in their competition for the Best Lie About Gerry Adams — Ist Prize must undoubtedly go to the Daily Mirror with their story of ‘IRA supporters planning to smuggle Adams into conference to give him a standing ovation’. (We should be so stupid and so lucky!) But the two women from the Sinn Fein Department of Women’s Affairs, who accompanied Adams to speak at the joint Labour Committee on Ireland/Royal Arsenal Co-op fring meeting, were completely and utterly ignored. What Gerry Adams has referred to as the ‘wall of disinformation on Ireland’ came down with a vengeance with regard to women and Ireland.

Unless you were there you would never have known that Chris McAuley and Sile Darragh spoke at both the press conference (where the media ran amok and ended up screaming at each other) and the enormous (over 600) fringe meeting. Unless you were there you would never have known that Chris described the conditions that women in the nationalist ghettos live under with the day to day repression, sexual harassment, brutality and violence of the British state, Chris outlined how the Department of Women’s Affairs attempts to both help and support these women and campaign against sexist attitudes and practices.

STRIP SEARCHES

Unless you were there you would never have known that Sile Darragh, an exArmagh prisoner, described the stripsearches that women in Armagh are currently having to endure. Since November 1982 every time a prisoner leaves or returns to the prison she will be strip-searched. If a woman refuses to be strip-searched when leaving the prison for a court appearance (once a week for remand prisoners or every day if named in a trial like the Black supergrass one) she will be forcibly stripped. While a few women did refuse last November no remand or trial prisoners.are refusing now, as the strip-search experience is bad enough without the horror of being held down and having all clothing forcibly removed. If a woman is leaving the prison for any other reason aside from a court appearance, such as a hospital appointment, inter-prison visit io Drother or fiance), or parole (for family death} it is possible for the woman to refuse to be strip-sear rehed without running the risk of being forces 9 doa so — she will simply be returned to her cel! and lose her appointment, visit or parace.

The strip-searcn erta! item of clothing in a <m sheet across it that just com Each piece of clothing mus:

removing every » cubicle with a sta crest level. chen pe nanded

Ts is

tion. This examination includes aii Items of underwear and sanitary protection. » “ she-het pads or tampons. Used sanitary protection. after it has been examined, is thrown away and new protection provided. After this examination has finished the woman prisoner herself is ‘visually examined’ — stared at while having to turn round slowly. No male

A Dublin demonstration against the constitutional amendment on abortion. Photo by Derek Spiers.

prison officers are present, but the prisoner knows they are on stand-by in the next room in case of ‘trouble’.

HUMILIATING

Sile emphasised in her account of this procedure that it was obviously not a security precaution, but solely aimed at demoralising and humiliating the women prisoners. Being stared at while standing completely naked, without even sanitary protection if menstruating, by prison officials who are usually unionists, and frequently Loyalists, makes the woman feel thoroughly degraded and is part and parcel of the sexual harassment of nationalist women both inside and outside of prison.

In later informal discussions with Labour Party feminists Chris described the sexist verbal abuse she had been subjected to when once picked up for ‘questioning’ (a euphemism for harassment). British soldiers talked of making her ‘suck their cocks because they’d heard that was what whores like her liked’. During these discussions both Sile and Chris said that they felt that British women stereotyped Irish women as backward and ‘priest dominated’ and that they felt there was an inexcusable amount of just plain ignorance about Republican women in the British Women’s Liberation Mfovement. Even accepting that lack of free speech on Ireland and the media distortions it was still possible for British feminists to educate themselves on the facts of British violence for example and to not just swallow the British state’s version of what happens in Northern Ireland without even question-

ing It.

WOMEN’S CENTRE

Chris also talked about the work of :he new Falls Road Women’s Centre. This :< drop-in centre with creche facilities w+ women can receive help and ads: : health or legal matters. In particula tre works to help battered women bs : ing them to refuges and contacting : pathetic lawyers and arranging exclusion orders. Chris and Sile were closely questioned about Sinn Fein’s policy on abortion and the recent anti-amendment campaign in the South. While Sinn Fein is opposed to abortion both women said they supported a woman’s right to choose (as in fact does Adams himself). Feminists in Sinn Fein are organising to change their organisation's position. On the anti-amendment campaign Chris said she felt Sinn Fein had ‘learnt hard lessons’ from their lack of organised involvement — though very many individual Sinn Fein members participated in the campaign.

During their brief visit the Sinn Fein women also met Labour MPs and trade union leaders. Most were sympathetic, but one former PPC, not all that far from our new leader’s think-tank, took a moralistic line on violence saying that Republican violence must end before British violence. Would we ask that the Sandinistas stopped defending themselves from American imperialism before we campaigned against American involvement in Nicaragua?

All the Labour Party feminists that Chris and Sile met were enthusiastic about the need for further such meetings and discussions even when they were critical of Sinn Fein’s position on abortion for example. It was strongly felt that given the lack of information on Ireland such visits went a long way to breaking down the wall of disinformation on Ireland and led to increased support for British troop withdrawal as more British women came to see the reality of the role that the troops play.

Sarah Roelofs Islington South CLP

Sarah Roelofs is the Women’s Officer for the Labour Committee on Ireland. Contact her at 60D Barnsbury St., London N1 for further information or if your women’s section would like a speaker.

National Labour Briefing Supplement, page 16

A message from Gerry Adams

The wise, talented and cynical television reviewer in my local newspaper will forgive me, I hope, if I quote his impression of the British Labour Party Conference.

‘Connolly’s words rang ironically against the televised presentation of the Labour Party Conference from Brighton . They are an unattractive lot, this Labour Party. Any idealism that once existed in the Labour creed vanished with the first taste of the spoils of office. The first cars, the first salutes, the first invitations to country houses and the first mumblings from the bald domes of England and Labour principles disappeared like the morning dew. It was either a crusade or nothing, and it has long ceased to be a crusade. The perks of office are almost painfully felt in the television presentation of those men. The old leader made his valedictory speech. Michael Foot is almost the classic example of the tendency in Labour politicians to self-destruct. In the past he has wept for minorities in Chile and Nicaragua and Namibia, but he bought a few months of office at the price of a squalid deal on Northern Ireland. His successor confesses to having learned the craft of politics at Ur Foot’s knees. One could think of better masters...’

There is nothing therefore, justifiable

cynicism to one side, to indicate that

the change of leadership of the British Labour Party heralds a change of attitude on the question of Ireland. On the contrary, Mr Kinnock who understands little about Welsh nationalism, can hardly be expected to understand the relationship between nationalism and socialism in Ireland. But then again, as he carefully measures the mood of his party on the many issues facing it, he and his advisors must realise, if nothing else, that the debate on Ireland at the Brighton Conference showed clearly the increasing grass roots disenchantment with the Labour Party’s present position on partition, on Irish decolonisation and the loyalist veto.

TONY BENN

Tony Benn articulated clearly that grass roots feeling when he bravely stood out and spelt out what Labour must do in regard to Ireland, and the Conference Chairperson, mindful ‘of the sensitivity of the issue ordered a card vote without waiting for the customary call from the floor for such a vote. ‘I am told,’ he declared, ‘that a card vote must always be used on motions relating to Northern Ireland.’ That card vote, and its predictable Union block vote spelt defeat for the progressive composite motions. Or did it?

No amount of fudging by the Labour leadership on policy, or the formulation of policy can hide the fact that Ireland is once again becoming a central issue in

British politics and an issue about which those in British politics with a democratic or socialist conscience are increasingly concerned. Evidence of that concern, for those who wished to see it, was obvious at the Corn Exchange fringe meeting and in the private meetings between Sinn Fein women activists, myself and Labour Party activists.

COMMON EXPERIENCE

We, in Ireland, realise the need to build upon that concern. We recognise the common experience shared by the Irish and British working class. We assert that to be a socialist means to be antiimperialist and to be anti-imperialist means recognising and restoring to the Irish people their right to national selfdetermination and sovereignty. This is the message which must be propagated at constituency level, within the unions, in local and ultimately national manifestos. Labour’s tory policy on Ireland

must be changed. Only Labour Party activists can do this. It will be a slow tedious process but then rebuilding a British Labour Party, based on Labour ideals will regardless, or despite, leadership changes be a slow tedious process.

The question of Ireland and the cause of Irish independence is an integral part of that process. There is no magic formula. Only by hard work, by lobbying, educating and winning the argument from the grass roots upwards will progress be made. There is work to be done. Let us do it.

Gerry Adams

Next National Supplement will be out on November 17th. Deadline for articles is November 7th.

Next National Editorial Board will be oSunday November 20th in Coventry. F-: details ring 01-961-3803.

Published by London Labour Briefing, 23 Leghorn Road, London NW10. Printed by Wernham Printers Ltd (TU), Forster Road, London N° ~

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