The Next Step: No. 11, 14 March 1986

jobs come first the nextstep Revolutionary Communist Party • 14 March 1986 • 30p

LAND ROVER

Our The miners: Our day will come pages 6,7 Ireland after the Loyalist strike page 4 Militant kneels before Kinnock page 5 Blacks lose in French poll page 8

RANGE - ROVER

RANGE ROVER

Whether the boss is British or American

the next step Revolutionary Communist Party weekly • 14 March 1986 • No 11

JOBS COME FIRST

ur patriotism is one that holds *0 that our values are not for sale to anyone at any price at any time,' said Labour leader Neil Kinnock at the Scottish party conference in Perth last week. The Labour leadership has joined the campaign, launched by former Tory Party leader Edward Heath, against the government's plans to sell off sections of the stateowned motor company Bu — including Land Rover and Leyland Trucks — to the US firm General Motors. Kinnock denounces the Tories for having 'a patriotism that is forgotten when the cheque book is waved'.

But there is a price to be paid for Labour's patriotism - by the working class.

It was the last Labour government that took British Leyland into ownership. Labour appointed South African boss Michael Edwardes to run BL in 1977.

Edwardes pioneered the MacGregor/Murdoch style of management in British industry. But his strongest card was the determination of the union leaders to make the British motor industry succeed. In February 1978 Edwardes called a special meeting of 700 union and management representatives to announce his survival package for the company: 12 500 jobs would have to go. For declaring his faith in the future of the British motor industry, he won a standing ovation. Eddie MeGarry, prominent LIOn official at BL, backed the Edwardes plan, saying that this could well be the last chance we have to resurrect the fortunes of Leyland cars'. Within weeks the BL factory at Speke on Merseyside was closed with the loss of 3000 jobs. In September 1979 Edwardes launched his second phase. The company's fortunes had continued to decline, and it now needed to close 13 plants and sack 25 000 more workers. In 1980 Edwardes followed up his early successes by imposing tighter discipline and flexible working practices again the unions helped to neutralise resistance. When the bosses harsh terms provoked a riot at Longbridge in November 1980, management responded by victimising a number of

LIVERPOOL AND LAMBETH

he high court decision to surcharge and disqualify 81 councillors from Liverpool and Lambeth over last year's rates campaign is a direct attack on the labour movement. It fits into the recent pattern of injunctions against industrial action and sequestrations of union funds. The British establishment is mobilising the full resources of the state to crush any attempt to fight back. The exclusien of elected representatives from political office on the decision of a high court judge is an outrageous restriction of democratic rights.

The labour movement must mobilise the widest resistance to the state offensive against its representatives and its union This battle cannot be won organisations. through the courts, but only by direct action to force back off. the government to Unfortunately the actions of the left-wing Labour counciliors have done much to obscure the issues at stake and to undermine resistance to the Tories.

In every Labour council - Liverpool and cuts in jobs and Lambeth included services are now proceeding apace. Labour's rate-capping campaign was a fiasco: councillors are now being penalised for making token gestures which were ineffectual Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP, London WCIN 3XX ® copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16.

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Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD.

London WCIN 3XX. ISSN 0144 350 X 14 March 1986. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office 2 a the next step • 14 March 1986 militant shop stewards. By the early eighties the employers enjoyed a free hand to dictate the terms to the BL workforce. Labour's patriotic commitment to the British motor industry cost the working class some 30 000 jobs under the last Labour government and paved the way for the loss of another 50 000 since. Over the past seven years the Tories have taken over where Labour left off. They have tightened the screw on all BL workers in the desperate quest for profitability. They succeeded in pushing Jaguar back into the black, and promptly pushed it back into the private sector. But the Tories know that making much of BL — its trucks and buses, its volume car division - profitable, in the face of international recession and competition, requires more capital investment than British capitalists can afford to make.

Hence the General Motors offer to buy Land Rover together with the truck division is a difficult one to refuse. Labour's patriotic ploy over Land Rover attempt advantage of to take dissensions in the Tory ranks, and to project the Labour Party as more patriotic than the Tories. In reality it merely exposes the Labour leaders as outdated chauvinists.

Their schemes for saving British capitalism by retreating from the world economy make no sense from a capitalist point of view.

Much worse, from the point of view of the working class they point to disaster. Labour's patriotic approach to BL has already plunged tens thousands workers in the West Midlands into a life of misery, and it has shattered union organisation in the company. At a time when all BL workers need to pull together to defend jobs regardless of who owns the company, the Labour and trade union leaders are busy waving the Union Jack on behalf of British bosses fighting a rearguard action to save the company from their US competitors. Kinnock's patriotic posturing is a pathetic attempt to steal Thatcher's clothes which leaves the labour movement defenceless. in stopping cuts in local government spending.

The commitment of the entire Labour Party - from Kinnock through Livingstone to Hatton — to balancing the council books, that the ensured rate-capping campaign collapsed as soon as it came into conflict with the agency that ensures all the books of capitalist society balance: the state. Ambivalent from the start about defying the courts, council resistance rapidly collapsed. The main outcome of the campaign was to confuse and demoralise thousands of council workers and others who were prepared to fight the government. It is not surprising that there is now little sympathy for the councillors in their own areas.

The Labour leaders' decision to set up a hardship fund for the councillors is an appropriate They should soricit gesture contributions from all the Labouf politicians and quango activists who applauded the rate-capping campaign last year. But people who want to fight the serious threat to the whole working class from the courts should put their money, and their energy, into campaigns that can unite the working class in defence of rights and living standards, instead of causing division and confusion.

DEFENDING JOBS IN BIRMINGHAM

LAND ROVER

TAKE THEM ALL ON

'm fed up of all this "Keep Leyland British" stuff. The last thing we need is for this lot here to buy it - they're nothing but bastards. Personally as long as it's not them, I don't care who gets it.' That's how one worker sums up his attitude to the proposed buy-out of BL's Land Rover section by British managers to prevent it falling into American hands.

Whoever ends up owning BL, they will attack our jobs and rights Although the 'Keep Leyland British' campaign has not won universal approval among workers at the Land Rover plant at Solihull, it has won widespread support in the Birmingham area. The campaign was launched last month by local trade union leaders, with the backing of the anti-union Birmingham Evening Mail. All the local MPs — Tory and Labour - have scrambled on to the bandwagon, together with the Labour council and other local dignitaries. Opposition party leaders and former prime ministers have flocked to the city to wave the flag for a British BL Sid Platt, regional representative of the TUC, expresses the common sentiment of the supporters of a British take-over: The government must be warned that the people of the West Midlands are angry that the best of their industry is about to be sold off lock, stock and barrel to an American multinational. While local union leaders have been collecting signatures in support of British bosses, BL bosses have been demonstrating the virtues of British ownership to the workforce. In the past five years more than 1500 jobs have disappeared at Land Rover, and 290 more redundancies were announced last week. At BL's Unipart section down the road management has adopted Murdochstyle tactics to intimidate its workforce When Unipart workers voted at the start of the month for strike action in support of a pay claim, management pledged to sack anybody who refused to work.

The appointment of Graham Day as the new BL chief should leave no doubt about the employers' strategy. Day forced through 20 000 redundancies at his last job as boss of British Shipbuilders, and he has plans to shake out more jobs at BL and introduce Japanese style "flexibility'. He insists that job security has got to come from the sales market' and that change is the key to survival." Given the record of BL's British management it is not surprising that many Land Rover workers are cynical about the union leaders campaign for a British buy-out.

Birmingham supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party have been selling tns at the Solihull plant since the take-over controversy broke last month. Our aim is to turn cynicism into active resistance.

Our leaflets have stressed that whatever the nationality of the owners of any section of BL, profitability will be their sole concern. Their profitability depends fewer worker working longer and harder for less money While Land Rover workers are divided in their attitudes the rival bids for ownership, they are united in their concern to preserve jobs, working conditions and living standards. Instead of getting involved in the bosses boardroom squabbles, we need to let them know that whoever takes over the company we are not prepared to accept job losses, flexibility or lower wages The first line of battle is inside the unions For 10 years the unions throughout the BL chain have sacrificed jobs and working conditions to make BL profitable. Now that workers at the Land Rover plant are faced with a new threat, the union officials are chasing different managerial options instead of organising resistance. One worker sums up the widespread frustration with the unions: The union knew about this ages ago but they've done nothing about it. Nobody has a clue what's going on. They called a meeting a week back to get us to endorse the British option. Most people voted for it because that's all there was on offer. But I know loads of people who couldn't really give a damn if it stays British or not. There will be job losses in the end whoever takes over." The union leaders have the workforce one option - backing Brush bosses against American bosses. But taking sides with the capitalists is no alternative for workers. We need a strategy that puts workers' interests first, and mobilises rank and file fight any further rationalisation or productivity plans at BL Our leaflets are recommending: • a boycott of the Keep Leyland British' campaign; • urgent meetings of rank and file workers in all the unions involved, to discuss the dangers of any take-over and to thrash out plans for resistance; • determined opposition to all redundancies Helen Simons

WORKERS AGAINST RACISM SUPPORTERS JOINED CPSA MEMBERS ON MONDAY TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST JOB CENTRE RACE CHECKS

AGAINST RACISM

Racism

EAST LONDON DAYSCHOOL

CENTRE

LINING UP

t was the first War meeting Ruth had been to. When she left she was planning how against immediately. Ruth works at Hackney job offices centre, one of 150 where the department of employment is trying to carry out race checks. As from last Monday, job applicants are to be 'visually assessed' and classified according to their colour. But not if Ruth, ( with War and her fellow trade unionists, can organise to stop it. At the dayschool, Ruth explained how her branch of the Civil and Public Services Association voted 2:1 to take action against the scheme, but the CPSA officials made a deal with management — to carry out the race checks so long as there were posters in the offices, publicising the survey." Since then Ruth and other lob centre workers have taken direct action, with War supporters picketing to back them.

On Sunday, the day before the action began, Ruth described how she felt: People are reluctant to come out because there's no union backing. We're facing intimidation, and suspension without pay. We welcome the War support.' For some people, Paris is the city of romance'. For Albert, who was born there, it is a city of racism. *Because of my Algerian father', he explained, 'France says I'm not French. But I'm not Algerian - I don't speak Arabic. I've had to enduré racism throughout my life, even under Mitterrand's Take their slogan, "Produce French" "Employ it means: French and employ white"?

More than 200 people came to Sunday's Workers Against Racism dayschool in East London. Andrew Calcutt spoke to some of them who want to help War pull racism up by the roots Now living in London, Albert met War during a demonstration at Waltham Forest college, where the principal is a committed racist. He was impressed by War's rejection of GLC-style anti-racism, which 'changes street names instead of black people's oppression. Tim, who's in Nupe, was equally dissatisfied with the GLC campaign.

He has studied it thoroughly — he works in the GLC bookshop. Why is it that War can run racists off the streets, when other campaigns are running out of steam? In his introductory speech, Alex Farrell explained why War is unique He pointed out that last year's riots were caused by police repression. But by citing drugs, "tribalism' or unemployment as the cause, many 'socialists' and 'anti-racists' tried to re-define the riots. This allowed the British establishment to set the terms of the debate around 'law and order.

Only War saw the significance of police repression, and. the role British or ine establishment as the driving force behind it.

War also recognises that all workers have an interest in fighting racism — the campaign exists to show why, and how, it can be done.

In the Roots of Racism' session, one of workshops, a War supthree afternoon porter commented: "To fight racism, which can't exist without nationalism, you need to be up-front anti-British - and that's what I like about War. It points out that Britishis the basis for white workers'

HICSS

exploitation as well as black workers' oppression.' Yet how was national chauvinism, and racism, conveyed from the bosses War supporter exto workers? Another how the leaders of the labour plained movement acted as a transmission desire to driven by the protect their negotiating role in society.

Some people in this session argued that slavery, not nationalism, lies at the root of racism. But Kunle, who led the discussion.

replied that modern racism only emerged after the 'emancipation' of the slaves, as the most convenient means for capitalists to qualify their superficial equality between "citizens', according to the system's requirements. In one of the other workshops, more than 40 participants supported the call for workers' defence, as the only way to defend blacks against racist attacks. This weapon could drive racism off our housing estates.

Everyone agreed we need the police off our The debate centred on how to SITeCTS achieve this. It was this session above all that impressed Louise, who's a 'serious' funk music fan and like Ruth, a CPSA member. "Racism', she said, 'is a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week thing.

But War says, "We're not going to wait any longer." ' Chloe, who teaches handicapped adults at a further education college, was equally enthusiastic. She wants to help set up *The a War branch in her home town.

sessions I went to made things a lot clearer to me,' she said. 'Now I want to get involved.'

BLACK MEANS ILLEGAL

Many black people at the dayschool spoke of positive discrimination as 'patronising' "cosmetic' and 'divisive'. Patricia described how a building society she worked for kept her in the front office as bait to attract black depositors, but refused to consider her for training or promotion. Sandy thought it was "horribly ironic' that he was allowed to join the housing co-op in Brixton, whereas his white friends were not. According to one supporter, discrimination war means re-adjusting the misery quotas.'

But immigration controls were the most significant talking point of the dayschool.

Alex Farrell pointed out that since 1962, when a Labour government introduced the immigration act, every commonwealth black in Britain can be suspected of being an illegal immigrant, to be harassed accordingly. He added: *Since the sixties British racism has become more sophisticated, to the extent that people now applying to come here have to waive their entitlements to all state benetits as a precondition in any tor entrv. Case immigration controls show that all black people are here on sufferance, to meet the needs of the bosses' labour market - which at the moment are zero'.

DRAWING THE POISON

*Immigration controls also contribute to white workers' acceptance of black workers oppression, by giving the green light to the idea that blacks are the problem. But the problem for us is the bosses' system. We'll be able to beat it when we can deal with immigration controls — not before.* According to Omar, a student at North East London Polytechnic, this victory could be close at hand. As the conference hall emptied after the final session, he said: I came down here to see a real alternative to the methods used by the system and the unions. We have the basis here - now all we need is to make it a mass movement. Omar is right: War is the real alternative. But War supporters recognise that the fight against racism will not be an overnight sensation.

The methods of the system and the unions' have worked well - for the British establishment. Racism is now embedded deep within the official labour movement, where every day it causes more damage. To draw its poison, we require political clarity before all else. After Sunday's dayschool 200 more people are looking for ways to make War the leader in the fight against racism.

They will not be disappointed.

ROP

Eddie Shah's Today has got full colour, big - and SDP politics. tns has got the names arguments workers need to win — now we need to make it bigger, brighter and better.

Rush donations to BM RCP, London WCIN 3XX. Cheques payable to RCP Association.

the next step • 14 March 1986 • 3

CROWN POLICE CAN'T DEFEND THE IRISH

Ireland

ROYAL ULSTER CONSTABULARY

In Northern Ireland today, a Crown policeman's lot is not a happy one. Not only have the Royal Ulster Constabulary got to contend with an IRA campaign of gun, bomb and mortar attacks on police but now.inthe heat of the tortesses, Unionist campaign against the Anglo-Irish agreement, the RUC is under fire from its traditional supporters among the Loyalist community. Loyalist leaders insist that the RUC has become the tool of Dublin, imposing the terms of the Anglo-Irish agreement against the will of the Protestant population in Northern Ireland. The recent Loyalist strike against Thatcher's deal with Dublin produced some widely-publicised clashes Loyalist protesters and between And last week, the Democratic Unionist Party released a recording of a meeting of RUC officers, where police complained about the pressure they were under to contront Loyalists.

Despite the publicity given to clashes between the RUC and Loyalist gangs in Northern Ireland, the police remain a bulwark of British rule over Irish nationalists This is today's big debate in Northern Ireland: does the accord mean the sectarian RUC, more than 90 per cent members are Loyalists, is being reformed to serve all sections of the community? Police chiefs and British ministers insist it already is impartial. But the nationalists who were beaten and burnt out of their workplaces by Loyalists during the day of action, while

RUC

patrols stood by, will otherwise. The British media made much of the clashes between police and Protestant rioters in Belfast, and replayed film of the RUC arresting Loyalists in Derry time and again. But a closer look shows these scenes were not all that they seemed.

Take the day's events in Derry. The RUC did nothing about the intimidation nationalists trying to get to work on the Protestant Waterside of the city. Loyalist mobs put two nationalists in hospital, by ramming their van from both ends and then kicking them from pillar to post. Meanwhile the RUC allowed masked Loyalists wielding pickaxe handles to gather on the bridge leading across to Derry's nationalist City side.

SAME OLD STORY

police restraining Derry The pictures Loyalists, which were shown on every news bulletin, only occurred when a crowd of nationalist youth gathered to take on the Loyalist bully-boys. Even then the RUC saved their best efforts for the nationalists, driving their armoured landrovers through a crowd who committed offence of flying the cardinal tricolour flag. An hour later, while Loyalists continued their terror tactics, the launched another motorised attack nationalists in the city, mounting pavements and firing plastic bullets.

the same story elsewhere. In it was Belfast, where clashes between police and Protestants did occur, the RUC also let Loyalists break through the peace line' dividing the city, to attack residents with bricks and petrol bombs. In County Armagh, RUC officers Lurgan, 4 • the next step • 14 March 1986 24-hour watched Loyalists stone nationalist women workers in a local factory and set fire to the workshop. The police even threw terrified women seeking protection out of their vehicles. And in County Fermanagh, the RUC was nowhere to be seen as Loyalists, of whose some reputed to be Ulster Defence Regiment members, pursued two nationalists in a 20mile car-chase before beating up both. One man turned back at a Loyalist road-block asked an RUC patrol in attendance why they weren't opening the road as they had said they would. A policeman only shrugged and tell you said, "There's plenty of other f...ing roads in Fermanagh. At the end of this 24-hour catalogue of Loyalist intimidation and police complicity, RUC chief constable John Hermon announced that his men had 'done their duty'. And he was right. Anglo-Irish agreement or no, the RUC remains a British police force in of Ireland. Its job is to enforce Westminster's rule by repressing the nationalists who want to see Ireland free and united. The tensions now rising within the RUC

IRA

WARNING

RUC

On nationalist

THE RUC LET ARMED LOYALISTS OCCUPY DERRY'S MAIN BRIDGE

OCCUSEV

interrogators republicans pact. Loyalist politicians, forced the

RUC

123079

TOUTING CAN

SERIOUSLY DAMAGE,

STOP

strip-searches

JOE BOATMAN

under the 'Reforms' rich, about the occasional clashes with Loyalists elsewhere. reflect the two aspects of the Anglo-Irish accord. The real content of the deal is a tightening of security against the republican movement, with more coordination between forces North and South of the Border against the IRA. The RUC is all in favour of this aspect of the agreement. As reported in past editions of tns, police boasted to arrested have and aboul une new powers repressive apparatus they expect to get as a consequence of the London-Dublin security The other aspect of the Anglo-Irish deal is the window dressing of reforms, and of a new "consultative role for Dublin in the affairs of Northern Ireland. It has riled the excluded from the negotiating process. And it has led to moves like last year's police re-routing of Loyalist gear marches away from nationalist areas, which to tussle with their Bogside. neighbours on Protestant parades.

This is what the publicised police dissidents are complaining about. They are all in favour of

LAST WEEKEND IRISH

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

DEMONSTRATORS IN

ARMAGH AND

BELFAST,

THE STRIP SEARCHING

OF IRISH REPUBLICAN

WON-SURCHA

BE SUPPORTING

ANOTHER SOLIDARITY

PRISON, TO SUPPORT

IRISH PRISONERS

MARTINA ANDERSON

WHO ARE SUFFERING

THE SAME DEGRADING

HANDS OF THEIR

BRITISH JAILERS. JOIN

US! saturday 22 March 11.30am-1.30pm, Brixton prison. a security clampdown on supporters of Irish freedom, but they're unhappy about paying the political price for it.

Despite the RUC men's misgivings, the British authorities cannot completely ditch the public relations exercise of reforms' Anglo-Irish That a couch would make it obvious to all that the accord was only about undermining the republican movement, and would discredit the deal in the eyes of most moderate nationalists. So the RUC will have to make a few more token gestures towards impartial policing, especially during the Loyalist marching season that starts this month. And a militant minority of Loyalists will take them on.

like marches are superficial and irrelevant to the real issues in the Irish War. But such rituals of Loyalism are important to hardline Protestants, in their superior status over confirming Catholics in Northern Ireland

BRITISH VIOLENCE

The hypocrites of the British establishment have condemned the Loyalist mobs who came out on the day of action, and said that they will not tolerate such violence. That's coming from the politicians and officials responsible for the real violence in Ireland today. The RUC is a Crown police force whose commanders, the agents of the British government, are willing to allow Loyalists to run riot through nationalist areas, so long as the television cameras are focused on a few Protestants throwing bottles at the police The British media highlighted the fact that four RUC men were hurt when they finally escorted the besieged women workers out of their Lurgan factory. But local nationalists know the RUC better than to believe such propaganda. In 1982 police gunmen murdered six nationalists around Lurgan, as part of a strategy dictated by the British government.

IRELAND'S DEFENDERS

What about the British Army, whose strength in Ireland had supposedly been increased to counter violence around the 24hour strike?

The extra troops, or the original ones come to that, were nowhere to be seen as the RUC watched Loyalists attack nationalists all day. The Army's only intervention in any incident was in Derry, where troops in riot bullets disperse fired plastic nationalist youths on the edge of the Irish people may have had to contend with armed bullies at road-blocks for one day. But their roads are blocked every other day by British Army checkpoints, manned by men whose weapons are much more deadly than any lump of wood.

Nationalists living in the Irish war-zones know they cannot rely on the RUC, the Army or any other arm of the British state to protect them from rampaging Loyalists.

Whatever trouble happens between the police and Protestant demonstrators does not alter the position of those oppressed by the British presence in Ireland. The hardpressed nationalists will continue to look to the IRA men who patrolled their streets during the 24 hour strike, and the youths who drove Loyalists out of a nationalist estate in Enniskillen and British troops out Bogside, to defend them against Loyalist mobs and policemen alike.

STARTS NEXT WEEK:

THE BORDER WAR

Mick Hume's three-part series of exclusive reports from the republican strongholds of Bandit Country, where British soldiers fear to tread and locals call the IRA 'the Army' Part One: 'Crossmaglen - Brits graveyard"

THE LEFT

RETREATS BEFORE KINNOCK

DAVID ROURKE

WAR

UNDER THE

Bournemouth last October A Kinnock took on the left. He condemned the "grotesque chaos' to which Liverpool's left-wing council had reduced the city, denounced Arthur Scargill and declared open war on Militant.

In earlier years the left would have fought back. It would have promoted its campaigning work in the Anti-Nazi League, the People's Marches for Jobs, CND or the miners support groups. The striking thing about Neil Kinnock's purge of Militant is the muted response of Labour's left wing, writes John Pearson At the very least the left would have flooded union branches, trades councils and conferences with outraged protests against autocratic leadership. It would have replied to Kinnock's assertion of his prerogatives as leader with campaigns to make the party more democratic and the leader more accountable. But under Kinnock's leadership the party has steadily drifted to the right, and the left has become isolated. The left has softened to the point where it is no longer capable of even defending itself. Militant first came under fire in 1981, when the media seized on the issue as a stick with which to beat the newly appointed Labour leader, veteran left winger Michael Foot. Concerned to project a moderate image, the leadership set up an inquiry of being a which found Militant guilty separate organisation within the party. In February 1983 the national executive duly expelled the five members of the Militant editorial board. Militant's reply to this assault from the party leadership set the tone for its response to subsequent witch-hunts. It issued a few statements of protest and organised a few public meetings, but then called a halt to resistance. By the time the 1983 conference ratified the expulsions, Militant had long accepted the leadership's terms for staying in the party. It came to an informal arrangement: if the leadership limited its purge to the big five, then Militant would not make a big fuss about the witch-hunt.

For a while Militant's compromise with the leadership seemed to pay off. In 1983 it gained two MPs and control of Liverpool council. It obliged the party bosses by

WITCH-HUNTER'S SPELL

refusing to join other left factions in organising against the Labour leadership.

The 1983 But this peace could not last.

conference elected a new party leader, and before long Kinnock needed to demonstrate his authority over the party. Through 1984 the miners' strike buoyed up the left and stayed Kinnock's hand. But once the miners were beaten, the way was clear for Kinnock to put the boot in. Since 1983 more than 50 left wingers — not all Militant supporters — have been expelled from the Labour Party.

The soft left has played a typically hypocritical role in the purge. At Bournemouth last October David Blunkett, the leader of Sheffield council and a prominent figure on the soft left, made a conciliatory gesture to Derek Hatton - and offered his services to the party leader in the drive against Militant. We must cease the purge mentality,' said Blunkett, as he set about purging Militant. He was so opposed to the purge mentality that he threatened to resign if his Sheffield council colleagues refused to kick out a harmless local Militant, Paul Green. The rest of the soft left follow the Blunkett line. Protesting their hostility to witch-hunts, they join in the witch-hunt against Militant.

•We're against purges, but here's a dossier of evidence for a purge of Militant, declared of the Labour Coordinating supporters Committee and Tribune. When the executive voted to take steps towards the expulsion of 16 members of the Liverpool party, the soft left played a key role in swinging the vote by two to one in Kinnock's favour.

EVERYDAY STORIES

The soft left's evidence against Militant falls into two categories. First is the revelation that Liverpool Labour Party is run in an undemocratic and bureaucratic manner - just like every other local Labour meetings, Party. Tales about packing manipulating resolutions and intimidating political opponents are everyday stories in the world of the Labour bureaucracy. Yet the left has not produced a dossier on rightwing intrigue in Roy Hattersley's Birmingham constituency, or in Peter Shore's in East London. Nor has the left inquired into the dubious trade union delegates who took part in the recent reselection of right winger John an Earl's Gilbert one, Gilbert's wife, Court fashion designer, is the delegate for the GMBATU quarryworkers' branch.

The of complaints second Calcul against Militant focuses on the high living and smart dressing of Derek Hatton. The rest of the left has a particular dislike for the man Socialist Organiser calls "Flash Harry.

This is strange because the left seems to have little objection to the lavish lifestyles long enjoyed by the party leadership. And the left

ET TU, BLUNKETT?

has never criticised dapper Hackney MP Ernie Roberts for his sartorial elegance. But the trendy left prefers its representatives to wear kickers and jeans and carry a filofax.

The soft left heroes shun fashion, dress down in public and spend their ample supplies of quango cash on tickets for the opera. Much of the distaste for Hatton is little more than old-fashioned middle class snobbery.

While more and more left wingers have decided that 'we've got to draw the line somewhere, and gone over to support the Kinnock line, Militant has sounded another retreat. Even in Liverpool, it's hard to find a Militant paper seller on the streets because supporters are so afraid they might be the next to go. Immediately after the executive decision on expulsion, Militant leaders announced that they would summon a meeting of the banned District Labour Party the following day, in open defiance of Kinnock. In the event the meeting was discreetly turned into a private rally called by the Labour group of councillors. At last week's Scottish Labour Party conference in Perth, Militant supporters could be seen applauding a speech by general secretary and witch-hunter-in-chief Larry Whitty.

Copies of Militant were even more difficult to get hold of than Eddie Shah's Today.

AN INTERNAL SQUABBLE

Militant is the victim of its own parasitic relationship with the Labour Party. It relies on the Labour machine for its survival.

This means that it is forced to pay any price to cling on to the diseased body of the labour bureaucracy. It must accept every humiliation at the hands of the party while hoping that it will stop leadership, short of kicking every Militant paper seller out of the party. One of the most telling indications of the left's retreat from important political issues is the Socialist Workers' Party's preoccupation with the Militant purge. Ever since the Labour conference six months ago, the SWP has made the internal squabble of another party the central focus of its propaganda and activity. At a time of unprecedented attacks on the working class, mounting racism and attacks on women's rights, the SWP devotes its resources to defending one variety of Instead of Labourism trying to build a party by giving a lead in the real struggles of the working class, the SWP has reduced its horizons to "building a socialist alternative to Kinnock' and picking up a few disillusioned Militant supporters.

The retreat of the left before Kinnock reflects its irrelevance to the working class.

The crumbling of the hard left confirms the need, not for an alternative to Kinnock, but for a real alternative to the Labour Party.

THE

PROPAGANDA

WAR

Today The first issue of Eddie Shah's new daily paper was fronted by a full-colour photo of the Queen. Readers were informed that this picture of Her Majesty in Australia had been transmitted in seconds down a telepnone nine on a israel-made sciex scanner machine'. The Scitex was at work again the next day, with a picture of Princess Diana filling the page one slot. On Thursday it brought us a portrait of Bob Geldof. By Saturday Today was scraping the Royal barrel with a picture of Princess Michael of Kent, but the nation's new daily paper was on its way. Today is fiercely committed to the bland and uncontroversial journalism characteristic of British provincial newspapers. When the editor declared in the first issue that Today will be independent of any political party, he meant it would be safe and inoffensive. The Royal family and folk heroes, like the values of enterprise and success which Today cherishes, are above politics. Eddie Shah, a self-made man who never ducks a challenge, is a symbol of the spirit of Today. For Today, independence means not pushing any particular establishment line too hard, while the editorial board carefully reviews and balances the different options.

This sort of independence is soon exposed when Today tries to affect a social conscience. The most critical article in the first week was entitled Soccer drink plan for the bosses only' which questioned the class prejudice displayed in the official ban on alcohol from the terraces, while allowing it in the directors' boxes. What appeared to be the most left-wing article of the week - "Leyland for the workers' turned out to be a statement of support for the British managers' bid to buy out the company.

It was not long before the prejudices of the British middle classes began to seep through Today's pages. On Friday it revealed its cloven hoof - and its already well developed penchant for the journalistic cliché - with headlines such as "Toytown Trots pay the price and Why the comrades were caught red handed. By Sunday it was frothing about the 'madness' of "freakish people' on left-wing Labour councils who outraged 'common decency. It offered a picture of Arthur Scargill with a one word caption: "megalomania'. The front page of the same issue featured the views of David Steel and David Owen on BL, in what was little more than an Alliance promotional poster. Today revels in the success stories of today's Britain. Fashion designer Bruce Oldfield — headline 'rags to riches' (geddit?) - is the sort of independent man Today admires. Or take Dr John Rae, headmaster of Westminster public school, a man inspired by another symbol of British enterprise, Laura Ashley. For Rae, as for Ashley, 'challenge is the driving force'. Just consider what Rae has had to go through: 'As a staunch defender of the public school system, he earned Labour's loathing — yet, as a liberal thinker, educational reformer, and a fully paid up member of the SDP, he managed to offend the Tories who paid his wages." This only goes to show that enterprise and independence is but a step away from the receipt of an SDP membership card Today does not want a clear political identity because it does not want to take responsibility for the ruthless measures necessary to keep British capitalism in business. That is why it is so independent.

It wants to enjoy the fruits of exploitation, while others get on with the unpopular job of propping up the system.

the next step • 14 March 1986 • 5

OUR DAY V

ome Yorkshire people are still paying S the price of the miners' defeat, as the courts continue to claim their victims.

Last week a Yorkshire video shop owner, who tried to offset the crippling effects of the strike on his trade by forming an adults only' porn club, received a heavy fine. A 19-year old youth, who told a policeman that the boot is on the other foot now the miners' strike is putting his boot into the over' before policeman's car, was sentenced to six months' youth custody. A butcher was fined for selling meat by price rather than weight — a practice preferred by miners during the strike, and carried on in face of the hardship that still prevails. Throughout the Yorkshire coalfield, miners got together last weekend on the anniversary of the end of their battle for jobs. How had the strike changed their lives and their attitudes?

'A HATRED FOR THE POLICE

THAT WILL REMAIN FOREVER

*We were all shocked, we'd only been used to policeman in this village,' recalls one one elderly resident of Fitzwilliam, a pit village which saw some of the worst police violence of the miners strike. For many miners the experience of police terror has faded altogether: two miners at one North Yorkshire pit - one a picket-line regular — have taken redundancy and joined up. For others, memories of baton charges and pitched fights have become tales to tell their children. But for a signiticant minority the experience has left an enduring bitterness.

*There is a hatred for the police that will remain forever, said one young miner who is still suffering the effects of a police beating.

'I don't think for a moment that every miner supported the use of violence against the police Farm, but there is more at Broadwater awareness of what the police are than ever before.' What about the death of PC Blakelock?

'Hard lines. Hard lines for him. If they go round smashing people's doors down with hammers, they can't cry about it when they get some back.

People don't take to the streets for nothing' His mother remembers the scene as though it was yesterday. 'My son was running away from the police when he fell down. While he was down they knocked hell out of him. They broke his shoulder and his jaw. He had 15 truncheon marks down his back and head injuries besides.

He's been off work since. He's still going to hospital." His wife described what happened the night the police rampaged through the village. They were after certain people. When they came they went mad, smashing the place up. People in the way got knocked around, but the ones they wanted were taken away. The police in riot gear surrounded the house. His mother's 71, so they called her an "old bastard". We had to go into hospital one at a time with a police escort. I said, "What do you think I'm going to do?" My husband didn't even know where he was, he kept asking, "What's this on my back?" When I found out they were truncheon marks I was so mad I stormed out to tell the television, but not much of it came out.' The family put in an official complaint, 'not expecting any justice, and not getting any'. The police complaints officers said that the police officer in charge of the operation that night was 'of rank': 'I thought yes, rank rotten, they lied up to their teeth. One community policeman still lives in the village. During the raid that led to a riot he was seen pointing people out to the snatch squads.

His windows have been broken many times paint-bombed. One since, house and nis morning he woke to find there was nothing left of his garden: the trees had been dug up and replanted in the old folks' gardens. The metal grilles on the windows of the local police station were taken down after the strike, but soon had to be replaced. In a few nights in the summer of 1984 many Yorkshire miners learnt more about the police than in all the preceding years - and tney nave not forgotten.

THE FURTHER YOU GOT FROM

THE KITCHEN, THE MORE YOU

COULD SEE'

'Things will never be the same again,' was a phrase on the lips of many women who played an active role in the dispute — but how deep did the changes go for the women of the mining communities? 'Maybe 10 miners at every pit have really changed, says Pat. The atmosphere used to be great. We got treated as equals, but now it's gone back to how it was. During the strike it'd be, "You women should get a holiday in Spain after all this is over, you're doing a 6 • the next step • 14 March 1986 great job." Now you'd be lucky if they bought you a half. Pat says the strike opened a lot of women's eyes, but things didn't go far enough. "The main role for the women during the strike - neve mind "we're not going back to the kitchen sink" —was the kitchen sink. We went from one kitchen sink to a bigger one.' When women got the chance to play a bigger role they made the most of it. 'I went picketing.

In the riots the women changed into jeans and got on with putting up the barricades.

The further you got from the kitchen, the more you As for got to see what was really going on.

affiliating to the NUM I can't understand why we'd want to. We wouldn't get a vote and we'd just come under the rule book One woman canteen worker at a colliery said she thought the strike had been a waste of •We knew we were beaten after six time. months, it shouldn't have gone on for a year.

What did it get us? She said she was right behind the strike and the union, but believes the miners were fighting a losing battle from the start. 'Maggie Thatcher was prepared to bring the country to its knees to beat the miners, we would never have won even if we'd stayed out for two years.' miner standing at the counter A young interrupted: •We had to fight, we had no choice about it, I'd do it again tomorrow? Another miner's wife said, 'The strike really changed me and made me political. I hardly used to go out and I didn't go anywhere without my husband.

But there was no stopping me once got involved.' Janet says that a lot of the women who got involved have dropped out now, some have joined the Labour Party, and some are carrying on with the support group which has become more and more like a charity. T'd do it again, but I'd do it different next time.

wouldn't stay in a soup kitchen for a start. I'd be out organising and arguing with people.'

'THERE'S NO "SOCIAL COSTS"

UNDER THIS SYSTEM'

*There's a feeling of despondency now,' said young miner, *even people were wne Ose militant in the strike are wanting to get out of the industry.' Since the strike ended one Yorkshire miner in four has taken redundancy - 13 000 have gone and eight pits have closed.

30 000 jobs have Nationwide, • more than disappeared and nearly 30 pits have shut down.

Many miners see no future down the pit, and have decided to get out while they can.

The union's reliance on the colliery review contributed to a fatalistic procedure has attitude towards pit closures. In November the men at Kinsley Drift voted by five to one to fight closure. But the campaign against closure is flagging as everybody waits for the result of the review panel at the end of March. Having had little direction from the union the campaign their faith in local organisers are putting The NUM leaders' strategy of churchmen. pleading for mercy from the review panel has deepened the divisions. Many miners blame fellow miners for not fighting, just because they have voted to accept closure before the review procedure has run its course.

The real responsibility lies with the NUM leaders who have failed to organise resistance at While the media gloat over the employers' the miners look back with a mixture of pri national level, not with those who have been left to fight alone. But the bureaucrats have not had it all their own way. At a recent meeting in Barnsley a Houghton Main miner told a union official that it was useless trying to persuade the bosses and the review panel that the 'social costs' of closure were an argument for keeping unprofitable pits "There's no such thing as "social costs open. under this system,' he said, 'the bosses aren't in it for our welfare, they're in it for their C

THE MINERS

jobs. Joan P

SVT 4791

SACKED MEN FROM SOUTH KIRKBY STILL SURVIVE BY STANDING IN THE PIT LANE, COLLEC profits. We've got to look out for ourselves ar fight again."

HYPOCRISY CAN DAMAGE YOU

HEALTH

Smoking can damage your health, reads t sign outside the pit-head baths at Kellingl colliery. But the main threat to miners' health the relentless drive to raise productivity sin Mining has always be the strike ended.

TONE

VILL COME

ONE YEAR ON

e and bitterness to the 12-month battle for illips reports

CASH FROM THEIR OLD WORKMATES

dangerous work. In the pit villages it is common to see men stopping to catch their breath every few yards. In the clubs you can see men, old and not so old, gasping and coughing and spitting blood into handkerchiefs. Now, after more than 15 years of decline, the accident rate is rising.

Last week the coal board sent a safety special bulletin to every miner, giving grim statistics of deaths and injuries. In the past two months 21 men have died as a result of accidents. The message from area director

THE PIGS

ctory and the union leaders lick their wounds, Albert Tuke is "look after your own safety" miners find this hypocrisy difficult to Many stomach. *They're telling us to cut corners to boost productivity one minute, and pretending to be concerned about rising accident rates the next,' said one. A young miner at one of the area's most profitable pits is now laid up in bed, with metal pins in a leg shattered in a pit-head accident. He has a wife and four children, but he won't work for a year and compensation is not guaranteed Just before Christmas his uncle was killed in one of the Selby "superpits' and two of his workmates had similar accidents in the same week he did. His wife says she's not surprised.

*They're forcing up production like mad. Something has to give.' As always, it is the miners who have to give — with their bones and blood. "Somebody's going to get killed down here soon,' said an angry face worker at Prince of Wales colliery. *There's a 10-inch air gap between the top of the water and the roof.

We've got two clapped-out pumps, if one gives up the whole place will flood in minutes.' At some pits the board has abolished sick leave.

When a miner hurt his arm and sent a sick note he was told sick is absent and absenteeism won't be tolerated. Threatened with the sack, he went back to work early - and made his injury even worse. Many union officials are going along with the drive for productivity at all costs. One Yorkshire area official welcomed the oppor tunity to increase productivity as it means better bonuses for the men'. But productivity increases are paid for with broken bones and wasted lives. The area council has accepted the board's ultimatum on incentive schemes as a basis for pay negotiations — schemes that can only make conditions worse down the pit. Area president Jack Taylor says that the NUM's record in Yorkshire of pursuing industrial injury claims "is second to none'. Taylor can tell that to the men who have lost arms and legs to satisfy the coal board's quest for profits.

'THEY'VE BEEN LEFT TO THEIR

OWN DEVICES

At the end of February Kevin Russell, a miner sacked after the strike, was reinstated. He didn't get his own job back and he has lost all the benefits of years of working in the industry. But at least he has a job: more than 500 of his fellow miners have been permanently victimised, and a dozen are still in prison.

Mick Jinks was prosecuted for breaking a coal board window at South Kirkby, and was subsequently sacked. Joe Henry lost his job for shouting at a scab. In all six were sacked at South Kirkby — and only one got his job back.

Every Friday the sacked men stand with their collecting buckets at the top of the pit lane.

I wrote and told Arthur Scargill about them lads standing collecting money al une pil gate,' said one local woman. 'It's humiliating for them to have to do it, the union should pay them a wage. Rob Andrews is one of 24 sacked miners in Nottinghamshire. These men feel the isolation even more. They have to rely on the scab Union of Democratic Mineworkers — not their own union - to represent them and finance their industrial tribunals. Some of the Notts men accuse the NUM leadership of turning its back on them. At a recent benefit for the sacked men at Creswell, local NUM leader Henry Richardson made a speech without once mentioning the victimised miners. One of the sacked men leapt on to the stage and criticised the union leaders He got a standing ovation from the assembled miners and harsh words from the union officials. David Gaunt from Shirebrook was 18 when he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for burning buses used to transport scabs. His father Trevor thinks he deserves a medal, like all the other prisoners of the miners" strike.

*They ought to be treated as special prisoners because that's what they are.' Many miners and their families think that the union has shrugged off its responsibility for defending the jailed men. "I don't think there's enough being done," said one woman who writes regularly to the prisoners What about Jack Taylor's campaigning work for the jailed men? Two Houghton Main miners laughed bitterly and said, 'If we could find him we'd dig him up.' The real indictment of the NUM leadership is that nobody seems to know how many miners are still inside. In my opinion they've been left to their own ends. Let's not forget, they are political prisoners, no matter how much the union shies away from it. It says a lot for the state of the movement that it can let all those miners rot in prison. It's up to ordinary men and women to take up the fight for reinstatement and freedom for the victimised and imprisoned miners who have been all but forgotten by the union leaders

THE MINERS' NEXT STEP

*They've picked on the wrong people this time,' said one miner when he heard about police harassment of supporters of the miners' next step campaign in Yorkshire. 'You were the people who had the bottle to stand up at the beginning for what you thought was right. And it turned out vou were right - when vou said that a national ballot was the only way to unite the miners and that the Scargill strategy couldn't win. You were prepared to take an unpopular line then, and that's stood you in good stead since. Over the past 12 months the miners' next step group has growing reputation for won a standing up to the coal board, the union bureaucrats and all their allies. Inspired by the rank and file movement of the past, we have sought to popularise the classic 1912 line: The old policy of identity of interest between employers and ourselves should be abolished, and a policy of open hostility installed.

We have campaigned against both the newstyle collaboration of the UDM, and the oldstyle collaboration of the NUM leaders.

In our bulletins and at our many meetings we have argued that the miners can only go forward if they break all the old connections with the employers and re-establish a fighting union. This means: • boycotting the colliery review procedure: we should expect nothing from the bosses that we cannot get through fighting • throwing out the Plan for Coal: we should ditch the document and the ideas which have nea miners nvennooas to me pronaoulty of the coal industry • ending the check-off system: we want to run the union in our own way, not through a cosy arrangement with the bosses • taking control: we need to reorganise the NUM from pit level upwards to make it a fighting union, accountable to the rank and file.

The miners' strike did not stop the bosses' closure programme. But it had a dramatic effect on the outlook of many people in the mining communities and beyond, who lost all respect for the employers, the courts and the police.

Some too learned that they could not trust the leaders of the labour movement.

One woman sums up a view that has become widespread in Yorkshire since the strike. 'My family collected thousands of pounds for the NUM in the strike. So when some of our lads got into trouble with the police we naturally thought the union would help us out in court, which they should have done. But, oh no, they didn't want to know. Yorkshire president Jack Taylor said, "Knackers to them, they're just a bunch of hooligans anyway." It was weeks before my sons told me because they know I'ma fiery bugger. I thought I'm not standing for that and wrote to him: "For your information Jack Taylor I've brought five sons up and there's no way I brought them up to be hooligans. But perhaps you think your role is better served going to brass band concerts with colliery managers than defending your members. Such behaviour will put loyalty to the NUM in jeopardy. I'll finish this letter by reiterating your words - knackers to you Mr Taylor."

When the miners have a leadership worthy of the courage and determination they displayed during the strike - and since — then we will be able to settle the scores still outstanding from the miners' strike of 1984-85.

(Additional material from Toby Banks, Terry Anderson and Jennifer Rathbone) the next step • 14 March 1986 • 7

France

RACE IN THIS WEEK'S ELECTIONS

THIS VITRY 'HOTEL' IS UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION - OK FOR BLACKS ast Saturday around 30 black workers assembled in a community centre in a working class district in the fifteenth quarter of southern Paris. They had come not to talk about the elections, but about how to avoid deportation, after the authorities refused to renew their residence permits. A community worker reported on his unsuccessful appeal to the Socialist minister for deportations: *The worst thing is the guys we spoke to won't even be there in a couple of weeks. But the common view was that no postelection change of government personnel was likely to make much difference — all the major parties take an anti-immigrant line.

*Before Mitterrand got in, in 1981, the Socialists promised to help immigrants, said Mamadou who helps run the centre. At first it looked like they meant it. People who were illegal were allowed to register - get "regularised" as the Socialists called it. But since then things have got steadily worse.

The whole regularisation thing was a con.

The people here are mostly people who registered then. Now the government won't A new consensus unites right and left in France: black people are its victims. Sabena Norton reports from Paris on the run-up to Sunday's elections 8 • the next step • 14 March 1986

BLACKS DON'T COUNT

renew their permits. Zaidi, a north African, agreed: 'Before, it was OK if you had a job.

Now they make problems all the time, no matter what you do. Thousands of workers like Zaidi have been trapped by the government's new laws. Mamadou explained: immigration 'Under the new rules you don't get a job unless you have the proper one-year or 10year permit. But you also don't get the permit unless you have a job. So what are people meant to do? If you're black and unemployed, you've had it.

The whole situation is just a nightmare for us."

The rapidly growing French National Front has made racism the central plank of its election platform. But racism is far from being the exclusive preserve of the far right.

The Socialist government has authorised a clampdown on all black people in France, particularly on the one million-plus north African immigrants concentrated around Paris, Lyons and Marseilles.

Under Mitterrand, government policy has given the green light to racial prejudice throughout French society.

Down the road from the community centre there is a 'foyer' — a glorified barracks, provided by the social services department to house single blacks. Residents are squeezed into bunk beds, two or three to a tiny room. According to the opinion polls, one problem. housing the number Government spending cuts have created an But acute shortage of accommodation.

black people face more than the usual problems in finding adequate housing.

Carlos Bravo, a leading anti-racist activist, says that local councils often refuse to house immigrants. 'It's not exactly legal, but they get away with it anyway. Usually they just say they're full up - even when everyone knows they've got lots of empty flats.' In many districts on the outskirts of Paris by Socialist or Communist most run councils - discrimination is rife.

• Left-wing councillors have turned housing into another focus of racism. The argument often used to justify discrimination in housing is that keeping the number of immigrants down is necessary for 'social peace. The Communist Partv bears particular responsibility for popularising the view that blacks are a problem. Its chief complaint in recent parliamentary debates on race and immigration has been that blacks are concentrated in districts with Communist councils. The consensus that blacks are best kept out means that many black people are forced to live in squalor.

RACIST JUSTICE

In a 'hotel' in Vitry on the outskirts of Paris, 72 adults and 33 children are housed in 37 rooms. There is no hot water or heating. But the private landlord charges £160 a month for each room. The residents' campaign to persuade the council to rehouse them has failed. But they may soon be evicted by the health board, which has declared the place unfit for human habitation. If they are evicted the families will be on the street. That means more trouble from the immigration authorities - residence permits are not extended unless you can provide evidence of suitable accommodation. In their election manifestos, both the National Front and the right-wing RPR call for blacks to be excluded from some welfare But the Socialist government has benefits. already effectively implemented such policies in housing and other social services.

The Socialists have paved the way for more drastic measures under the right-wing regime which is certain to rule France after this week's assembly elections.

In one afternoon last week, a small magistrates court in a sub-district of Paris dealt with 15 immigrant offenders.

The indicate the sentences kind of justice immigrants can expect in France: • Konate, a 26-year old man from Mali, was sentenced to six months imprisonment followed by six years banishment trom France, for possession of hashish.

• Benamon, a 19-year old Morroccan, got three months in prison and three years banishment for carrying false papers.

in the final weeks of the election campaign all parties have toned down their racist propaganda, in the hope of winning more middle of the road floating voters. But racism has become a key factor in French political life. By adapting to the of the chauvinist and racist prejudices French establishment, the Socialists have supplied the right with a powerful political weapon. Mitterrand's party is likely to feel the consequences at the polls next week But the damage is not only to the Socialist Party. The policies of the Mitterrand government have accelerated the fragmentation of the working class itself. While immigrant workers have been at the sharp end of attacks both from official agencies and from the racist gangs, the mainstream labour movement has also suffered. Unions which have long turned a blind eye to discrimination against immigrants have proved equally ineffective in defending blueblooded Frenchmen. As unemployment climbs, union membership has plummeted • Turquia, a 29-year old Algerian woman, was banished for one year for not living where she was registered.

Mitterrand's government has adapted the law make deportation the catch-all to punishment for immigrants who are petty offenders. The up-market French daily paper Le Monde recently remarked that thanks to repatriation the growth of unemployment has slowed down'. According to official figures, last year alone 45 000 immigrants were repatriated under redundancy schemes run jointly by the government and employers.

The murderer of 19-year old Wahid Hachichi got a five-year sentence, of which two years were suspended. me uage considered the kiler e clalm, that Wahid was attempting to steal his car, served as an 'extenuating circumstance'.

There have been more than 100 racist murders In France in the past four years.

in the French car industry. where mos production lines are manned by immigrant workers, repatriation has become central to rationalisation schemes. Plans to shed up to 20 000 jobs in the next five years rely on removing most of the workers not only from the car factories, but also from the country.

Citroen has announced 800 redundancies at its plants at Clichy and Nanterre. The company declared that assuming that all the immigrant workers accept repatriation, that leaves only 300 workers to re-train.

Repatriation has provided employers with a useful weapon, to divide the working class and pre-empt resistance to the shake-out of jobs.

Mitterrand's repatriation policies expose the real meaning of the left's nationalist programme for regenerating French industry.

By promoting a racist response to industrial decline, the left itself has become the executor of the right's French jobs for French workers' policy. The unions' acceptance of this divisive approach shows how far the rot has gone.

RACISM AND THE LEFT

and living standards have stagnated.

There has been little resistance from the left to the rising menace of racism in France.

The interview in last week's tns with Lutte Ouvriere, the largest far left group in France, revealed its underestimation of the importance of racism. The French left, like its British colleagues, prefers to avoid racism, treating it at best as a question of civil rights.

Racism is regarded as marginal to the class struggle, as an issue which can safely be left to black groups and middle class liberals.

As a result anti-racist activity has become isolated from the working class - the only force that can really challenge racism.

The role of racism in the French elections confirms the urgent need for a working class anti-racist movement in France. A movement which took on the pervasive influence of racism over the labour movement, and rallied working class action in defence of the rights of immigrant workers, would not only deter the racists it would greatly strengthen the whole of the working class.

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With Geldof in Africa, Times/Band Aid, £5.95 With Geldof in Africa demonstrates through no natural disaster. In 4000 gallons more widely. devastation of Africa. Focusing on Ulticials marKeL

SHAKESPEARE

- who gang dark and deadly nakespeare eves us a ane so luca chaos samural loras comuna gure is nere

ETHIOPIAN FAMINE

Saint Bob lashes out David Blundy and Paul Vallely, and words (by Blundy and Vallely) that the Sahel famine is Timbuctoo, Mali, Geldof was told That The deser avances miles southwards every year slowly burying the town. Less development project pumps of water every secona mom tre Nicer intod network of irrigation channels, to allow the cultivation of rice. The technoloey exists, out do trie project engineer explains, the country cannot afford to use it It sticks in the throat when leaders who enjoy comfortable starve. Western businessmen ane bolcans mave more discreet in enjoying their wealth, but they carry a much greater burden or responsionity Tortne corrupt black lets the svstem of westen com nation oine hook. Most African economies produce cash crops for the world and only une cast coe sector has an incentive to Geoff Kendall

KUROSAWA MEETS

Cheerless, Ran, Akira Kurosawa (director) King Lear is a play about an unhinged utterly by foolish pride ancient Britain but it aches with the tensions of seventeenth century an espere felt that the stable moral systems of medieval society were vanishine, in a wore where seit-interest was the ena and bonds on which society depends were seme rent asunder. arra terrifying glimpse through the fabric. Beyond society there is Hole our dersonal Lear is a fitting piece for the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa to choose to end a career that has spanned over 40 seething power. years and included such films as of Blood (Macbeth), Dersu Uzala and Kagemusha. His title Ran indicates the chaos carly win wach aurosawa nas grasped and portrayed one of the main themes of the play. The film preserves its structure without tollowing it iterally transposing the action to medieval Japan with its feuding The Great Lord Hidetora, in a gesture careless of his own history and the forces at work around him, abdicates and divides nis kingdom between nic three sons, but banishes the one truculent enough to confront him with as own subeine oder brothers lose no time in turning on their father, and the family proceeds to tear itselt apart. The represented by Lady Kaede, wife of the oldest brother, but also aveneer or ner own tamil.

previously wiped out by the til It left to small farmers relying on neolithic technology. wynen seldor lasnes our al whoever happens to be in front of him he often misses the point. The bureaucrats of the acc are to name not because they refuse to ship European food mountains to Africa, but because weste govemments are reddy to use guns to enforce an international order which makes it impossible for Africa to produce enough to feed itself.

• Great Lord. She is the immediate aren or estucion ane Mieko Harada gives a performance of erotic moment when she licks the cuts she has just opened with her dagger on the throat o the second brother. The sub-plot of the original is for the most part abandoned, but there is a supero rool blayed by reler. d Japanese transvestite star.

The uncluttered centrepiece is the steady disintegration o Hidetora himselt, plaved with al ine necessary autority and bewilderment by Tatsuya Nakadai. As in the original, this is no comesic rareov out ar upheaval on a monumental scale. As you might expect from Kurosawa, it is played out on vast lanescares adainst massive sullen castles and in titanic clashes between the factions. The grandeur and sombre beauty of nearly every frame provide a suitably malestic setting for the trauma and madness which engulf the

MORE MORAL PANICS

Dear Victoria Valerie Riches, Sex and Social Engineering, Family and Youth Concern £1.00 victora suck. bear wrs aek the public respond, Marshall Pickering The Family in Question, Diana Gittins (editor. Macmillan £5.95 Dear Mrs Gillick tells of the tribulations (and the trials) the author endured in her campaign to restrict the provision of contacedaves to voung seoole She presents herself as a tireless and inspired (by you know who campaigner. He campaign diary, which quotes extensively from letters of support from 'worried parents', spiced win a tew poison pen letters, illustrates the growing influence of her style o sanelimonious moralisin amone politicians, the professions, the media and the wider public Valerie Riches is one of the brains penin alick. ner group Family and Youth Concern, is dedicated to stop what she sees to spreac as a curioullat amoralism unal is destructive to the state and the family. Both Gillick and Riches quote extensivelv from discredited studies which claim to prove a connection between sex and cervical cancer. and to reveal the dangers of contraception and abortion. Their concern for the future wives and mothers of society revedis unel view or what a woman's place should be.

The Family in Question is an forsaken lord, and deepen the patnos or nis decline He sits for example at the still centre of a ferocious battle wales almis accomeanies only by Toru Takemitsu's score.

The carnage without the sound dream. By the time sound bursts upon the scene Hidetora, unable to comprencha mis soms treachery or ine dean or all nis gone mad. He is able to stumble out into a desert of black volcanic ash, a trul blasted neal At the end of King Lear someone dark and deadly and it's difficult To cale win to sala makes it seem even worse. In the play Edmund is the •stuouve destrucive reue ou his upstart ambition and iconoclastic vigour undoubtedly represent Darticuld socid -Torses No sach sense ei historical complexity relieves Ran, where Edmund's role is •space ov une reveree meme (embodied in Lady Kaede and reinforced by the reference to

REVIEWS

assessment of the 'crisis of the family. In her wide-ranging historical ane socological study Gittins argues that there never has been such a thing as the family, simply diverse arrangements in which people work and sexual activity. She concludes that the family itself is not in crisis, but the ideologi or the tamily is, because it ne longer fits reality. But why now?

superficia view of the family as ar institution sustained by ideology Guns as o see now canee forms of family life over the past 200 years have been moulded by the demands of the capitalist The remarkable economy. feature of the modern family is not its diversity, but its uniformity, which results from its role in nurturing labour to capital, day in day out, year aile year, generation after generation. The crisis of the family corresponds to the more wide ranging crisis of modern capitalist society. The tamily and especially women - Deal much of the strain of unemployment and welfare cuts.

family to play an even more in holding together a disintegrating society root a crisis of ideas, but a crisis of a social system. We need to take on allick micHes are tel sponsors, not only in the realm of ideas, but in a political strupple tor women s liberation change the form of family life, by freeing women from their role in reproducig labour power for capital Wendy Ellis Hidetora's previous misdeeds) here me characiers are locked even more deeply into a timeless tragedy of human folly and wickedness ane me us Te weaker for it. Significantly too, the youngest son has nowhere expressed so dramatically by The overwhelming visual solenour or nurosawd s bernaos does nor bertme subtleties which can be ) Shakespeare's verse. Certainly the tilm is at its weakest with me galose aren those scenes where the old man rambles on until he finds some reason i as madness. Inest depend upon a teasing verbal dexterity and specificity of allusion which are squeezed out ov kurosawas abutts relentless pessimism you want.

you'll rarely do better than this.

the bleak and bitter flute of a blinded youth stumbling on the euce ord decidice Pat Ford the next step • 14 March 1986 • 9

LETTERS

NUCLEAR

POWER -

YES

PLEASE/NO

THANKS?

GREENPEACE and other environmental groups who were the target ot the Propaganda War (tns 9) do, l agree, let their single issue campaigns become an obsession when the overriding problem is the capitalist system. While you correctly showed the irrational side to the Sellafield scare it is quite understandable that workers and neighbours have fears and preludices given inat ine bosses, who control their industry and the availability of information, are a bunch of liars. For many years workers' ceau ce tucales wee stamped 'pneumonia' or 'bronchitis when in fact they died from the effects of coal dust or asbestos on their lungs. Since we have no rea control we can no more believe radioactive discharges are probably harmless than Greenpeace's claim that they are a great health risk. In what amounted to a defence of the nuclear industry's safety record under capitalist control, you didn't make fair comparisons. Surely the same drive for productivity and profits effects Namibian uranium miners, who supply the nuclear industry in this and other countries with its raw material, to a greater miners. The generation process at coal and nuclear fired power stations is basically the same. But the potential dangers are quantitatively different. The worst possible accident at a coal fired station would flatten the place. Whereas the worst imaginable nuclear accident could lay waste a huge area of the countryside. Under communism risks in all industries would be reduced, but not eliminated. The main difference would be that workers would have the greatest possible control, 10 • the next step • 14 March 1986 WRITE TO: tns, BCM JPLTD, LONDON WC1N 3XX and knowledge of the risks involved. Until we put an end to capitalism, and gain that control and the knowledge that goes with it, surely we can only speculate about the advantages of nuclear energy over other forms, which have lacked technological investment or progress because - unlike nuclear power - they offer no obvious militaristic end-use.

Danny Lloyd Pontefract AS a new supporter of the RCP I have come to agree with your views over nuclear OWea caic arus and a management prepared protection. However, I strongly objected to the Propaganda War's poxy comment on nuclear power in tns 9. Apart from adverse health effects on the local population, Sellafield has caused widespread damage to marine biology in the area and serious v damaged the Irish fishing industry. In the present situation where profits erase the safety of the environment and of the worktorce, nuciedr power Is definitely a no-no. From a detached boint oi view Greenpeace is quite right to taboo Sellafield. This must be isolated from antinuclear power campaigns as a whole. It is not antiscientific because Greenpeace put forward an alternative, hydro-electric bowe waless commendable application of high technology. Don't forget, however, that Greenpeace are not planning a revolution and so sets Its aims on manipulating the svsten as ves as Dossibie Sharon Kinsella YOUR article on nuclear power in tns 9 did much to dispel the humbug surrounding the wellpublicised radiation leaks at Sellafield. While workers are killed and maimed every day on building sites, down coal mines, on farms and increasingly on YTS schemes, left wingers and middle class liberals spend their time worrying about the radiation levels of herrings. Of course, inadequate safety regulations are flouted in nuclear power stations but moral indignation is a sure way of doing nothing to improve standards of safety for workers. The horrific levels of fatalities in the pits in the nineteenth century were only reduced by the struggles of the early trade collieries or by government inquiries. The incomparabiy less harmful effects of nuclear power cannot be averted by turning our backs on this outstandingly cheap and efticient source 01 energy. Fighting for better working conditions now prepares for the day when real health and safety will be guaranteed by workers' control of the whole ot socIetv. A Thomas Reading • I WAS shocked to read an article in tns 9 which amounted to a defence of the lax safety standards of the nuclear industry. The obsession of the RCP with technological and scientific advance seems to obscure the question of in whose interests science is being used. The benefit of nuclear energy is seen not by the working class in cheaper electricity...but by the bosses in the increased profits made by the electricity board. You can say that there have been no definite fatalities in the nuclear industry. This isn't because of its 'undeniably superior record of safety but because the effects of radioactive contamination don't show themselves until years later with genetic abnormalities in children and diseases such as cancer. Nuclear power has tremendous potential for solving our energy needs, and it could be made safe, but not while it's in the hands of capitalists whose only concern is profit. It is undoubtedly reactionary to oppose scientific advances, out to pul scientric davance before the health and safety of workers is just as bad.

Gareth Richings Liverpool tns GROWS

ON YOU

I GO to the market at South Elmsall every week and more often than not I'll buy a leftwing paper. About a month ago | saw tns for the first time and bought it just for a change from the usual stuff i read, (the Miner, Socialist Worker). It surprised me to read such hard words about the Labour Party, and | was annoyed at first. I said as much to vour sellers the next week and had a bit of a row about it. But they persuaded me to buy it again, and 1 read the feature on the elections with interest The same week my local Labour MP, Alec Woodall, was deselected and started moaning about not being allowed to die in office or retire with honour. I thought this was really pathetic, but to make it worse all kinds of others started to take advantage of the incident and slag him off for being pro-police during the miners' strike. As I remember none of these people were any better themselves and were just trvine to get a bit oT easy credibility, not least some union officials. I'm not sure about all of your ideas but l am interested in your idea of a working class alternative to the Labour Party. I'm now considering voting for you if you stand a candidate in Hemsworth.

NO MAIL

MILITANCY

LAST week post office workers received a union leaflet outlining rationalisation plans at the PO. The plans are to reduce the workplaces by reorganising the PO into four businessescounters and National Girobank. Management are aiming to cut jobs through voluntary redundancies and avold dny militancy As far as 1 know, the union nas mae ao essonse t. this announcement. Judging from their antics over blacking the Sun bingo cards, where the union was rolled over ov the courts without a fight, there won't oe one now emner. une bureaucrats are so scared of having union funds seized that they are incapable of doing anything but what the employers want. The highly centralised structure of the union, which gives all power to the executive council, makes it difficult for rank and file workers to organise action.

However, this must be done as the collaborators' ne es are tolaly incompatible with those of the working class. Postman Willesden SDO they mean by international affairs Sweden for years.

GREAT BRITAIN

POSTAGE

:00= — mail, parcels,

STEPPING

OUT

Graffiti spotted In a dirty little publie toilet, opposite the Official Unlonist Party headquarters in Belfast; 'Ulster Says No', then underneath, 'but the man from Del Monte, he say yes!' So that's why they call them 'Orangemen".

A footnote to the mass media adulation poured on leading peacemonger Olof Palme, after the Swedish premier and international diplomat was shot dead.

Under Palme, Sweden had a defence budget of $4 billion. It spent one third of a billion on military research and development - more than Japan and Italy put together. And he built up a conscript army for which 58 000 people are eligible. Palme certainly did not discriminate on the grounds of race, colour or creed. He exported surface-toair missiles to both sides in the India.

Pakistan conflict, sold arms to anybody in the Middle East, and came close to clinching an aircraft and submarine deal with communist China. So that's what an impartial mediator in Militant paid tribute to Palme last week. The eulogy concluded that, 'The massive demonstrations in honour of Palme show the potential for uniting workers on a programme of fighting the bosses' wage-cutting policies.' In fact, Palme was rather good at uniting workers against 'the bosses' wagecutting policies' when he was alive. He introduced the wage cuts - and provoked the first mass strikes In Margaret Thatcher is to meet an Afghan guerrilla leader responsible for killing civilians, through bombing Kabul airport and attacking the city with rockets.

A Downing Street Man-in-a-Suit assured the Guardian that the Afghans are only trying to resist an invader and win back their freedom. The prime minister has a degree of sympathy with the Afghan cause, inasmuch as they re trying to rid their country of invaders, which you cannot say of the ANC and PLO.' Of course, you can say it of the IRA. But not in front of Guardian readers.

Stop Press: NUM agrees to management lockout at Kellingley colliery! At the last meeting of the pit's Joint union-management committee, a union rep raised the most pressing issue for every miner. He 'complained of damage being caused to wooden tollet seats, and asked if they could be replaced by either metal or plastic ones'. The coal board spokesman present rejected this invitation to give miners the cold steel, and Instead suggested that 'the best thing would be to keep all but one of the tollets locked, and the.men would have to request a key from the bath superintendent". The NUM men appeared to accept this outrageous proposal for more management Interference in miners' affairs. Once again, It seems our union reps are only Interested in pursuing their own preoccupations — In this case a strange fetish about 'rubber boots, which they raise at every meeting.

Speaking of mining matters, I recently reported on a retired collier turned hotelier who offers free holidays to miners, and whose latest Invitalon tec Yorkshire pit carried the rider No branch officials this time. After / published the item, the officials in question approached my informant and said that while they favoured freedom of information, 'some things just shouldn't be made public'. Like the fact that they told him that, I suppose.

EDDIE VEALE

DEADLINE FOR NEWS AND REPORTS: MONDAY 9AM 01-729 3771

SPECIAL DEAL

New readers: 5 copies of EnS for £1 post free Why it's got to be War From the Labour left to the Tory centre, hundreds of politicians, union leaders, churchmen and quangomembers profess their opposition to racism. They also oppose Workers Against Racism, because it tackles the menace of racism head on. Last week Workers Against Racism stepped up nationwide antiracist resistance. • Nottingham: During the recent Swamp operation in Nottingham's Hyson Green and Ractord districts. police strip-searched black youth in the street. Black community leaders called for a meeting with police chiefs, 'to identify what is good policing'. But Nottingham, War supporters nave argued unal good policing' - five-a-side 00aces ane community liaison provides the police with the information they need to plan their terror tactics.

• Birmingham: A different reality, the report on Handsworth commissioned by West Midlands County Council, concludes that the government should enforce an anti-racist strategy. But the governments strategy is to enforce law and order, Ge dick back volt. *Plastic bullets or the armv home secretary Douglas Hurd asked recently, backing chief constable Geoffrey Dear's new strategy for policing Birminenam. Inrougn street meetings and mass protests, War has voiced an unequivocal reply: Police o our suees. • Leeds: Racist attacks happen every day in south Leeds. The council's main response has been to stage Asian cultural evenings at the Kashmiri Welfare Centre in Beeston. War has responded by arguing for workers' defence against racists. • Sheffield: The attack on Bob Titus by Sheffield racists promoted ord complaints by local MPs Joan Maynara ana Martin Flannery. But one of Titus' neighbours had a better idea. He used a hammer to intimidate the six-strong racist gang. Sheffield War aims to ensure that Titus' neighbour doesn't have to fight alone. • London: On Monday the department of employment tried to introduce ethnic monitoring at London job centres. The civil service union CPSA refused to endorse action against the See tene decision to black it by CPSA Workers Against Racism organisee pickels dl Hackney and Fulham job centres. As we go to press, workers at these job centres are taking action against the scheme. • London: At Morpeth school in Bethnal Green, patrols by East London Workers Against Racism have put a stop to racist attacks on Bengali students. On nearby housing estates where racist attacks are rite supporters are going door to door oromoune workers action against racists. Elwar's work has been criticised by union officials in Waltham Forest council, whose newsetter recommends providing a stall at the annual festival for racial harmony' as an alterialive Lacte • The labour movement On the streets, in trade union branenes, in colleges and conferences, War opposes the immigration laws and challenges the prejudices that make racism

CENCHECKSE

ALL OUT

NOW!

enters Agame respectable in British society. War supporters have sold thousands of copies of the campaign handbook, Roots of Racism (see page 9 for details).

Cap-in-hand, most antiracist campaigns politely ask the British estaoisnment to de nice te blacks. But War means what it says. Every worker has an interest in fighting back against the oppression of black people, under a system which offers no future to any of us. War stands for workers' direct action, to deal with a threat to the whole working Coss War campaigning BRISTOL: Friday 14 March 7.30pm, Public meeting, stoo racist attacks. Speaker from East London Workers Against Racism, St Werburgh's Community Centre, Horley Road, St Werburgh NORTH LONDON: Saturday 15 March 10.45am, Police off our streets!, meet Nag's Head, Holloway Rd NOTTINGHAM: Saturday 15 March 11am, Police off our streets!, meet corner Gregory Boulevard/Radford SOUTH LONDON: Saturday 15 March 11am - wrecK the race checks!, meet either Brixton, Prince of Wales or Peckham, Sainsbury's, Peckham Rye Lane GLASGOW: Saturday 15 March 11am, meet Victoria Bar, Victoria Road, Govanhill NEWCASTLE: Saturday 15 March 10.30am. mee Monument, city centre EAST LONDON: Sunday 16 March 3pm, War estate Canvasses meet emer Upton Park tube or Bethnal Green tHee Get involved in action against dole race checks and school defence rotas in East London; phone Alex Farrell on 01-729 0414 BIRMINGHAM: Tuesday 18 March 2pm, City council are meeting to discuss Handsworth riot reports. They all want more policing, we say: Police off our streets! Protest: town hall, Chamberlain Square WEST LONDON: Tuesday 18 March 7pm, Police off our streets estate canvass, meet Hammersmith Broadway tube (District Line) BRADFORD: Wednesday 19 March 7.30pm, Public meeting, Racism what it is and how to fight it, Checkpoint, 45 Westgate

LAING

DAVID ROL

Support the print workers While print union leaders carried on pleading for mercy Tom murdoen, Revolutionary Communist Party supporters in north London convened a public debate on 'the crisis in our . Speakers included unions. two of the militants locked out by the Laing corporation, and currently threatened with jail for picketing; a supporter of the Fight Back campaign against GLC job losses; a member of the London contracting branch of the electricians union, closed down by EETPU boss Eric COVENTRY: Thursday 13 March 7,30pimals Is meat aster Late nal rights, Elastic Inn, Lower the next Labour government, we're

THE PARTYPAGE

Hammond; and a few Yorkshire miners, supporters of the miners next step campaign. One of the Laing's lockout five explained that if fighting for the right to work meant breaking the law, they had to defy the courts. The terms of the makes it illegal even to speak al meeungs — men presence in the room could De considered as contemol of court! A GLC worker told of how union officials at County Hall refused to fight job losses, 'because it planing an austere reception for his visit to Huddersfield Poly. Phone SOUTH LONDON: Tuesday 18 March hority, County Hall main entrance clary

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would be illegal'. A Yorkshire miner warned against productivity deals agreed between unions and management, that had contributed to a higher rate of accidents in the bits In the discussion everyone agreed on the need to break the lawand to break the grip of the bureaucrats. some speakers thought militant pickets, backed up by rank and file organisation woul be enough. Others stressed the need for a wider political challenge to the leaders of the labour movement. The print dispute has exposed the grave limitations of traditional militancy, anc underlined the urgent need for changing the direction of the unions. As one speaker said. we already know how to organise a what we neec is a strategy that can break Milants away Hon acau end policies. As the print dispute stagnates under the direction of the union leaders, RCP supporters have been joining the bucketines, arguing the need for a strike committee of workers in all the unions involved, for a concerted effort to close down. Wapping and for wider solidarity. Around the country Boycott the Sun protests have raised the dispute with a wider audience.

PROTESTS ON SATURDAY

15 MARCH:

LIVERPOOL: meet 11am, WH Smith's, Church St, city centre EDINBURGH: meet 11am, Menzies, Princes St COVENTRY: meet 11am, WH Smith's Hertford St Monday 17 March 7.15am Mass picket of Laing site at Hayes Wharf, London Bridge tube NEWCASTLE: Wednesday 19 March , Ferry March .soom. rublic meeting Kevolute could i naboen nere.

cob elo ineatre, Mudderstele Pol LANCASHINE: saturdays May Regional her dayschool Liverpool Phone Fenna on 01-729 0414 fo the next step • 14 March 1986 • 11

THE KILLINGS GO ON

tns ast week South African president PW Botha lifted the state of emergency and released 300 political prisoners. A happy British foreign Botha's moves would help to reduce tension and encourage the prospects for dialogue.

Britain and the other powers who profit from apartheid need Botha to make gestures of conciliation, to distract attention from the barbarous repression in South - repression which will go on, townships with or without a state of emergency.

'NORMAL' TERROR

Three weeks ago up to 80 blacks were shot dead by the security forces, during rioting after procession in the black a tuneral The state township of Alexandra. emergency may have been lifted, but the people of Alexandra still live under army occupation. Botha's latest reform means only that the powers the police enjoyed in 36 magisterial districts under the emergency will soon be extended to the rest of the country. By amending the Internal Security Act, the government intends to enshrine these powers permanently in law.

Botha's attempt to 'normalise' conditions in South Africa only confirm that what is normal under the apartheid system is terror and repression. Black South Africans have had little to laugh about over the last year. But events surrounding the resignation of white liberal Dr Frederik Zyl Slabbert Van parliament, three weeks ago, have provoked mirth beer hall, every д 9

BOTHA ENDS STATE OF EMERGENCY, BUT

canteen and mine shaft. Slabbert, leader of the liberal Progressive Federal Party, denounced the South African office said parliament "playground", as a reaction of white politicians to the crisis as a 'grotesque ritual of irrelevance'. Slabbert had apparently seen the light after a meeting with Botha, which convinced him the regime would not introduce any real reforms. He Africa's declared that the only chance for change in South Africa was extra-parliamentary action'. The formal lifting of the state of emergency will make little difference to South Africa's besieged blacks Behind this astonishing pronouncement lay a shrewd political calculation. Like many white liberals, Slabbert believes stability can only be restored in South Africa through negotiations with representatives of the black majority. He decided to invest in his political career, by setting himself up as the mediator for future arbitration between the apartheid regime and the black opposition.

from But Slabbert's plans were rudely rupted by the crafty premier Botha. Botha tactory have had and the parliamentary antics. vealed the real Slabbert strategy.

South Africa's townships.

Botha that dominated Inkatha movement.

NOTHING TO CHOOSE

bosses. system of oppression. published the taped copy of their conversation, to dispel any illusions blacks may about Slabbert's extra- The transcripts rethe At one point in the conversation Slabbert advised Botha on how to 'draw the teeth' of lasses the black liberation movement, the African National Congress. He assured Botha that ANC leaders he had met in Lusaka were more reasonable than the 'swartjies' (a derogatory Afrikaans term for blacks) in Slabbert told much could be gained by job exploiting rivalries between the AN and Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Zulu- The publication of the tapes, coming just after he arrived in London to promote his role as a radical opponent of apartheid, was a big blow to Slabbert. Even the moderate Buthelezi was forced to distance himself from Slabbert, dismissing the Botha-Slabbert meeting as a discussion between two white The Slabbert affair and the lifting of the state of emergency have exposed the reality Name of the situation in South Africa. First, there is no scope for reforming the barbarous Address Second, there IS nothing to choose between hardliners like Botha and liberals like Slabbert. Both want Telephone to see South African capitalism maintained — Botha by brutal repression tempered with cosmetic changes, Slabbert by undermining

NO PEACE

UNDER

APARTHEID

the armed struggle of the ANC and the militancy of the black working class.

For all their disagreements about tactics, wings of South African the

EWE

establishment appreciate that their future can only be guaranteed by defeating the black Black workers in South Africa know only too well that the survival of South Africa as a British and Western investors' paradise now depends on more oppression, not less. British bosses continue to live off the butchering of the black working class. Our remains to expose and challenge Britain's complicity in apartheid Charles Longford

ROP

If you like what you read in tas become an RCP supporter. We meet weekly around the country to discuss the issues in the paper and to plan action in the local ared Phone Fenna on 01-729 0414 or fill in the form below Send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX