The Next Step: No. 3, 17 January 1986

THE PUBLIC ORDER

Police with submachine guns at Heathrow as the Tories the nextstep Revolutionary Communist Party • 17 January 1986 • 30p

BILL

public order legislation goes through parliament Western war games: from Grenada to Libya page 6,7 Exclusive: Loyalist police back Anglo-Irish deal page 3 Notts Miners against the scab union page 4 Westland: Tories in a spin page 5 3

DOUGATED PRESS

the next step

THEIR LAW

AND ORDER

appearance of police carrying submachine guns at Heathrow airport is an ominous sign of the build-up of state repression in Britain. At the January the beginning of Police and Criminal Evidence Act came into effect, marking a significant extension of police powers in matters of search, arrest, detention, interrogation and provision of evidence. This week the new Public Order Bill receives its second reading in the house of commons. This proposes wide-ranging controls over meetings, marches and demonstrations to be enforced by the police.

The Tories have skilfully manipulated public fears about terrorism and crime to justify a clampdown against any threat to their system. They have taken advantage of the historical success of the British establishment in presenting its repressive apparatus not as what it is — the protector of the position of a privileged minority — but as the defender of the interests of the whole community. The police force was formed in the early years of the nineteenth century to protect the growing mass of property owned by the emerging capitalist class from the growing mass of people who had no property at all. It was extended to enforce the stability of a society based on exploitation and oppression.

POLICING THE CRISIS

The role of the police in fighting crime has always been their key to winning wider acceptability. Everybody feels vulnerable to being robbed, burgled, assaulted or raped and everybody likes to feel that they can turn to the police for help. The media and the police themselves go to great lengths to present an image of concern tor the individual victim of crime and a determination to pursue perpetrators of criminal acts. The fact that the police are ineffective in protecting ordinary people against crime weakens but does not destroy this carefully constructed atmosphere of trust.

The role of the police as the agents of the capitalist elass is revealed in response to any wider threat to the system. Striking workers who have encountered the police on picket lines have soon discovered that they can be relied upon to take the side of the employers.

However the low level of social conflict in Britain in recent decades has allowed the police to cultivate an image of being fair and impartial. The upsurge in violent picket-line confrontations and inner-city riots over the past few years has exposed the coercive function of the police that always lay behind the "friendly bobby' image.

One policeman summed up the change in an interview with a national paper last week.

*Policing a shire county used to depend on three people the village bobby, the teacher and the vicar. Between them they Today the would have the place sewn up.

teacher is on strike, the vicar is in CND and the bobby clocks off after eight hours.' He might have added that the bobby is likely to go off then for special firearms training or for overtime dealing with pickets or riots.

Clive Soley, the Labour Party's home affairs spokesman, said last weekend that Labour must reclaim the law and order issue from the Tories. He proposed an extensive programme of crime prevention and measures to make the police 'accoun Revolutionary Communist Party weekly • 17 January 1986 • No 3 Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP, London WIN 3XX © copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road. London El6 Annual subscription rates • Britain and Ireland €19, • Europe £24 • Middle East and North Africa • America, Asia and Southern Africa £27 • Australasia £32, • Libraries, institutions £30.

All cheques payable to Junius rubncatons Ltd irculation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTI -ondon WCIN 3XX. ISSN 0144 350 X 17 January 1986. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Offic 2 O the next step • 17 January table' committees set up by local

BLU

authorities. Labour's crime prevention proposals indicate a simple if you can't beat em, join em' response to the Tories' success on the law and order issue. Indeed Labour politicians point out the rising crime rate Tories under the overflowing prisons, and claim that their policies would be even more effective in fighting crime.

Labour's proposals to make the police 'accountable' are an attempt to cling on to the myth of the police as the servants of the community. Labour's experts on the police claim that the growing legal powers, centralised organisation and technological sophistication of the police remove them from any form of control. In fact the opposite the case. The increasingly IS coercive character of the police shows that the police are firmly under the control of the British establishment. As the police tool up with submachine guns, CS gas and plastic bullets to fight on behalf of the British ruling class, the Labour left is still dreaming about a return to Dixon of Dock Green.

Calling for police accountability is not merely the pursuit of an illusion. It is a dangerous diversion which undermines labour movement resistance to the real danger of police repression. Police liaison committees and police monitoring groups are widely funded by the GLC and other state agencies because they perform a useful service for the establishment. They integrate activists into the system, provide a safety valve and a source of intelligence for the police.

BEATING THE POLICE

How then should we respond to the buildup of police repression? First, we should make clear that the law and order issue cannot be 'reclaimed' by the labour movement. We should expose the Tories' use of the issue as a device to justify police terror and reject the whole debate. More police powers are no answer to the problems of crime experienced by working class people.

The only possible outcome of the whole public controversy about crime is more punishment for the working class.

Second, we should reject the futile quest to make the police more accountable. They are already fully accountable to the people who recruit them, train them, pay them, and organise them to deal with any resistance against the system. Third, we should take steps to curb state interference in the affairs of the labour movement. Calling an end to all use of the courts in internal trade union matters would be an important step forward.

Trade union officials — even left wingers in the miners* union have undermined resistance to the courts by themselves turning the aw to resolve internal disputes. Appeals to the authorities to ban fascist meetings and demonstrations have paved the way for wider curbs on the right to demonstrate. labour movement should Finally, the refuse to allow itself to be pushed around by the police. We should organise our own demonstrations in such a way as to prevent police interference and refuse to allow the courts to restrict our rights to assemble and protest. They may have the guns, but we ve got the numbers.

IRELAND

TROOPS OUT NOW!

Bloody Sunday demonstration LONDON, Sunday 2 February

ALL OUT ON

he January meeting of the Political Revolutionary discussed the situation in Ireland since the Anglo- Irish agreement and decided to make the mobilisation for the Bloody Sunday commemoration demonstration in London on 2 February the main focus of party activity this month. The central objective of the agreement signed by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald last November is to stabilise British rule over Ireland. The deal accepts Dublin's right to be consulted over matters affecting the nationalist community in the North. In return it secures recognition of Britain's division and domination of Ireland from moderate nationalist representatives on both sides of the Border.

The Anglo-Irish deal has been presented as a step towards peace and harmony in Ireland.

In reality it provides a cover for increased repression of the nationalist community. The wave of arrests of Sinn Fein activists (see opposite) and the deployment of an extra 550 troops in the Border areas reveal the true purpose of the accord. The remarkable unity among all political parties in Britain in support of the Anglo- Irish deal is a measure of the importance of the issue to the British establishment. The Irish War is the greatest single threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom and the stability of the British state. Whatever their disagreements on other issues, the Tories, Labour and the Alliance parties are firmly agreed on the need to contain the menace of the Irish War and crush the Irish national liberation movement. Communist Party The Revolutionary gives its full support to the fight for national freedom in Ireland. British rule over Ireland is the central obstacle to social progress in the whole country. Britain's partition of the country and its military occupation of the Six Counties has long frustrated Ireland's economic development and fostered strife among its people. The expulsion of the and the removal of the British Army structures of British domination is necessary before there can be any significant advance towards peace and prosperity This is the only British solution Rally for Irish freedom

NO BRITISH

SOLUTION

Saturday 1 February 6.30 pm Manning Hall

IRISH FREEDOM MOVEMENT

University phone 01-7290414 of London Union, Malet Street, London WC1

BLOODY SUNDAY

Our demand for "Troops out now' sums up our recognition of Ireland's right to national independence and our repudiation of the British occupation. We reject any British initiatives Ireland, ponucal because Britain make no positive can contribution to the Irish people apart from getting off their backs. British-sponsored talks, agreements and assemblies can serve no other purpose than to attempt to secure British domination. Hence we insist on 'No British solutions' as another key slogan around which to organise Irish solidarity activity in Britain The anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed demonstrators and killed 14 people, is a good occasion on which to mobilise opposition to the continuing British occupation. After 14 years British troops are still stomping the streets Ireland, still harassing and intimidating nationalists, and still shooting to kill.

This year's Bloody Sunday demonstration is being organised by the Labour Committee on Ireland and its supporters. Labour Party activists' main concern is not to mobilise Irish solidarity activity, but to limit the damage done to the Labour Party by its current support for the Tory deal and its past support for British terror in record of Ireland. Labour Committee on Ireland is ne critical of the Tories' Anglo-Irish deal, but would welcome British interference in Ireland under a future Labour government: "We would welcome and endorse any move by any government that took one step toward ending the war in Ireland. The only move by any British government that would take a step towards ending the war would be the immediate withdrawal of British troops.

This course of action is specifically rejected by the Labour leit The Labour left seeks to use the Irish issue to the Labour Party's sectarian advantage The Bloody Sunday commemoration is not the property of the Labour Party. It is vital the voice of genuine opposition to British imperialism is heard and we intend to make sure that it is. Join the antiimperialist contingent on 2 February and join the real fight for Irish freedom.

YOU CAN'T REFORM

LOYALIST MPs LIKE IAN PAISLEY MAY BE STAGING BY-ELECTIONS IN PROTEST Ireland

WHATEVER THE ANGLO-IRISH DEAL SAYS...

BULLETS. MICK HUME REPORTS FROM IRELAND

TWO LOYALIST POLICE HAMMERING ONE NATIONALIST - DEMOCRACY IN NORTHERN IRELAND t's not a free country any more, whined the woman in the fox fur sipping tea behind me at Heathrow last Wednesday, as she surveyed that morning's front-page stories about the airport's new machine gun security squads.

An hour later I was in Belfast's Aldergrove airport, watching Royal Ulster Constabulary men wave automatic weapons about as they have done for years. Machine guns aren't news in Belfast, because Northern Ireland really isn't a 'free country'. It's a British police state. And no diplomatic deal or by-election can change that.

This was my first trip over since the I was on the look out for accord, so 'reforms'. Maybe it was my eyesight, but I couldn't see any. The bus from Aldergrove to the centre of Belfast was still stopped within 100 yards at an RUC gunpost. When we hired a car in the city we were still videoed for the police. And as we drove out to Derry every nationalist town was still dominated by the local RUC fortress, a mass of metal, brick and barbed wire. (Except in Toomebridge, where the fortress was redesigned by the IRA before Christmas and is now largely built out of plastic sheets).

When I turned on the car radio I could still only get interference from the towering RUC surveillance aerials. But when I tuned in to BBC Radio Ulster I noticed a difference.

Instead of an RUC spokesman defending his force, I heard somebody from the Irish police singing the praises of the RUC. Just as he started marvelling at the professionalism of RUC road-blocks, we were pulled up at a police barrier on the bridge across the River Foyle into Derry. And I had to agree that the machine gun attached to the RUC man leering at us looked pretty professional.

Down in the Derry Sinn Fein office, the talk was of the RUC and the elections

A POLICE STATE

AT THE ANGLO-IRISH AGREEMENT. BUT THE LOYALIST POLICE

THINK THE ACCORD IS THE BEST THING SINCE PLASTIC

Loyalists have called to oppose Thatcher's accord with Dublin. The police had just gone on a rampage down Bishop Street.

beating down people's doors without cause "The woman was watching warning. Or television, she'd have let them in if they'd knocked, said Sinn Fein councillor Barney McFadden, "but they just put a sledgehammer through her front door instead.

Now let's see what John Hume has to say about his Anglo-Irish agreement."

Moderate nationalists, like Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume and Dublin ministers, have spent the last two months claiming the new accord is going to reform police and Army repression in Northern The RUC Ireland. themselves have a much more realistic appraisal of the Anglo-Irish agreement, as they told the 18 leading republicans arrested recently in Northern Ireland. dawn swoops across "They said the Anglo-Irish deal was just an extension of their powers to repress nationalists and republicans here in Ireland, remembered Sinn Fein councillor Hugh Brady. And Derry Sinn Fein chair Gerry O'Hara agreed: "The RUC interrogators told me they were very happy with the increased leeway they're going to get through the accord.' 'If the police say we killed Mickey Mouse, that's good enough for the British authorities' Listen to what the Ruc wants from Thatcher's deal with Dublin, and you'll understand why Loyalists are wrong to say the accord undermines British rule in Northern Ireland. The RUC told Gerry O'Hara they expected to get 'internment both sides of the Border, so it could be very effective, and they expect to get a 10-mile hot pursuit zone on the other side of the Border, so they could go South and not have to tell the garda (Irish police)."

The Irish authorities claim they now have the power to change Northern Ireland's repressive legal system. But in a British police state, the British police can make up the law as they go along. When the RUC raided the republicans homes, they insisted that the law allows them to hold people under house arrest. It doesn't, but they did it all the same. And when the police had finished pulling up people's floorboards and wrecking bedcarted off seven elected they rooms, representatives and 11 Sinn Fein workers without any charge or evidence. They don't need any evidence whatsoever, says Hugh Brady, 'They can make up a story that some person killed Mickey Mouse, and that would satisfy the British authorities!

Speaking of Mickey Mouse stories, how about the charges brought against two Sinn Fein councillors when the other 16 were released? Seamus Cassidy from Dungannon has been charged with possessing explosive substances' an old Ulster Defence Regiment flare he's kept as a memento of the war for years. And Tommy Carroll of Armagh has been charged with possessing information likely to be of use to 'terrorists' — a picture of a republican protest which includes the unattractive features of an RUC man who wandered in front of the camera.

The Anglo-Irish accord might abolish the Flags and Emblems Act, which makes flying Irish flags illegal. But it won't stop the Crown police using their unofficial Photos and Souvenirs Act to jail opponents of British rule. Now all this might surprise those who believe the British government is sincerely seeking a just settlement in Ireland. But it comes as no surprise to many nationalists in Northern Ireland. *The people of republican areas have nothing but contempt for the deal, says Brady, we've had "because repressive measures, this is just another attempt to defeat the struggle here. Hugh Brady has been arrested 41 times under emergency laws, usually being held for seven days each time, yet has never been charged He has been shot at by a with anything. drunken RUC officer and held for two years on the word of supergrasses. The RUC have promised him that worse is to come under the new arrangements with Dublin: "They told me that every month in 1986 I can expect to spend one week in police custody, and at the end of 1986 I'll be dead."

Other republicans arrested in the recent swoops got a similar taste of how peaceful life is going to be after the new accord. Gerry O'Hara was beaten about the head while being interrogated. And Margaret Boyle of Strabane Sinn Fein was abused until she vomited blood, told that her three children (who had been left alone in her house) would be run over, and threatened first with rape, and then with assassination by the SAS. Yes, says Thatcher, we are bringing peace nearer in Northern Ireland. God only knows what her idea of war would be like.

HUGH BRADY

Of course, police states can also control the media. While he was held, Hugh Brady was accused of a shooting that happened during another of his stays in police custody.

When the RUC discovered this, they got very embarrassed with the prospect of a high court hearing pending, and released him Then they got on to their media friends to ensure their cock-up wasn't covered outside the immediate area. So the deal with Dublin not only guarantees that nationalists can continue to enjoy the democracy of a British police state, it also ensures that they retain the best British traditions of a free press under police supervision.

As next week's elections come closer we can expect to hear Paisley ranting about sellouts and conspiracies while the Tories and John Hume talk about peace and justice Don't listen to them. Britain's deal with Dublin is about defeating the fight for Irish freedom. The raids and arrests are aimed at disrupting Sinn Fein's electoral efforts and placating Loyalist opinion.

The British authorities are still out to brand republican representatives as "terrorists. Loyalists can rest assured that Westminster is committed to keeping its Northern Ireland police state intact. Ask Hugh Brady — if you can catch him on one of his rare days of freedom, in a state where police carrying machine guns were yesterday's news 60 years ago.

ROP

Some people have more money than sense.

The capitalist class is in dire straits, but it's still shelling out millions on a defunct helicopter company. And a Welshman in the Dire Straits rock group is giving thousands to bail out Swansea soccer club. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, send your spare cash to us. Then we won't have to sell out to foreign consortiums or turn our office into a car park. Rush donations to our fighting fund at BM RCP, London WCIN 3XX. Cheques payable to RCP Association. the next step • 17 January • 3

'WE NEED A REAL UNION'

WOMEN NEED NURSERIES

Labour movement

NOTTS MINERS OUT ON THEIR OWN

s the leaders of the scab Union of A Democratic Mineworkers met their co-thinkers in the electricians' union last week, membership of the official of Mineworkers National in Union Nottinghamshire reached rock bottom. The

NUM

coal board claims that official has sunk to less than 1000, membership though the NUM still claims 5000. Notts miners who supported last year's strike to the end and who have stuck with the NUM through the UDM breakaway are now isolated and disorganised.

The coal board has done everything to encourage the scab union. It has withdrawn recognition from the NUM in the Notts area and pit managers will negotiate only with the

UDM.

The employers have effectively barred NUM representatives from carrying in work time. out union business Management has threatened to sack activists for campaigning in support of the national union. At Ollerton management called in security men to evict an NUM activist who was handing out leaflets at the pit-head. The coal board's aggressive campaign has put the NUM on the defensive and demoralised rank and file militants. The Notts miners need fighting policies, not a choice between the two ways of collaborating with the employers offered by the breakaway and official unions, argues Grant French But the coal board is not the biggest problem facing Notts militants. Their own union has effectively abandoned them. At national level they just shout "scabs" at Notts, says one miner from Ollerton, *That's no good, we're trying to convince them to come back, but they think the national union doesn't want them.' Even NUM stalwarts are bitterly critical of their leaders for turning their backs on the Notts area and leaving rank and file miners to battle on alone. "There's no real leadership given against the UDM, says another miner from Bilsthorpe, "We might as well give up now for all the help we're getting The only thing the NUM has done to keep its numbers up in Nottinghamshire is to send out recruiting forms for retired miners and widows. Unfortunately many former strikers and current NUM officials in the Notts area share the blinkered approach of the national union. Paul Whetton, an NUM official and left-wing Labour Party activist from Bevercotes, assures us that the UDM has no future. "I can't see this union lasting as long as the Spencer breakaway in the thirties. I

CHRIS RIACK

hope that within two years they will have But most Notts blown themselves out. miners do not share this complacent attitude and cannot afford to wait around for two years to see if Whetton is right.

The Notts NUM leaders are waiting for the courts to tell the coal board that it must recognise the NUM. When this happens, they argue, miners will flock back to the NUM. The experience of the courts in the miners' strike should have taught the NUM officials that they cannot rely on the judges to defend the union. Yet they keep returning 4O the next step • 17 January NOTTS AND YORKSHIRE MINERS CONFRONTED LABOUR MP FRANK HAYNES OVER HIS SUPPORT

FOR SCAB UNIONISM ON SATURDAY'S RCP PROTEST

to the courts pleading for mercy from the bosses. Left-wing officials at Welbeck say that pro-UDM miners will come back to the NUM because the national union knows how to negotiate grievances and has the experience on issues like health and safety.

The NUM might have the edge on the UDM when it comes to negotiating compensation claims. But Notts miners will not go back to the NUM because they think they will get a better deal if they lose their arm in an accident. They will rejoin the NUM when they are convinced that it can give them a fighting chance of winning. The only way to rebuild effective trade unionism among the Notts miners is by challenging the traditions of collaboration common to both the NUM and the UDM. In practice there is little to distinguish the two miners' unions in their approach to basic industrial issues. Electricians' leader Eric Hammond justified his joint seminar with the UDM leaders on the grounds that the policies discussed had been in line with the energy policies of both the NUM and the

TUC.

The leaders of both mining unions are united in their commitment to securing a viable future for mining. They are divided only over how best to achieve their common objective. The UDM has opted for open collaboration on any terms with the bosses.

NUM may still consider using I ne

CHILDCARE CUTS

State provision of nursery care for preschool children is on the way out. Kate Marshall reports employers over the terms which collaboration takes place. But the difference is only one of degree. Hence the TUC can contemplate conciliating between the two unions and NUM leaders can talk openly about linking up with the UDM in a new federation in the coal industry.

Rank and file miners cannot take a step forward without challenging the whole framework of collaboration that has long restrained anti-capitalist initiative among the miners. Activists in the Notts area need to mobilise the widest support — among UDM as well as NUM members — for a new progany moomer strikpos se former still make principle out of not talking to UDM members. It is understandable that feelings of bitterness still run high as a result of the strike-breaking role played by many Notts miners in the strike. But these sentiments cannot be allowed to continue to act as a barrier to rebuilding union organisation.

The self-imposed isolation of many Notts militants avoids tackling the urgent problem of winning over the mass of Notts miners who are not incorrigible supporters of scab unionism. Fifty per cent of Notts miners came out on strike at the start of the year-long battle, and most kept faith with the overtime ban until the end. Many had grave reservations about breaking away from the NUM but felt forced the bureaucratic Into unis poston oy part from private arrangements like A the upper class nanny and the working there are two main class granny sources of childcare - the nursery school, run by the department of education, and the local authority nursery, run by the department of health and social security.

Both are being cut. A local authority is legally obliged to educate children between the ages of five and 16. In the past many have offered some schooling to three- and four-year olds Nursery schooling has freed some women from some of the burden of childcare and allowed them to return to work without waiting for their children's fifth birthday But there is no legal requirement on councils to provide nursery schooling — hence it has now become a prime larger for cuts In Clwyd, north Wales, a progressive policy of offering nursery education to all four-year olds and 84 per cent of three-year olds is under threat. The Labour-controlled education committee has responded to posturing of the NUM leadership. They joined the UDM more out of hostility to Arthur Scargill than because of their devotion to the policies of Roy Lynk One striking miner from Ollerton is convinced that a strong campaign could win many miners back: I would say that at this stage half the miners are hardline UDM that is anti-Scargill and anti-militant - and there are therefore a lot of waverers who could go either way.' Another militant from Bevercotes agrees: 'With the UDM hardliners we've no chance. But at our pit we had 600 men on strike at the beginning of the strike, we've got to win them back. Winning them back requires a new approach on the key issues of productivity, pay and the Labour Party. Both the UDM and the NUM have gone along with the coal board's schemes for raising productivity. In the NUM's militant Yorkshire stronghold men are being driven like dogs as pits compete to top the productivity league. Pits like Thoresby in Nottinghamshire are breaking all record: While the productivity bonus is 30 percent down on five years ago, output is up 25 per cent. Miners in both coalfields tell horror stories about the rising accident rate.

Miners have no interest in working harder to help the coal board balance its books — or in dying to help the bosses make higher profits.

We should fight for a nationally agreed basic wage for all miners and pay increases that are not linked to productivity.

The Notts split has caused serious embarrassment and potential electoral problems Labour Party in for the Nottinghamshire. Pro-NUM miners argue that Labour should distance itself from the UDM. Pro-UDM miners say that Labour should drop the NUM and align itself with the Notts majority. But why should miners fight to be represented by a party which is interested only in miners votes, not their livelihoods? Both the UDM and the NUM are courting the Labour Party, but Labour has never defended miners' interests. The last Labour government closed more pits than Thatcher and Labour's present programme promises only more of the same. The Labour Party failed to support the miners during the strike and Neil Kinnock has promised he will do victimised and nothing about imprisoned miners if he ever becomes prime minister. Miners would be better off dumping the Labour Party and fighting for policies that can protect their interests.

Notts miners have a hard battle ahead to rebuild real trade unionism. But if they appreciate that fighting company unionism in Nottinghamshire means transforming the NUM as well as getting rid of the UDM the Notts miners will rise again.

central government cuts by axing facilities it is not legally bound to provide.

Local authority day nurseries are not so easy to cut without intensifying the social spawned by the recession

TOO CROS

Nevertheless, despite huge waiting lists, provision has remained static since 1979.

Recently released figures show a significant decline in some areas and marked regional variations. Tory-controlled shire counties like Shropshire and Gloucester have made major cuts. Some Labour-controlled councils are resorting to the same tactics South Tyneside, Bolton, Oldham, Trafford and Newham are making working class women pay the price for their failure to fight the cuts We should refuse to support Labour councils which don't accept that childeare is something that all women need. And we should campaign everywhere to press local councils to provide sufficient nursery places so that every woman who wants to get a job has the opportunity to do so.

WESTLAND CRISIS COMES TO A HEAD

INDUSTRY NEEDS

HAND-OUTS

eseltine's dramatic departure from H Thursday's cabinet meeting, storm of accusations and counteraccusations about Thatcher's authoritarianism and his own opportunism, may have grabbed this week's headlines. But the real reason why the British establishment is tearing its hair out could be gleaned from two less-publicised pieces of news: the sharp rise in unemployment and the increase in interest rates. These symptoms of economic collapse expose the broader crisis of British capitalism, which has sent the authorities into a spin over Westland — a firm which is, as one paper put it, intrinsically rather unimportant' for Westland has become The important because it reveals the tensions rising within the ruling class.

The war of words over Westland has been presented as a clash of principle between 'free marketeer' trade and industry secretary Leon Brittan, who has said the company must be allowed to accept the rescue bid on commercial grounds, and the 'interventionist' Heseltine, who argued the government should get stuck in and ensure the rival European consortium had a chance In fact both sides are well of succeeding. aware that the government must intervene to keep this company, and the economy, alive.

Heseltine has gone, but it is Brittan's blustering about how market forces must decide that has really been exposed as hot air. He has leant on British Aerospace to pull

HESELTINE REVEALS ALL

The resignation of Tory defence secretary Michael Heseltine, after the cabinet row over rival rescue bids for Westland helicopters, has revealed three things: the depth of the crisis afflicting British capitalism, the troubles in the Tory Party, and the miserable state of Labour's parliamentary opposition out of the Continental consortium. And he knows that, whoever takes over the firm, the government must buy Westland machines if the helicopter outfit recession. Brittan's vision of individual dynamism in a and initiative rebuilding industry is a real example of Victorian values out of date. remains moribund. Every Tory understands that its decaying base cannot hold up unless the state provides political and economic The current debate is not about props. principles but presentation. Brittan wants the establishment to maintain the hardline atmosphere encourage further cuts and closures. Heseltine wants a different climate where the state shows itself willing to help the capitalists But alternative packaging of Tory cope. policies cannot solve the system's problems.

Whatever the end result of the prolonged haggling over the helicopter firm, there is no future for Westland in particular or British capitalism in general. The economic instability shaking the

HOW

establishment shows that it is time to replace them and their outdated way of running the American

TORIES FEAR DEFEAT

The crisis in the Thatcher government has highlighted how significant sections of the Conservative Party are starting to panic about their electoral prospects.

Thatcher's harsh policies over the past six years have been the only real option for keeping British capitalism alive in the dogapproach, *Falklands Factor'. public popularity. out of which to make his bid for faces of Toryism. the head of the Tory table.

Party's put them all to flight. to survive use — it's 100 years coat-tails throughout the Modern British capitalism the working class. of austerity to ing the screw on living standards. Kinnock's only pillars of the tary and cabinet procedure.

defend workers. Heseltine on Westland into the headlines.

eat-dog climate of world recession. But the bitter consequences of the Conservative of unemployment, industrial collapse and social unrest, have outraged many traditional Tory supporters.

The Tories have been in a deep trough in the opinion polls for months and a growing band of establishment dissidents has begun pushing for a shift in policies as the only hope of the Tories holding on to power.

Thatcher now finds herself almost as unpopular as she was in the early years of her Then, she was able to triumph by mobilising patriotic support around the 1982 South Atlantic War - the Today she has little prospect of repeating that success, and she seems to have no short-term route back to Heseltine may be arrogant, but he is no fool. He has long been a leading opponent of the Thatcher line within the Tory leadership.

He has made no secret of his life-long ambition to make it to No 10 Downing Street by his fifty-fifth birthday — now just three years away. It seems that he has been weighing up whether his prospects as a leader-in-waiting who could pick up the post-Thatcher pieces would be best served in this increasingly unwanted government. Last week he finally decided the backbenches were the best place from He power. resigned, depicting himself, Thatcher and Brittan as the good, the bad and the ugly Heseltine has presented the rift as being about obscure principles to do with the need for collective cabinet government. This is nonsense. British cabinets have always been autocratically-run institutions. But it provides a respectable excuse for the man the tabloids call "Tarzan' to start beating his chest in a campaign to replace Thatcher at Watching Tories tear themselves to pieces is always an uplifting experience. But it shouldn't be seen as a spectator sport. If we really want to take advantage of the Tory and over helicopters everything else, we need our own party to

DENZIL DAVIES LIVES!

This week Denzil Davies shot from obscurity to tell the world that he is the Labour Party's defence spokesman. He then announced meekly that he supported the Heseltine position on Westland and disappeared from view once more.

The way Labour has hung on to Heseltine's Westland affair illustrates that it has nothing positive to offer The Labour Party has backed Heseltine and other Tory "wets' on the need for more state intervention in the economy. But the wettest Conservative appreciates that the precondition for state initiatives is tightenworking the class. Governments invest not out of charitv. but out of concern with the health of the capitalist system. When they spend money they expect the best return possible, at the expense of workers' wages and working conditions. Labour'spro-Heseltineapproach to the economy is a recipe for reducing our attempt to expose Thatcher has been over her refusal to 'honour' the conventions of British cabinet government. Almost alone in Britain, the Labour leadership retains the quaint illusion that power is exercised through parliamen- This makes it incapable of organising against the people who pull the real power levers in British society — the capitalist class and its state agents. Supporting Tory wets is no way to We need to mobilise our own power if we're to make the most of the capitalists' crisis of confidence that has sent to the backbenches and

THE

PROPAGANDA

WAR

POPLAR FRONT

This week 80 Labour councillors from Liverpool and Lambeth are appearing in the high court threatened with surcharge and disqualification from office because of their defiance of Tory deadlines for setting a rate last year. The march to the court in support of the councillors was headed by the Poplar Rates Revolt banner. But how do today's Labour councillors measure up to their forebears? In 1919, a time of working class upsurge throughout Europe, the East London borough of Poplar elected a radical Labour council. As the employers fought back and gained the upper hand in the early twenties, unemployment rose and hardship grew. The Poplar councillors led a militant struggle to maintain living standards in the area.

The Poplar struggle won some short-term victories. To keep the rates down the councillors withheld revenues due to the central authorities. After six weeks imprisonment they won a degree of equalisation of the burden of unemployment benefits (then paid out by councils) between poorer and richer boroughs. At a time when wages everywhere were being forced down, they kept up council workers' wages and the level of unemployment benefits.

But these gains were short-lived. As the labour movement went down to a series of defeats, the advances won by the councillors went by the board. Poplar too was forced to cut wages and benefits. People in Poplar, like workers in the unions, increasingly looked towards a future Labour government to improve their position.

Poplar leader George Lansbury went into parliament and after Labour's 1929 victory took his place in the cabinet. In response to the 1931 slump the Labour chancellor proposed cutting unemployment benefit by 20 per cent. For the left Lansbury suggested a 10 percent reduction, but the trade union leaders could not accept such drastic cuts and the government collapsed.

The hopes of Poplar ended in this squalid betrayal by the Labour Party in government. Today's Labour councillors have little in common with the Poplar leaders. The Poplar councillors were mostly middle-aged workers, veterans of the class struggle in the unions, in the wider political struggles of the revolutionary groups that finally merged in the Communist Party, and in the campaigns for women's rights and Trish independence. Today's councillors in Liverpool and Lambeth are mostly young professionals, veterans only of committee room wrangles over whether to cut services or increase the rates. The Poplar councillors were class fighters who fought long and hard against the system. The councillors of Liverpool and Lambeth gave up their fight at the first obstacle. They are facing penalties in the courts, not because they fought and lost, but because they agreed to come quietly at the first hint of confrontation. Poplar councillors were imprisoned for carrying out practical policies of defiance which brought tangible benefits to local people.

Liverpool and Lambeth councillors are being penalised for their rhetoric.

In the twenties people had no experience of the Labour Party in government and it seemed reasonable to trust Labour. Today's Labour councillors have had the chance to learn from the experience of eight Labour governments — and they still put their faith in the next. the next step • 17 January • 5

THEA WAR

This is how the West plays for power in the From Grenada to Libya 6 O the next step • 17 January

GAME

third world. Players need a big supply of arms, a vast amount of money and preferably some experience in the gentle arts of media manipulation, political intrigue and mass slaughter 1 Choose a target country, preferably one which is small, weak and easy to bully The USA's choice of the tiny Caribbea island of Grenada - population 100 00 — as a place to display its world-beatin military might in October 1983 was har to beat. Reagan despatched 3000 marines an paratroopers to occupy the island, establish pro-American regime and show the people the whole Central American area who was bos Nicaragua is another well-chosen US targe One of the most impoverished countries i Central America, it has little industry c military capacity and only three million peopl Libya (see page 8) with its small and disperse population and low level of development another good choice. Beleaguered third world countries like Cub and Angola have also been singled out a targets for US aggression. France has picked o Chad - one of the poorest countries in th Britain's choice of. Argentina. world. relatively developed backward capitalist countr was a poor selection, which caused considerab difficulties at later stages in the game.

'FASCIST GENERAL GALTIERI

Portray the country's leader as a communist, a fascist, or as just plain crazy Cuba's Fidel Castro is the role model. A larg than life figure with a big beard, a record guerrilla struggle and a strong line in ant Western rhetoric, he has served as a focus of U abuse for more than 20 years. Since the US crippled the Cuban economy with its blocka and Castro turned to the Soviet Union for hel he has been depicted as a stooge of Mosco The US propaganda machine has had son difficulty casting Nicaragua's Daniel Orte into the Castro mould, but the best brains Washington are working on it Britain could not plausibly make out th Argentina's General Galtieri was a communis so he had to be packaged as a fascist. Iran Ayatollah Khomeini was difficult to present : either communior fascisso take the stage as the sort of Islamic zeal vaguely familiar from school histories of t Crusades. The Western campaign again Libya's Colonel Gadafti has gone beyond ar attempt at political caricature to present him accusanc The prototype for the psychopathic thi world leader increasingly favoured by Weste War Game players was Idi Amin, who rul Uganda through the seventies. Amin w depicted throughout the Western media as deranged and savage barbarian, but then he w trained by the British army and installed ar sustained in office largely through Briti

3 Portray the country's people as backward and oppressed and in need of liberation by external interference The marginalised Indian communities of us Nicaragua are a particular concern propagandists at the moment. The USA is so concerned for the Indians' plight that Washington is financing, training and equipping devastate their fields and villages, thus freeing them from the domination of the radical Sandinista government.

During the South Atlantic War British commentators, including many left wingers, discovered a sudden concern for the people of Argentina suffering under the tyranny of the military dictatorship. The repressive nature of the regime was used to justify British military intervention against Argentina. This surge of concern for the victims of the junta subsided rapidly on the conclusion of the war. The fate of imprisoned trade unionists and socialists and others in Argentina now excites no more interest in Britain than does repression in any other third world country.

A short memory and a highly selective sense of moral outrage oppression are against essential for good players at this stage of the Western game. commentators who were indifferent to the plight of the Iranian people dictatorship of the prounder the savage Western Shah of Iran, suddenly became profoundly moved by the suffering of the the anti-Western Khomeini. CODIC under Similarly in Uganda, when the British decided they wanted to get rid of Amin, the press suddenly discovered that the people were oppressed. The press promptly ignored the similar conditions under conunuanon Amin's successor Milton Obote who, according to Amnesty International, killed considerably more people. Use propaganda against the target country to strengthen support for your regime at home The Falklands Factor is the classical gambit.

You present the threat to the national interest from the distant foreign target as an issue demanding the maximum display of national Anybody who challenges the spirit of national unity against the foreign menace —for example by going on strike — is depicted as an enemy of the people. Thatcher used this ploy to great effect during the South Atlantic War in 1982. By rallying the nation against the 'Argies' she distracted attention from the failures of the government's policies at home, and swung the Tories from the bottom of the opinion polls to the position from which they won a landslide victory in the 1983 general election.

Reagan too has had considerable success in using international issues to domestic advantage. He used the climate of chauvinist hostility against Iran during the hostage crisis to boost his presidential election campaign in 1980, and his invasion of Grenada gave a powerful boost to his re-election in 1984. Reagan hopes to use his campaign against Libya to bolster the presidency as the US economy again begins to slip.

UGANDAN PSYCHOPATH' IDI AMIN

5 Use propaganda against the target country to mobilise support from other Western powers This is where the game enters a more difficult stage. The intensifying competition for spheres of influence in the third world among the Western countries makes it increasingly difficult for them to pull together against a common enemy. This puts greater pressure on the major Western powers to convince their allies of the threat from their selected target.

The British government had great difficulty persuading its allies that they should support its covason commitment to keeping upstart third invasion of the Falkland Islands. world countries in line served to prevent any major rift in the Western alliance, but there was little enthusiasm for Britain's military adventure. Now that the war is over, the allies refuse to back Britain in United Nations votes on the Falklands. When it comes to an area like the Middle East where the Western powers are openly vying for influence, the divisions are increasingly out in the open. The USA, with its close ties to Israel, still repudiates the Palestinian struggle.

Yet Europeans are generally happy to recognise the Palestinian liberation movement as a means of strengthening their position in the Arab world.

Reagan wants to target Libya, but the Europeans want to play the matter down (see Even in Central page 8). America, an acknowledged sphere of US supremacy, the Europeans have promoted the Contadora peace initiative while the USA has kept up the pressure against the Nicaraguans.

6 Go in - but make sure you win This is the most difficult play of all. Every Western power has its grim memories.

USA

recalls its disastrous intervention in Vietnam in the sixties, when a small peasant country humbled the American army and caused major domestic discontent.

France remembers its war in Algeria in the fifties.

which also caused both military embarrassment and political turmoil at home. And Britain has in Ireland its own reminder that it is easier to invade than it is to come out on top.

The legacy of past setbacks has made the Western allies cautious. They have built up their rapid deployment forces in north Africa, the Middle East, Central America and spread their network of bases. They have extended their conventional and nuclear armouries to cope with warfare in any area of the globe. But they have so far confined their major efforts to places where they are sure they can win — the Falklands, Grenada. The US armed forces put one foot in Lebanon and withdrew in horror.

They look at the terrain in Central America and remember Vietnam. Reagan is rattling his missiles at Libya, but is not so confident about how US troops will perform in the deserts of north Africa 4000 miles from home if his bluff is called. ast week Reagan pulled back from direct interference in Libya. But it is only a matter of time before the increasingly laggressive rhetoric of Western rulers is translated into brute military force Given the economic decay of the capitalist system, the Western powers can only guarantee their influence in the third world through the exercise of military violence. Whether or not they succeed in plunging the world into a new round of warfare depends entirely on the working class. By organising to expose and disrupt the bosses military exploits, we can seize the opportunity to prepare for the overthrow of their ramshackle system.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE

OPPRESSED

Western diplomatic and military intervention in the third world has one objective: to perpetuate capitalist plunder and oppression.

In any conflict between imperialist countries like Britain or the USA, and third world countries, workers must take sides. By supporting the struggles of oppressed countries against the Western powers that oppress them, workers in the West can hasten the defeat of the system that degrades us all.

British workers should welcome any challenge to the might of the British state by the impoverished and enslaved nations of the third world. Any such challenge weakens the grip of the bosses at home and abroad. Fighting for solidarity with third world countries and liberation struggles is also the only effective method of tackling the influence of patriotic propaganda campaigns at home. By arguing for support for the people of Libya, Argentina, Ireland and Palestine against Britain, we can confront nationalist prejudices which depict British bosses and workers as having a common interest. Such a campaign can create a climate in which an outlook that puts the working class first can flourish.

VIOLENCE

The establishment will always seek to mobilise workers' revulsion against bloodshed, particularly where civilian casualties are involved, against people fighting back against oppression.

We start by recognising that there will always be wars as long as we live under a system based on capitalist competition, national oppression and class domination — and in all wars civilians will inevitably die. The responsibility for the barbarism and the bloodshed in the world today rests squarely with the ruling classes who have shown that they will go to any lengths of mass terror and genocide to preserve their rule In our response to violence we make a clear distinction between military action aimed at perpetuating capitalist barbarism, and military action. by oppressed nations fighting against Western domination. We should emulate the outlook advanced by revolutionary leaders like Lenin, who wrote in 1915, 'If tomorrow Morocco were to declare war on France, or India on Britain, or Persia or China on Russia, and so on, these would be just and defensive wars' in which any socialist would wish the oppressed, dependent and unequal states victory over the oppressor slaveholding and predatory "great" powers.'

Our resolute opposition to the violence of the British ruling class must be matched by unhesitating support for the right of nations dominated by Britain to resist the British establishment by whatever means necessary

HOW TO STOP

THE WAR GAME

THE ENEMY IS AT HOME

During the first world war a significant minority of workers rallied behind the slogan championed by revolutionary leaders like Rosa Luxemburg in Germany and John MacLean in Britain: "The enemy is at home.' It is a slogan which needs to be revived in the struggle against chauvinism and militarism today.

We oppose the militaristic exploits of Reagan as much as those of Thatcher. But, as the Libyan crisis shows, Britain's rulers also oppose Reagan as soon as US action threatens their own interests. In the thirties British workers' resistance to the war drive was undermined because they hated Hitler more than they hated their own class enemy. This provided scope for the establishment to manipulate anti-fascist sentiments and drag workers into the war against Germany. Instead of fighting their own bosses, workers died in millions supporting them against their rivals abroad Today anti-Americanism is beginning to play the role of uniting the British people, workers and employers, against a foreign enemy. As the rift between Europe and America widens, there is a danger that workers will yet again be drawn into taking sides along national lines. When British workers support the British government and British firms against their American rivals.

this undermines their capacity to act independently as workers against their employers.

Instead of uniting workers from different countries it divides them even further. The slippery slope that begins with workers backing, for patriotic reasons, the European against the American rescue plan at Westland Helicopters, ends up with workers backing Britain on the battlefields of war.

Only by campaigning for the defeat of our own enemy — the British state — can we break the evil influence of nationalism and begin to organise effective resistance to the war drive.

BRING THE WAR TO BRITAIN

In their struggle for survival the bosses have to wage war on two fronts. At home they must drive down living standards and enforce their discipline on an increasingly hostile and rebellious working class. Abroad they must protect their markets and spheres of investment against their capitalist rivals and suppress growing revolt against Western domination.

Even the most powerful capitalist state. let alone a declining imperialist power like Britain.

cannot sustain war on two aronts againsi determined enemies for any length of time.

Britain's hopes of survival rest heavily on its ability to neutralise working class resistance at home. This is why the pro-British outlook which unites all sections of British society is of fundamental importance to the survival of British capitalism. As long as the narrow chauvinist tradition represented by Labour politicians from Neil Kinnock on the right to David Blunkett and Tony Benn on the left retains its influence over the labour movement, Britain's rulers will find it easy to win on the home front. But if workers replace their allegiance to Britain with commitment to their own class, Thatcher will really meet her 'enemy within".

The bosses' drive to war can be curbed by opening up the second front in the class war in Britain. Forcing the ruling class to fight Its battle for survival on the streets of Britain instead of abroad, is the best way to tame the imperialist beast. Sabena Norion the next step • 17 January O 7

Libya

REAGAN RAISES THE STAKES

GADAFFI EXPOSES

eagan has accused Libyan leader of being only *a Gadatti barbarian' but also of being 'flaky".

He has sent the US fleet to harass Libya, frozen Libyan assets in the USA, ordered 1500 US citizens in Libya home and imposed other economic sanctions against Libya. But his appeals for European leaders to follow suit have fallen on deaf ears. While it may suit the USA to swing its weight around in the Middle East, the European powers have too much to lose by endorsing this high risk aggressive strategy.

Ever since Gadaffi closed US bases and expelled US military advisers from Libya shortly after taking power in a military coup in 1969, he has been a target of American In the Libya took hostility. advantage of a favourable international oil domestic develop market to

ITS

TeeDle The Gadaffi regime used oil economy. revenues to finance development projects and social reforms, strengthening popular support at home. Gadaffi tried to enhance his international prestige by attempting, largely unsuccessfully, to promote closer relations with other Arab countries, and by supporting liberation struggles in Palestine his domestic and and elsewhere. Both foreign policies provoked the wrath of the

USA.

The USA's attempt to rally a joint Western offensive against Libya has already backfired, exposing tensions within the Atlantic alliance • In 1977 the USA listed Libya with Cuba and North Korea as international terrorist states' and discreetly encouraged an Egyptian noreer incursion • In 1981 American intelligence agents launched a black propaganda campaign about Libyan 'murder squads' in the USA and plots to assassinate the president; Libya was officially declared an enemy and US destroyers shot down two Libyan fighters in the Gulf of Sirte • In 1982 Reagan banned all Libyans in the USA from studying nuclear physics, lest they develop the capacity to nuke Washington • In 1983 the war in Chad provided another pretext for stepping up the pressure as Gadaffi's army took sides in the longrunning civil war • In 1984 the siege at the Libyan embassy in London, which followed a series of conflicts between pro-Gadaffi and anti-Gadaffi factions in Britain, provoked another upsurge of Western hysteria directed against the "whacky colonel and his regime • In 1985 Libya got the blame for sheltering Palestinian guerrillas responsible for a range of operations around the Mediterranean.

Reagan blamed the mysterious 'Abu Nidal" and Gadaffi, his alleged godfather, and endorsed a full mobilisation of the Egyptian army at the Libyan border in December.

The Christmas bombings at Rome and Vienna airports provoked a new offensive against Libya in the opening days of 1986.

Even Newsweek admits that, Washington had evidence linking Abu Nidal more closely to Syria than to Iran and Libya, but chose to emphasise the Gadaffi connection' because, as a top US expert put it, 'Libya is fair game to take a crack at." In the early eighties 8 O the next step • 17 January

WESTERN DIVISIONS

THE MAD COLONEL: GADAFFI'S SUPPOSED DEMENTIA MAKES HIM FAIR GAME FOR REAGAN Reagan leaned on Exxon and Mobil to withdraw their Libyan oil operations, cut US aid and discouraged trade. He now aims to persuade European powers to impose similar sanctions against Libya.

America's strategy is to raise the political temperature in the Middle East by using issues of trade and investment to exert muscle against enemies and leverage on allies. The USA aims to politicise economic Gadaffi provides and seasons convenient pretext. In this way the USA can compensate for its declining competitiveness superior markets with its oveiscas military strength. Unfortunately for Reagan, Europe's interests in north Africa and the Middle East run directly contrary to those of the USA.

The European powers have generally been happy to join in the general Western hysteria against Gadaffi. The British government has reaped considerable benefits from promohere are around one million foreigners

EEC

Italy, some from other but most from Tunisia. countries, Morocco, Yugoslavia and other Mediterranean countries, including the former Italian colony of Libya. Under a law passed in the fascist era in 1931 local police chiefs have the power to pick up, detain and deport foreigners living in their area, but Italy has no comprehensive system of immigration laws. Announcing plans for systematic immigration controls, interior minister Scalfaro said last week that Italy was now in the front line of international terrorism. He noted that during 1985 there were ten terrorist incidents in Italy, only one of which was committed by an Italian. The menace of 'foreign terrorism' provides the pretext for tightening up internal controls.

Since the El Al attack the newspapers have been full of special features designed to show that Arabs are dangerous criminals.

The top people's daily Corriere della Sera publishes detailed statistics on 'Arab crime' and claims that in 1985 'only ten provinces out of 94 in Italy have been immune from the contagion of Middle Eastern delinquents'.

This is the quality press! The popular papers provide interviews with taxi-drivers, shopkeepers and old ladies who claim that the criminals who have robbed, burgled or mugged them were probably Arabs.

ting anti-Libyan prejudices. The death of a policewoman outside the Libyan embassy before the siege in April 1984 provided a useful focus for national unity against the menace of 'international terrorism'. It has helped to justify the build-up of repressive legislation and the deployment of more coercive methods of policing to deal with internal threats to the establishment from blacks or striking workers. Yet even Britain refused point blank Reagan's to loin sanctions against Libya last week.

Unlike the USA, the European powers have a major economic stake in north Africa and the Middle East. Britain, France, Italy and Germany rely on the region not only for oil but for crucial investments and trade outlets. It suits the USA to maintain a degree of instability in the area as a pretext for US political intervention. But this is a direct threat to European interests which above all seek to preserve stable conditions for

ANTI-ARAB HYSTERIA

An Arab commentator living in Italy told ins that the police have anticipated the introduction of anti-immigrant legislation by rounding up and deporting hundreds of Tunisians and Moroccans. In Genoa 440 Tunisian passengers on a ship were refused permission to land. At frontier posts Arabs are being refused entry unless they have proof of a job or a course of study. 'Only blonde tourists are now being allowed into Italy,' he says. In Rome last week two young Arabs were hauled off the No 74 bus when a nun screamed, 'Help! Help! Those Arabs are Following the guerrilla attack on the El Al check-in at Rome's Fiumcino airport on 27 December an ugly mood of racism is sweeping Italy capitalist exploitation. The clash of interests among the Western powers was already apparent over the war in Chad in 1983. The USA wanted to keep the war on the boil to justify its interference. The French wanted to cool the whole matter down to maintain their own position and keep the USA out. While for the USA strategic considerations come first, for the European powers first priority must go to Hence the universal economic matters. rejection in Europe of Reagan's proposed economic sanctions against Libya last week.

Fomenting anti-Arab prejudice at home is one thing; cutting off vital business interests to advance US ambitions is quite another.

Libya is little more than a pawn in a sordid superpower game. Ever since the country was created in the carve-up of Africa among the European powers in the years before the First World War it has been the victim of imperialist manoeuvres. It was first dominated by Italy, at the behest of the British who wanted to maintain it as a buffer between French and British Africa. It remained under Italian control until the end of the Second World War when it was occupied by the British to thwart French ambitions in north Africa. It was only after prolonged wrangles at the United Nations that Britain was forced to recognise the independence of Libya under a puppet monarchy. The involvement of US as well as British troops in propping up the new regime confirmed the new balance of forces in the region.

The development of Libya's oil reserves in the sixties and seventies enabled it to break out of its earlier status as one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet its oil boom was short-lived. Libya has been hit hard by the contraction of the world market since 1979.

The population of less than four million, mainly poor farmers and herdsmen, is scattered over a large area of which more than 90 per cent is desert. Libya remains a poor country. Libya is vulnerable and a good target for US bullying tactics. But it would not be as easy to invade as Grenada or the Falkland Islands. Any Western interference in Libya would inevitably provoke an anti-Western backlash across the Arab world, possibly bringing down a number of pro-Western regimes which already face considerable internal tensions. Behind Reagan's anti-Gadaffi rhetoric the insecurity of the imperialist world is increasingly difficult to hide. Helen Swift When crowd carrying guns. dragged them away to the police station they were found to be unarmed. Slogans have appeared painted on walls around Rome accusing Arabs of taking Italian jobs and houses and demanding that they be kicked out Immigration is turning into a key issue in Republican Party Italian politics part leader Spadolini is in the forefront of the anti-Arab campaign, vying with the right- Christian Democrats for the racist Wills vote. Socialist Party prime minister Craxi is keeping his head down. He cannot afford to lose right-wing support by taking a liberal stand on such a sensitive matter.

The powerful Communist Party also ducks the issue. It argues that the issues of terrorism and immigration should be kept separate — the former to be dealt with by appropriate repression, the latter to be seen as a social problem. The proposed new immigration legis lation will meet a degree of opposition when it finally reaches parliament. But by then it will be too late. The climate of anti- Arab sentiment will have already isolated immigrants and allowed the police to enforce strict internal controls. The time to organise against immigration controls and against attempts to criminalise any section of the working class is now.

Annette Jenkins

REVIEW junius

VICTOR GRAYSON'S DOWNFALL

THE BRITISH

DISEASE

David Clark, Labour's lost leader: Victor Grayson, Quartet £9.95 Ever since his mysterious disappearance in 1920 the fate of lett-wing Labour politician Victor Grayson has been a source of controversy. His downfall has been variously attributed to drink, mental instability and suppressed homosexuality.

But, as David Clark's book reveals, Grayson's capitulation to chauvinism at the time of the First World War exposed his central political weakness.

Grayson was elected MP for Colne Valley in a dramatic by-election victory in 1907. In his maiden speech Grayson defied convention to launch an uncompromising attack on the British establishment on the unemployment issue. Grayson was equally forthright in his denunciations of the Labour leaders. *I leave the house with pleasure, he told them in October 1908, You are traitors to your class, you will not stand up for vour class, vou are traitors. Grayson was a brillant orator who attracted thousands to openair meetings. bur ais electon manestos contained conventional Labour policies, proclaiming

FILM

AN AMERICAN

BULL IN

CHINATOWN

The Year of The Dragon, Michael Cimino (director) In his new film Michael Cimino continues the exploration he began in The Deer Hunter and Haven's Gate of what it means to be an Stanlev White of Polish stock. a A mercan. Vietnam veteran and Action Man cop takes charoe ot New yorks ennalown

CISLICE

vicious feud is on between the young and the old in the Chinese community and Stanley promptly declares personal war on Chinatown, to the consternation not only of the triads but also of his own more oracmauc superiors Stanley's Magnum Force mania has little to do with the fact that tourists are having their spare ribs served with generous helpings of bullets, or Indeed with the tact that living conditions for many of the Chinese are deplorable and should be alleviated by the application of some all- American law 'n' order. This is how Stanley (Mickey Rourke picking up the De Niro mantle with great assurance) sees it. The real reason is that Stanley is a mess - because of Vietnam, because of his disintegrating marriage, because the dubious achievements of the parliamentary Labour artv. The outbreak of war split the labour movement.

he leaders orse abour rarty took a neual pacifist position on the war. Small groupings of revo unonarv socialsts adostca an muransigenuy anti-war position. On the other hand trade union leaders like Ben Tilett and Will Thorne took a staunchly patriotic, pro-imperialist stand. This view was endorsed by an influential group of socialists, including Henry Hyndman, a former leader of the revolutionary left, and Robert he's not sure where he himself fits in.

His racism is highlighted by his affair with rich kid cum TV reporter, Tracy Tzu (Ariane), a Chinese American who is not above being used by Stanley to stir things up for Joey Tai (John Lone) the new. voung ruler of Chinatown. Stanley rave: doesn't distinguish on about the . enemy (ne herween the vietnamese ane me nimese. abour the media (defeatist then, parasitic now) about the lack of a will to win, about the system breaking down and about how much he 'cares". This is pure Rambo, and it brings home how much that film* bullt upon the redempuon or tne war veterans which began (in a more complex and challenging way) in The Deer Hunter. Stanley's wife, Tracy and the other policemen all comprehensively and expressly condemn Stanley for the obsessive and destructive force that he is. He shows signs of conversion - witness his growing relationship with Tracy, his study of Chinese realisation the of things ane systematic oppression of the Chinese in America.

'No one remembers in this country, he says, and is surely remembering his own history too. There is a crucial failure however to render either Stanley's predicament or any change which might (or might not) be occurring interesting or convincing in itself. This failure is based on the way in which the narrative inexorably propeis une : oonoXIous character forward as hero, and in the way the outcome of his struggles with both Joey and Tracy invitably has the effect of vindicating his own approach. It is as if the police thriller form has got the better of Cimino. He took the Western by the scruff of the neck in Heaven's Gate and gave it a thorough shaking with class and race.

In both Heaven's Gate and The Deer Hunter his heroes are no saints, but they are situated by plot and above all by the unusual forms of those films. Explosive accompanied by long bursts ol action are reflective sequences, episodes are clearly marked out in time and space. In The Year of The Dragon however the rogue cop (quite a traditional figure now) goes abour mis busmess in an essentaly undisturbed and traditional way. Kelenuess action is all. The film is structured around three funerals.

The opening one is a typically magnificent Cimino set-piece if not quite as breathtaking as the weddings, dances and railheads of his earlier work). The close-up of the mounted police chief's head encased in helmet, chin-strap and shades and the intercutting between the funeral and yet murder are early signs that Cimine потлет retains his formidable touch. The pitch thereafter never falters, only now and again moving up a gear lor a really bravura shoot-out or chase. It is a powerful and thoroughly exciting film (perhaps a there shade gross for -SOTHe asbu insufficient space to deal adequately with the issues Cimino insists on raising.

It was impossible to forgive The Deer Hunter for presenting the Vietcong as the evil torturing enemies of decent bovs, but at least that tilm contained a devastating account of crumbling confidence and disillusionment at home. In Ihe Year of The Dragon the Chinese community ends up as a perious backarop tor stanley sangst ever though Cimino may have wished to give a vivid and sympathetic ot their place ir accoln! America. That's what happens when you start worrying about the policeman as a victim (before him it was the soldier) as opposed to those really on the receiving end. Pat Ford latchford, editor of the popular radical paper the Clarion. Grayson, who worked on the Clarion, gave his support to the chauvinist camp.

Grayson broadcast the patriotic message far and wide — even going on tour in Australia and New Zealand. In November 1916 he joined up with the New Zeland Expeditionary Forces and fought in the frontline trenches in France. Injury brought Grayson back to England where he continued his anti-German campaign. In 1918 he condemned the German people who 'have been tor su years educated in a scoundrelly and bruta.

gospel which is dictating their conduct in this war". Grayson denonced British workers who demanded higher wages, and compared strikers who reduced their output to robbing a soldier of ammunition as he was going into battle. He told a honour of his nation would never be vindica ted meeting Midd esDorolon until Germany had been "thrashed and then punished' Nobody knows what happened to Grayson after his disappearance in 1920. But his political disgrace took place long before his personal demise. This book is well worth reading not only because it tells the truth about Grayson, but because it shows how nationalism can undermine even the most radical critic of the system.

Joan Phillips

NICARAGUA

BEING A

GUERRILLA IS

NO GAME

Umar Cabezas, ire from the mountain, cape €5.95 Omar Cabezas is now a minister in the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. This is his compelling account of his training as a guerrilla in the Nicaraguan countryside in the early seventies.

Cabezas, whose guerrilla name was Eugenio, was born in Leon the former capital of Nicaragua and chief university town. He first showed his promise as a political leader in Leon's militant student movement at the end of the sixties. The guerrilla movement against US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza and his brutal National Guard was then capable of only limited actions against incivieua somocistas ane landowners Cabezas makes no attempt to romanticise the life of the guerrillas. The overwelming impression is of the mud, filth, hunger and disease which dominated the life of the early guerrilla bands himset suffered toi trom Cabezas mOnES mountain leprosy, a condition which opened up deep ulcers in his ankles making it impossible for him to move without pain and for which the guerrillas' medic had no remedy.

Nor is there any mythologising about the social life of the guerrilla bands who usually numbered 10 to 15 men entirely thrown on their owr resources. oneliness and boredom were constant problems. New recruits had to be steeled for their confrontations with the Guard by commanders who were just as brutal and demanding as tne Guard's own officers. The force with which Cabezas tells his raw tale of life as a guerrilla makes the warmth of his story all the more astounding. Without romanticising the armed struggle, Cabezas renders his description of the unspoken comradeship, the pain at the death of Tello the trainer who forced him beyond the limits of endurance, and the sentiments of popular support all the more authentic. Fire from the mountain is an insider's account of the agony and the ecstasy of the struggle for freedom.

John Johnson

CHANGE CHANNELS

The Eleventh Hour (Monday Channel 4) offers a chance to see one of the first Soviet features, Lev Kuleshov's 1924 The extraordinarv adventures o1 Mr West in the land of the Bolsheviks. Made at a time when currency shortages and a Western trade embargo made film production in the USSR extraordinarily difficult, Mr West uses the conventions of Hollywood silent comedy to ridicule the portrayal of the Soviet Union in the Western media.

On the eve of the by-elections in Northern Irelana forced by Loyalist politicians to demonto the Anglo-Trish strate Protestant hostility agreement Diverse Reports (Wednesday Channel 4) interviews Protestant workers in Belfast to find out why they oppose the deal.

publications Confused about Ireland? Does Ireland seem to you like an endless series of explosions and elections, funerals and bloody anniversaries, talking shops and houting matches? If it does you need to read The Irish War.

The recently published second edition of the Irish Freedom Movement's best-selling handbook provides the facts and takes up the arguments about the long-running conflict in Northern Ireland.

For those who weren't around when the shooting started, or have lost track of events along the way, The Irish War outlines the events of the past 16 years. For those who can't understand why Britain does not just pull out and leave the Irish to it, The Irish War explains what is at stake for the British establishment in reland. All this and much more for only £2.95 plus 85p p&p from Junius Publications, adress below.

Also available from Junius • The roots of racism, the revised and updated second edition of the Workers Against Racism account of the rise of anti-black prejudice to its present strength in British society and how to fight it. £1.95 plus 40p p&p • Moral panics and Victorian values, Kate Marshall's popular survey of how the Tories are using propaganda on issues of sex and morality to reinforce women's subordinate position in society.

£1.50 plus 40p p&p • Taking control, Mike Freeman's handbook for trade unionists, more relevant than ever at time when the TUC is losing control over the forces of fragmentation in the labour movement. £2.95 plus 85p p&p • Black blood on British hands, Charles Longford's survey of the struggle in South Africa, the role the British establishment is playing and the role the labour movement could play. £1.50 plus 60p påp All publications from BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX. Cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd, bulk orders (five or more items) post free. the next step • 17 January 9

LETTERS STEPPING

FREE NURSERIES

NOW!

I am a single parent and a student at Thames Polytechnic and I'm attempting to live on €3000 a year for two people. I can't go out and get a part-time job to earn extra because I can't afford a babysitter. I pay £29 a week rent, f10 gas and electric, and then how am I supposed to feed and clothe two people?

Thames Polytechnic At publicised has been executive's priority for the year. students haven't been organised to take any action at all to get a nursery. The campaign consists of a women's officer to organise fund-raising. We've all been asked to fork out £5 out of our own pockets for a nursery fund. The nursery campaign at Thames has been going on for 12 years.

A women's committee now exists and has received from the board of directors £20 000 to decorate a room on the grounds and assurances that funding for the running of the nursery will be found elsewhere.

directors don't want to take responsibility, so the only way we'll be able to get decent nursery facilities is to force them. A day of has now been called for action January. But it is conceived as a fund-raising day. getting some effective I suggested action going on that day and demanding funds, but the women's committee think the governing body is some kind of benevolent set-up which we should work with.

Half-way through last term I had to stop attending college because I couldn't afford a babysitter anymore. Now I've been going to college for one day a week when there's the once-a-week morning creche. women's officer could give me no guarantees that this is going to continue to operate. It looks like I'll have to give up college. I've tried the social, but you can't get a nursery unless you're a childbatterer. Social services have said to me my circumstances would have to change drastically to be eligible. It's enough to make you batter your kids.

I tried locally in Peckham Copplestone Day Centre, already applicants on the waiting list and apart from the social services nurseries for deviants, the only other ones are attached to schools which take three-year olds upwards. My daughter's two. You can't get a childminder for less than £30 a week, and they're usually women who can't get a nursery themselves.

What I want to know is how the RCP would deal with this situation. I know what the women's committee and executive will say if the RCP does anything and that is the RCP are trying to take over the campaign.

The way I look at it, perhaps if the RCP got involved we might get something done. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Kim Pepper Peckham

THE NIGHT WORK

QUESTION

The Tories are fighting 'sex discrimination'.

That is, employment under-secretary Peter Bottomley has told the TUC that he has started overhauling the sex discrimination laws. The Tories intend to scrap the part of the Factory Act which limits the night work 10 O the next step • 17 January women are allowed to do. Protective legislation has been the target of a lot of radical sounding criticism. It has often been argued that women should have the 'right' to be exploited on an equal basis with men by working with heavy weights and toxic materials, doing night work or mining etc. Our aim should be to fight for the extension of protective legislation, to men too. that Karl Marx advocated in his lifetime.

And it's as valid today as it was then. The TUC response to the Tories' latest attack on women's rights makes various radical noises but unfortunately offers no effective way of defying them. The unions correctly note that women are under pressure to do night work due to the lack of daytime childcare facilities. campaigning for more nursery resources, they are up in arms about the fact that employers haven't asked whether women wish to work night shifts or not!

Then in characteristic fashion the TUC attempts to turn the issue into a 'Save public transport campaign, on the grounds that women working nights will have to risk attacks in the streets while walking to work due to cuts in bus services.

amounts to adding insult to injury. Not only avoiding fighting for women's nursery rights, but they are using the issue as a cheap the anti-Tory gimmick to bolster the Labour But Party's dismal record of fighting the cuts.

Eileen McEvoy Leeds

FREE ABORTION

FOR

FOREIGNERS!

The An average of 21 Spanish abortions each day in London. They are forced to come here because abortion is illegal in Spain. They are not eligible for a 27 free abortion on the NHS and are forced to private clinics. on the

ICLY

together with the air fare often make it very difficult for students and women to make the trip. And they have to pay for somewhere to stay in London and have language difficulties too.

Otten Spanish after 12 weeks which makes them both more expensive and less safe. Delays can be caused by applying for a passport in Spain, making But the arrangements for flights and by the need for Spanish women

SCLICLY.

workers should fight for free abortion when required in Spain. But it is British workers' duty to fight for free abortion in Britain for foreign women. Paula Lucia Gual North London 80 got

PUMPING

THE

WOMEN

TRIVIAL PURSUITS

Last Tuesday I went to my local cinema for an all-women showing of Pumping iron II the women (see review tns 34). Far more interesting than the film is the discussion it seems to have generated in the women's Nearly 300 women attended the showing I went to, and nearly all of them stayed for the discussion afterwards. thought the film was pornographic, some women's potential. This is the approach women's liberation hear the end of the discussion.

leading But instead of issue. The This really and

LOVISIOIL

Wendy Ellis Lambeth

FRONT LINE

At a meeting of Hackney Monday 30 black youths women have Project Pool Community Private fees unemployed women have abortions mistreatment they at the hands of the police.

Spanish their and Organisauol, local residents. the front line. Tony Parker Hackney

BCM JPLTD

women Some thought it was an optimistic expression of Some thought bodybuilding was good because it made women strong, others thought it was bad because it showed women trying to be like men. One woman suggested that a few women bodybuilders would not make much difference to the position of women, but others were convinced that the film had struck a blow for because women in a positive light. And so the discussion went on in ever shrinking circles.

The few voices that suggested there might be more important issues to discuss were drowned out. Most women didn't stay to This preoccupation with the image of women and personal aspirations seems to be

THEO

backwater. Whether or not a woman wants to be a champion body-builder should be a matter of personal choice, not a political problems women lace In achieving equality with men in sport or in any other field are real enough. Obstacles far more serious than a panel of senile male judges are continually being thrown in our way. Last year saw major cuts in nursery serious attacks on contraceptive and abortion rights. While feminists bicker about nothing, women who want to fight for real equality have to confront the real obstacles that Gillick, Powell and the like throw in our way.

ANGER ON THE

council on disrupted the and forced a 30-minute adjournment. They were from the Roots the Dalston based in Centre and make up an important part of Hackney's front line in Sandringham Road. The council meeting had been called to consider the issue of racism at the Clapton Park Nursery where an occupation by parents of the children has continued since October last year. The chair and treasurer of the Roots Pool Project took over the meeting and explained the legacy of received from have Hackney council and the history of brutality The council has recently offered to fund which undertakes cultural and recreational activities such as a recording studio, training for work and videos. Despite numerous promises from local councillors and officials the only funding they have received has been for a table tennis table and dominoes. They have even received a £1000 grant from Scotland Yard for materials. The recent council offer of money, however, has come with many strings attached. In particular, that they should move out of the community centre and carry out their activities out of sight of The uproarious meeting showed the fragility of the council's strategy of buying off a few black militants to contain unrest on It also showed that this strategy cannot work any longer.

Write to London WCIN 3XX

OUT

Tory home secretary Douglas Hurd has a personal stake in his campaign to bring sex and violence on TV to public attention.

Granada is serialising War Without Limits, a thriller about lust and terrorism written by...part-time novelist Hurd himself. The book is packed with chauffeurs being shotgunned in the midriff, blackened and smouldering' bodies hanging from chimneys, 'rivers of blood' and bodies arching "convulsively' before "twitching like a dog in a dream'(?). How does Hurd account for his involvement in this immoral masterpiece? He doesn't - he's "too frantically busy' to comment. Perhaps he's writing a follow-up about a cabinet full of ministers who get their secretaries pregnant, get stoned off the streets of Birmingham, and develop strange fetishes with helicopters. But that would be pushing fiction a bit too far. The row over Westland helicopters has really got the British establishment in a tailspin. On the morning of 9 January the top people's Financial Times announced that 'Heseltine flies into calmer weather' just hours before he started a fresh storm by resigning. No FT - no rash comments.

Speaking of which, this week Labour front bencher Clive Soley told the Fabians that, *Law and order should always have been a Labour issue,' primarily because most offenders are working class'. Now Thatcher only says black youth and striking miners are criminals. But Soley reckons all workers are crooks. So Labour really is less elitist than the Tories. The Militant machine may be dented, but it's still functioning. The Tendency's latest fund-raising scheme is to send its supporters out spivving at Labour constituency meetings, selling souvenir copies of the redundancy notices issued by Liverpool council last year. The asking rate is 20p a copy. If you are offered any, pick one up for me. It seems a small price to pay for a permanent reminder of the day the most left-wing Labour council in the country tried to sack 31 000 workers 'in the cause of socialism. British troops terrorising the Irish people have added a new weapon to their armoury.

It is an aerosol can, filled with a spray that is guaranteed to beat off attacks from dogs.

John Lee, a Tory minion at the defence ministry, has assured dog-lovers that the spray will wear off in 10 minutes. He also says it will not be used within range of innocent bystanders. Very decent of you, John. But when an Army patrol was recently attacked by local canines in the Gobnascale district of Derry, the squaddies fired off a baton round which missed the dogs by a mile - and came within inches of blasting away a seven-year old Irish girl's face. So 1 suggest John Lee sticks a plastic bullet up his aerosol.

Who says British state corporations have no sense of humour? Some British Rail wit has stuck an advertising poster on the Falls Road in republican West Belfast, bearing the legend 'Brighton Early'. Early? Like 2.54am on Friday 12 October 1984?

My heart has been saddened this week by news of two mercenary transfer deals.

Manchester United look likely to sell the remarkable Mark Hughes to a foreign football outfit for f2m. And Joan Phillips is leaving the tus editorial board to make her fame and fortune as assistant editor to Eric Box on the Bristol Bugler. Truly, the corrupting influence of capitalism has got a lot to answer for.

'LONELY' EDDIE VEALE

Reports

DAVE ROURKE

HATTON'S RAP

FAILS TO CONVINCE

he defeat of Labour candidate Anne Hollinshead in the Old Swan council by-election is a devastating indictment of Liverpool's Labour council. In a television interview next day deputy council leader Derek Hatton tried Labour's defeat on the national leadership and the sandal-mongering media, but the Liverpool council leadership must take their share of responsibility for the Alliance victory. Old Swan ward is typical of inner-city areas throughout Britain. In an area of Liverpool that was once a manufacturing centre there is hardly any industry left. The list of companies which have closed down includes Meccano, Lucas Aerospace and Lyons Maid. Recently Plessey Telecommunications cut its workforce in half and later this year United Biscuits will stop production altogether. Even the local bus depot has been closed. The Labour Party used to be weak in Liverpool, but alongside the city's industrial decline support for Labour had been on the increase. Old Swan, for example, is part of the Broad Green constituency where Militant's Terry Fields is the MP. In the last council elections Labour's Peter Lloyd won by a clear majority of 1000 votes. But last week's result exposes the vulnerability of the Labour Party in Liverpool. Standing as an SDP/ Alliance candidate to avoid the stigma of past Liberal council leaderships in the city, managing director Glyn Parry won a 15 per cent swing against Labour in this solidly working class area. Like Hatton, district Labour Party vicechair Terry Harrison blamed the result on "the highly personal media campaign which will have confused some Labour voters'.

Party secretary Felcity Dowling agreed with Hatton and Harrison, and added that the bad weather might have something to do with it. But it wasn't the weather or the that caused "the confusion'.

People in Liverpool have been confused by a council policy which includes issuing 31 000 redundancy notices, a no cuts deal with the Swiss bankers that incorporates f3m cuts, and the unfulfilled promises of more jobs, better services and new houses.

The night before the by-election Felicity Dowling described housing as 'a cracking issue which would be a great adantage to Labour candidate Anne Hollinshead. Yet although the concil employed a contractor to build 81 new houses in Old Swan, the new dellings comprise less than 1.5 per cent of the ward's housing. Dowling that, "There are two major tenement blocks that we'll have to do something about, but didn't mention that 6 per cent of the ward's houses lack basıc amenıtiesin an area flyposted with advertisements for damp coursing, Labour's housing policy has been as ineffective as every other aspect of mumcipa soclalsmn. to blame People who live in Old Swan are well aware that services council are not guaranteed at all. Even the bins aren't being emptied regularly.

days before the by-election Labour Party members were leafleting the area with copies of a letter from the city's cleansing manager.

Dated 12 December the letter reads as follows: 'Refuse collection in the Old Swan area should be back to a proper weekly frequency in the very near future despite the very bad vehicle availability caused in the main by the lack of a proper vehicle replacement programme.' Since then there has been little change — the council is in no position to provide better services now than it was in 1985. Some Labour voters still voted Labour because they had benefited directly from council policies. One had managed to get one of the new council houses, another had hung on to a job in the technical college canteen which would have been privatised by the previous Liberal council. But most Labour supporters voted Labour because 'that's what we always have done'. Meanwhile hundreds more turned away from Labour disillusioned by the council's bluster and its confusing policies and bureaucratic methods. Labour's defeat at Old Swan shows that the overall effect of the council's double-talk has been to deepen cynicism about any sort of left-wing politics. Given their experience of Liverpool concil's brand of 'Marxist politics' it is not surprising that many have opted for the Alliance. The way is now open for an Alliance VICtOTY elections in May. Hatton and the rest may bluster all they like about Thatcher and Kinnock, and the Sun and the Liverpool Echo, but they Liverpool. 01-729 3771 admitted Deadline for news and reports: Monday 9am come a

HOW

CAN WIN

IN 1986 Tories. view and put your own. guaranteed oy ine • Sheffield Two • Bradford Central Library • Leeds Thursday 23 January 7.30pm The Three Legs, The Headrow • Pontefract Thursday 23 January 7.30pm • North London Friday 17 January 7pm crisis? Friday 24 January 7pm Oxford Arms (Camden Town tube) Bradford council al une won't fool the people of Andrew Calcutt Get tns everv week tor a vea!

€19 in Britain or Ireland Cheques/POs payable to Name Address Tel. Start my subscript

• OUR

WORKERS

Speakers: The miners' defeat has led many to draw the conclusion that strike action is ineffective. Scab unions like the UDM among the Notts miners, company

CASH?

unions like the electricians, and maybe Hackney Nalgo, are giving up the right to strike. The engineering union is taking government cash for ballots and the TUC is not going to stop it. If we don't take aes ur ow dns ww we won't have any unions left by next year.

We can't afford to wait for the Labour Party to come to the rescue. The Revolutionary Communist Party believes that there is an alternative to waiting for Kinnock. That is to build a new party committed to fighting for working class Glasgow interests now, instead of making Sessions concession after concession to the Come along to our public meetings in Mackney ana manchester ana our Glasgow dayschool to hear our point of

• TROOPS OUT OF IRELAND!

Why is the RCP opposing the Anglo-Irish agreement? What are the issues in the by-elections in Northern Ireland? How • Bradford can we advance the cause of peace in Ireland? Why is the anniversary of Bloody Sunday an important occasion to commemorate? Bring all your questions and views on the war in Ireland to our open metings around the country.

Wednesday 22 January 7.30pm Benefit The Foresters, Division Street Wednesday 22 January 7.30pm Quayside Red Lion Hotel, Market Square A series or discussions coninues Will Garret FitzGerald survive the Ulster postuning What is to be done in Britain?

Camden High Street/Jamestown Road

• YOU'RE NOT RECRUITING US!

The British army is on a drive to recruit British imperialism. RCP students will be out to terorise Colonel BJ Smith in Sunderland and the local barracks in Take LIn Sregularly Junius Publications Ltd. BCM JPL.TD. London WIN 3XX For full subscription rates see page 2

UNIONS: TIME TO TAKE

CONTROL

Thursday 16 January 7.30pm Pembury Tavern 80 Amhurst Road - Hackney E8 • rank and file Yorkshire miner involved in the campaign against the UDM • Hackney Nalgo member on what the no-strike deal means for council workers • activist from tns on the TUC retreat and how to go forward

• SHOULD OUR UNIONS TAKE TORY

• Manchester public meeting Thursday 16 January 7.30pm Black Lion Pub Chapel Street

• WAITING

FOR KINNOCK -

OR FIGHTING BACK NOW?

Scottish day of discussion and debate Saturday 8 February 12.00-5.30pm vel elan balenes Sauchiehall Street • One year after the miners' strike • Fighting the Tories - a new approach • Can the Labour Party be changed?

• Fighting back RCP-style in '86 Tickets £1 (50p UB40) Refreshments and childcare available • Sunderland Wednesday 29 January 11am-12.30pm Careers Block, St Mary's Place Sunderland Polytechnic Thursday 23 January 5pm Bradford Parachute Regiment Thornbury Barracks, Pudsey Lane End

• ANTI-RACIST RAVE-UP

Newcastle Workers Against Racism The Ground + support + late bar Wednesday 22 January 7.30pm 'til late The Red House, 40 Sandhill, The

• REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST

PARTY STUDENTS SOCIETY

1985 saw more riots in Britain, more repression in South Africa, more British teror in Ireland, more moral panics to put down women's rights, more attacks on the working class and more cuts in our grants. But all we got from the leader of the National Union of Students at our conference in December was more In 1985 Revolutionary Communist Party students mobilised against the racists, organised direct action against apartheid, spoke out for Irish freedom, demonstrated for women's rights, campaigned against scab unionism in the coalfields and stood up for students.

And we re back this year. Not impressed by student politics in the first term? Then join the RCPSS now. Ring Kerry Andrews on 01-729 0414 for more information. the next step 17 January D 11

SUPER-EXPLOITATION

IN SOUTH AFRICA SPOKE TO tns LAST WEEK ABOUT THEIR STRUGGLE South Africa

PLATINUM WORKERS' STRIKE

IN SUN CITY

ast Tuesday, security personnel and police with dogs and riot gear forcibly ejected 20 000 black miners, who were on strike for a wage rise, from the Impala platinum mine owned by the General Mining Union Corporation (Gencor) in the artificially created apartheid homeland' of Bophuthatswana, home of Sun City. Workers who live in the homeland have been sent home, and those from surrounding areas have been forced at gun-point into buses and repatriated.

*The wages, living and working conditions in Bophuthatswana are the worst in South British workers • can breakin DIRECT ACTUAl Revolutionary Commitan

DAVE ROURKE

South Africa supplies more than 60 per cent of the world's platinum. It is virtually the sole supplier of the Western motor industry, which has increased its demand for platinum since the enforced reduction in the use of lead as a petrol additive over the past decade. South Africa's major platinum exporters - Gencor and Anglo-American - have established their domination of a competitive world market because of the advantages of cheap and mobile labour conferred by the apartheid system.

The Gencor strike is important for workers in Britain and throughout the

ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE PLATINUM MINEWORKERS ON STRIKE

Africa. All the miners, 65 per cent of whom are from the homeland itself, live in filthy single-sex hostels.' overcrowded conditions prevail only a few miles from Sun City, the apartheid international entertainment centre.

The union leader explained how Gencor takes advantage of the special homeland legislation. Bophuthatswana refuses to allow "foreign" trade unions to operate or to be recognised.

The law stipulates that only unions which have their headquarters in the homeland can

GENCOR-THE WESTERN CONNECTION

ACTION AGAINST APARTHEID SUPPORTERS PROTESTED OUTSIDE GENCOR'S LONDON OFFICE West. This is not because it might lead to higher car prices as a result of platinum shortages, but because it exposes the hypocrisy of Western politicians. It shows that a peaceful negotiated settlement to South Africa's current political upheaval is impossible. It also shows that the campaign for Western disinvestment from South Africa is misdirected. Gencor has led the drive to take over foreign companies which have left South Africa either because of worsening economic performance or because of political pressure at home. Last year emplovers ' These regime's showcase •The puppet administration in mine. Africa. price of platinum - leads to the London WCIN 3XX or phone 01-729 0414. DeT. tear-gas the be officially recognised by the state and Because of its wider stand against the apartheid regime the South African National Union of Mineworkers refuses to comply with the homeland legislation. "This would give de facto recognition to the homeland as an independent country, says the NUM leader. The result is that Gencor has refused to negotiate with the NUM even though it has widespread support among the miners.

Their flimsy excuses about the law are just a thin disguise for the fact that they pay the Gencor brought a coal mine in the KwaZulu homeland into operation after political pressure in the USA forced General Electric to pull out of a proposed jointventure to develop the deposit. Black miners employed by Gencor's newly-established subsidiary Trans Natal Coal Corporation do not work or live in conditions any different from those at the Impala platinum In response to last year's miners' strike, Gencor embarked upon its most ambitious recruiting drive in Britain. The company used a coordinated campaign of press advertising and visits to coalfields in an attempt to attract British miners to share in the benefits arising from the superexploitation of the black workers of South Action Against Apartheid picketed Gencor's London office last week. In the coming weeks we will be taking this campaign to the Yorkshire coalfield where we will be arguing for British miners to take direct action in support of their fellow miners. We aim to ensure that working class solidarity action - not a rise in the Name reinstatement of all the sacked platinum miners in Bophuthatswana. If you want more information about our plans, or details of the special Action Against Apartheid pack, write to AAA, BM RCP, lowest wages of all mines in South Africa and force workers to live in the worst co.Alitions. It is super-exploitation in every possible sense.'

Last week's events in Bophuthatswana expose the hypocrisy of South Africa's leading capitalists. Gencor has been in the forefront of big business pressure upon president PW Botha to introduce reforms in the apartheid system. Indeed Gencor's chief industrial relations executive, Naas Steen- Kamp, servce on me government commissior that first recommended the legalisation of black trade unions back in the seventies.

Steenkamp claims that he is 'immensely grateful to have been associated so closely with the process of reform'.

Yet Gencor still refuses to recognise the NUM as the representative of its mineworkers. The NUM leader involved with the Impala dispute says that Gencor 'is the most intransigent of all the employers' when it comes to negotiations. South Africa's second Gencor, now largest mining house, displayed its progressive industrial relations policies during last year's miners' strike over wages in Septem- • Transvaal Navigation Collieries — 1500 workers forced back to work after being fired upon by police with rubber bullets and • Matla Collieries — 24 workers dismissed from 2000 after strike • Mareivale - 300 workers forced at gun point into buses and repatriated • Beatrix - tear-gas and rubber bullets used to break up a 1000-strong strike meeting, seven miners seriously injured, shaft stewards arrested and dismissed with 87 other workers, remaining workers forced to go underground by dogs and sjamboks • Blinkpan — 1500 workers starved back to work after food was cut off from hostels strike broken by rubber • Stifontein bullets, six casualties and 55 sackings The employers' brutal tactics in the current strike at Impala mine and in last year's miners' strike show the emphasis of South African capitalists reform programme. They also expose the cynicism of British and American politicians who hold up the progressive initiatives of South African firms like Gencor or Anglo- American as evidence of moves towards reform in South Africa The struggles of the black mineworkers of South Africa confirm that the apartheid only regime can survive through superexploitation and super-oppression. They also reveal that black workers' struggles for decent pay and conditions and for political rights are increasingly taking the form of a challenge to the whole system of South African capitalism.

Charles Longford

RCP

smash 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 area.

Phone Fenna on 01-729 0414 or fill in the form below. Address Telephone Send to BM RCP. London WIN 3XX