The Next Step: No. 2, 16 January 1987

de PARIS - MONTPARNASSE

FRENCH RAILWORKERS

HAVE SHOWN THE WAY

Report and photos from Paris: pages 2,3 tms the nextstep Revolutionary Communist Party • 16 January 1987 • 30p Marching under rank and file banners

CHEMINOTS

EN GREVE

Break with Labour pages 6 and 7 Tories planned racist backlash page 4 British railworkers fight for jobs page 5 Chad: Reagan guns for Gadaffi page 8 2

with a conscience votes obody Conservative anywav. Norman Tebbit is reported to have told the cabinet. The Tory Party chairman denies it but, as an anonymous cabinet colleague remarked, 'the story doesn't strike me as implausible in the least. Tebbit's comments confirm that Thatcher's Britain is a bitter and nasty place, run by bigots whose arrogant contempt for those they rule over It is a place where Tory policies have turned Jack Frost into a mass murderer.

Last winter 50 000 elderly people died because they could not afford to keep warm on their pitiful pensions. The latest attack of freezing weather has made parts of the country colder than ever before. In response the Tories have changed the social security rules, to make it harder than ever for pensioners to get special cold weather allowances. Thatcher's Britain is a place where young lives, too, are expendable if they interfere with the requirements of the system. On his nineteenth birthday last Saturday, Mike Delaney was knocked down and killed by a hit-and-run driver in East London.

police were on hand, but they let the vehicle drive on. It was a TNT juggernaut speeding away from striking print workers outside Fortress Wapping, loaded with copies of Murdoch's Sun and Times. Like the pony express, the scab press must get through.

Thatcher's Britain is a place deception is official government policy.

From the City of London to the Manpower Services Commission, the brightest sparks which the establishment can produce (dim though they be), are devoting all their fiddling -the figures. confidential document just issued by the MSC instructs job centres to forget about helping people find real work, concentrate on conning the unemployed millions into joining slave-labour schemes or attending phoney courses on how to write a letter.

LABOUR'S FAILINGS

Most sinister of all, Thatcher's Britain is a place where police batons and prison bars have become the authorities answer to all opposition. Jailed miner Terry French has just started his third year in prison for fighting for his job. When Scottish prisoners protested against brutality last week, the Tebbit-loving Sun had a blunt solution: 'End the riot now by sending in the SAS with guns blazing — and if prisoners die, then so be it.?

'Send in the SAS' is just about the only 'solution' the Tories have left to keep their system under control. It is no wonder that Edward Windsor doesn't feel up to the big job which the armed agents of the ruling class have on their hands in the years ahead.

Yet despite all the hatred which Thatcher has stirred up over her eight years in office, the latest opinion polls reveal that most people living in key marginal constituencies would still Conservative tomorrow. vote This has little to do with their lack of consciences, and a lot to do with the failings of the official opposition. Kinnock's Labour Party cannot take advantage of people's anger against the Tories because most of its policies look like ragged Tory cast-offs. On every important issue, Kinnock has bowed to from the establishment pressure followed Thatcher's trail towards the right flank of British politics (see pages 6 and 7).

2 • the next step • 16 January 1987 the next step Revolutionary Communist Party weekly • 16 January 1987 • No 2 Cold comfort from Kinnock Labour's failure to break through the 35- 38 per cent barrier in the polls is starting to cause panic supporters. 'How unfair life can be' writes top Kinnockite analyst Peter Kellner in the New Statesman. moves, from expelling Militant to accepting secret ballots in trade unions, which Kinnock has made at the behest of the media, and whines that people still won't believe that Labour would make a 'credible government'.

Kellner is careful to dismiss as 'absurd' any notion that Kinnock's ideas are too rightwing. The only other conclusion that can be drawn is that Labour's programme is still not moderate or 'respectable' enough. The party's march to the right seems set to accelerate as the draws nearer. Every speech and statement the Labour leadership makes confirms willingness to take his lead from the Tories.

He even explains his minor differences with the government in terms which any Tory could understand. Last weekend, Kinnock sought to justify Labour's proposals for small tax increases on the grounds that the The money was needed for the defence of our country, for the security of our people, for a decent anti-crime and disorder regime Falklands From Fortress Wapping, Kinnock has volunteered to take Thatcher's place the British capitalism. where

WARMING UP

While the working class suffers under the Tories, and Kinnock struggles to catch up with Thatcher, the Labour left's silence in every political debate is deafening. The only alternative the left can see to five more years of misery under Thatcher is the election of a Labour government, whatever its policies.

Thus left wingers have opted to keep their and heads down or, in the words of one of their journals, 'bite our tongues'. No indignity is too great for the left to suffer in the cause of a Labour victory. It even accuses those who refuse to campaign for capitalist programme of 'aiding the Tories'.

The Revolutionary aim is not to aid the Tories, but to destroy every evil that their system visits upon its victims. That cannot be done by supporting a party which is committed to taking up wherever Thatcher leaves off. The left can point out that Labour's paper policies on employment or defence differ from the Tories'. But such differences don't matter, given that both parties share a commitment to saving British capitalism at our expense.

There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but the method used is of no interest to the cat. Kinnock's scalpel would cut just as deeply into the working class as Thatcher's.

Those looking to Thatcher's rule can take cold comfort from the official opposition in the run-up to the general election. We are going to have to take it upon ourselves to warm up the political climate in the months ahead. The RCP has launched a platform for working class unity, as a focus for bringing together all who want to turn the heat on Thatcher, and are not prepared to Kinnock's threadbare coat protection worth having. The basic demands of the platform are outlined on the centre and pages of this week's tns. We ask any group or individual who supports them to back our campaign, and come in from the cold.

Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP. London WIN 3XX ® copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16.

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All cheques pavable to Junius Publications Ltd Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WCIN 3XX. ISSN 0144 350 X 16 January 1987. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

DES

Kinnock's loyal He lists all the

MARCH THROUGH PARIS

general election Kinnock's Fortress to ramparts of coordinated disinformation six out of underground. Kinnock's prodivide the strikers. Communist Party's stop playing the tough guy.

with sweet-talk defend living standards. end the winter of and tried to buy it off instead.

many accept that provides any the French establishment.

of the restraining union bureaucracy. has tended

FRENCH RAILWORKERS

COORDINAILON

AGENTS

ARMS LINKED AGAINST THE BOSSES: RANK AND FILE RAILWORKERS

A GLIMPSE OF

OUR POWER

However it ends, the French railworkers' strike should be a source of inspiration to all those fighting to defend wages and working conditions s we go to press, the outcome of the • French railworkers strike and the solidarity action by public sector workers remains Last unceral. week the government and media launched a campaign, claiming that the rail strike was collapsing.

meetings Their claims were answered by fresh strikes in the electricity, metro and gas services.

The which caused long power cuts and stopped trains Paris on the Meanwhile, French the employers federation got more urgent in its struggle. pleas for the government to do something to get supplies moving to industry.

than The French authorities were forced to admit that they could not lie their way out of trouble. Instead, they came up with new pay deals for the electricity and gas workers, and a number of minor concessions on working conditions for train drivers, in an effort to Whatever impact this manoeuvre makes, the strikers' resolution has clearly forced prime minister Chirac to Chirac started last week saying there would be 'no negotiations, and ended it He declared that there should be 'no winners and no losers' in the dispute. The right-wing parties and press may claim that public opinion has turned against the strikers. But the workers' success in putting real pressure on the government should serve to increase the confidence of the entire working class in its ability to Chirac was hit on two fronts, by the railworkers' determination and the threat of a pay strike throughout the public sector. He was forced to forget all his authority early bluster about breaking the movement,

GRASSROOTS CONTROL

because it The rail strike has come at a time when workers have lost confidence in industrial action after a series of setbacks. It shows that a determined and well-organised strike movement gets results. The struggle's initial success has sent shock waves through The reason for this is simple: the strike has been organised by rank and file workers, free influence of the Much left-wing commentary on the strike more towards eulogy than analysis, and has missed the main point.

Some writers, impressed by the dynamism of the movement, have jumped to the delighted conclusion that we are witnessing the rebirth

NAT PROLE

- DE CONDUITE

of industrial militancy in Europe. Others, who apparently have never heard of a strike committee before, have dug out their copies of Trotsky's Transitional Programme, and discovered some quasi-revolutionary significance in the committees and mass France's rail depots. This emergence of a national strike movement outside the control of official union machines is an important departure from the established pattern of industrial But it has more to do with the parlous state of the French trade unions with the supposedly revolutionary The French workers. CONGO SEe decided to organise ral workers ont industrial action themselves because the rail unions refused to do so.

POLITICAL STRUGGLE

The workers launched the movement on their own and were forced to set up the machinery needed to run an effective strike.

Their use of mass meetings and elected strike committees was a practical necessity, not a political principle. The conservatism of the union leaders, who refused to respond to rank and file calls for action, forced the railworkers to take control of their own struggle. Rail militants had to go out and win the arguments in favour of strike action with other workers. Before the start of the strike they launched a campaign, travelling from depot to depot to mobilise support.

They continued this campaign to keep up the unity and momentum of the action.

While union officials rely on the power and of the union machine for their influence, the rail activists have had to rely on their ability to convince others politically.

The rail strike has had bite and dynamism was the product of political struggle within the working class. It has been built and run by the workers themselves, giving them a real stake in its progress. The democratic organisation of the campaign created scope for drawing more strikers into an active role in the struggle. This served to strengthen the movement, involving thousands in new political experiences. The strike has become, as all strikes should, a "school in the class struggle' The railworkers have shown what can be achieved when we take control of our own struggles. Workers in Britain should keep a close eye on events across the Channel. Win, lose or draw, the French strikers have given us a glimpse of the way in which working class power can explode into national politics

BY THE RANK & FILE

In Paris Sabena Norton spoke to Dominic Larchot, a rail-guard from the depot at Invalides and a leader of the Coordination National Intercategorial des Cheminots,

CHEMINOTS

de PARIS - MONTPARNASSE

EN GREVE

tns: How did the strike start?

DL: The movement started from below.

Small groups of workers started meeting, including members from different unions and non-union workers. The situation has got worse over the past five years and we decided it was time to do something. We'd had 14 24-hour strikes organised by the unions during the past year and achieved nothing. We decided this was getting us nowhere. We started circulating petitions about wages and conditions and about the 'grille', the new pay system they want to introduce, which would abolish automatic increments and promotion and force us to submit to individual performance assessment by management. The small which began groups organise, mainly on the Paris-North and South-West networks, decided that the only solution a strike which would be was controlled by the rank and file and carry on until all our demands are met. On 4 and 5 December there were two strikes on the South-West network, but they didn't get enough support. Then on 18 December the Paris-North drivers came out and after four days the strike was solid.

tns: How has the strike been organised? DL: We are not on unlimited strike. Every day the mass assemblies discuss whether to continue the action. Our concern has been to make sure the strike remains under the control of the rank and file. All decisions are taken at the mass meetings. Then we have They strike committees. are elected and recallable at any time. Their job is to direct the strike, to draw up agendas for the mass meeting, draft leaflets, bulletins and so on.

tus: What are your demands?

DL: We demand a wage rise of F700 per month across the board to make up for what we lost during the 18-month pay freeze. Then there are the working conditions which catastrophic. are for are Our demanes improvements in health and safety, more drivers, a maximum six hours night-work for rolling staff at eight hours pay, more breaks and better accommodation for drivers and so on. Then there is the 'grille' which was withdrawn by management in response to the strike. We want to have it in writing that our existing pay and promotion structure will stay. We have also discussed, though there is no decision yet, that we want to have observers present when the negotiations eventually • Tuesday, 6 January Crowds of railworkers assemble at the Montparnasse station for the demonstration organised by the Communist Party-backed union, the CGT, to coincide with the first day of solidarity action by public sector workers. A woman thrusts her pay-slip under my nose. "That's what I get, F4000 a month, and pay F2000 rent. My husband works for the electricity board, he gets F6000. That makes E8000 for us and our two sons — one's unemployed and the other's doing military service. That's it — let's show them what we think of it!' It's about €150 a week for a family of four — except that you can knock off another £50 for the effects of was hardly surprising this inflation. railworker's husband was probably just pulling the plug at the electricity board.

A little way on were a bunch of drivers.

'So you're from England,' said one. "Tell us, why did the miners get defeated? We want to win. We've been out for 21 days, which is bloody long enough. We won't go back now without getting what we want - so where did they go wrong! We discussed how many of the miners' problems were due to the strike being run by their union officials.

*Well, we usually leave it to them, too,' said 'But we can't do it now, anotner criver. because they won't move their arses.'

Another possibility would be to take place. have them televised, like they did in Poland in the struggle for Solidarity. We want to make sure that the workers who have waged this struggle can see what is happening and respond accordingly. tns: What have the unions done since the strike began? DL: Today most of the unions, about 80-90 per cent, say they support the strike. But this STANDING FIRM IN PARIS: RESOLUTE ACTION BY RANK AND FILE RAILWORKERS

STOPPED CHIRAC

Notes from the front line "The students, you see, that made an impact,' said a solitary-looking bloke, who turned out to be one of the few postal workers taking solidarity action. 'Everybody thought, well the government can be budged after all. I mean, nobody believed that the students, of all people, would make Chirac back down. But the little buggers did.

Almost put us to shame really. That made a real impression. Then Chirac goes on telly and says that when there's tens of thousands of students on the street, you've got to make concessions - otherwise who knows what would happen. Well, you know, people didn't need telling twice. So here we are.

At the rail depot at Ivry on the southern edge of Paris, we headed straight through

FRENCH RAILWORKERS

A STRIKE RUN

one of the two national committees formed to coordinate the strike of course is only because of the pressure and they are manoeuvring all the time to try to regain control and get us back to work. This is one reason why the Coordination is so important. We have to be able to find out about what is going on and discuss it in the For example in late December management made some offer, some minor concessions - nothing of substance - and already some of the unions called for us to go back to work. Some depots, where they had the first door and asked the first bloke in sight Is this the Coordination, please?

'No!!!' came the answer. Ah, wrong door.

This was the CT depot office, a pretty spacious affair. When it was built they could not have foreseen that, in the biggest rail strike in French history, 12 solitary CGT shop stewards would sit there twiddling their thumbs and refusing take part. Meanwhile, next door, about 40 strikers squeeze in and about 50 squeeze out of a hall the size of your living room, as one rank and file committee meeting ends and the next begins. Among them are CT members who are part of the action. Now we could start to grasp the complexities of the French trade union movement. What about British railworkers? Turn to page 5 some influence, actually did. Through the Coordination we caught wind of this and were able to pass on the information and have the whole matter discussed in the mass assemblies The goes for the government's disinformation campaign.

Every day they have come out with figures, '40 per cent of trains running' and so on.

Through the Coordination we could centralise the daily votes in the mass meetings and go back and tell people that 95 per cent were out on strike.

• Wednesday, 7 January Outside the Gare du Nord, railworkers were assembling for the first joint march organised by the two national committees.

'Being on the streets is important,' said one of the crowd from Creil just north of Paris.

*We have to argue a lot about this, because many believe the most important thing is always to stay at the depot, keeping up the pickets.' It reminded me of the arguments we had during the miners' strike, about whether "picketing your own pit' or going out to win solidarity action was more important. Of course picketing is important,' he went on, 'but we also have to go out and be seen, to show our strength. That's why we're here.

but we still have to convince a lot of others.'

Apart from a few right at the back, we could see no official union banners as the march moved off. They were all plain. painted with the names of the various depots where people had come from. As we turned into the street the chanting started: 'Open your eyes and close the telly!"

'We want, we will get total satisfaction!'

'Winning the strike, that's not possible?

Of course it's possible! the next step • 16 January 1987 • 3

The press didn't miss a sentence from the shock Suez revelations in the 1956 cabinet minutes. But they didn't print a paragraph about top secret the race checks look at the problems and the potential for taking action hree times in 1956 members of the / cabinet committee immigrants sat down to discuss what to do about the "coloured invasion'.

They concluded that *steps (immigration) controls would not justified at present. because labour was still vital for the economy, and the government had yet to create a public consensus in favour of controls.

POWELL PREPARED RACIST POGROM

The shortage of cheap labour in Britain the war dictated an after immigration policy. The government dispatched the likes of Enoch Powell to the West Indies to run recruitment campaigns. They shipped in black immigrants to fill second-rate jobs which white workers would not take.

cabinet committee noted that unrestricted he Tories have targeted dole offices in T Leeds, Nottingham and Handsworth to test out the ethnic monitoring" scheme for two weeks before going national. The department of employment claims that the information collected on black people will be confidential and not linked to individuals. The start of the race checks coincided with the release of the 1985 Labour Force Survey which shows that blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed as whites, and the jobless rate for those of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin is three times that of whites. The government has used these statistics to back its claims that *ethnic monitoring" necessary to alleviate racial discrimination in employment. In fact race checks aim to reinforce the second class status of blacks.

The scheme has two aims — to use dole workers as part-time immigration police and to extend internal controls on black people.

By recording the ethnic origin of every claimant the race checks will provide the information to discriminate systematically 4 • the next step • 16 January 1987

HOW TORIES PLANNED

RACIST BACKLASH

talks on immigration. Joan Phillips reports colonial impose be immigrant immigration made economic sense: 'From the economic point of view the nation had benefited up to the present from the arrival of coloured workers; for example coloured nurses had done much to relieve the shortage open door in that profession." In 1956 politicians saw that cutting immigration would run against the needs of the capitalist economy. But they understood that it was only a matter of time before they would be compelled to act: 'Clearly we could The not absorb all the coloured immigrants who wished to come here; and eventually this Strike back against the race checks The Tories are making another bid to introduce 'ethnic monitoring' into dole offices. Workers Against Racism supporters campaigning against against the Tory schemes against black people. For five years the Tories have tried and failed to get race checks into the doles.

Recently they tried to get the checks into job centres as a backdoor route to the dole offices. Resistance by rank and file workers in the CPSA and by stopped this. Racism shaping up now? The official department of employment section is to oppose all forms of ethnic monitoring'. But the union leaders have always opposed such a policy and cannot be trusted to fight the checks. is December union officials argued that the checks were impracticable', that they would overburden staff and expose them to attacks by claimants - in fact anything but the argument that the checks are racist.

Last week WAR supporters campaigning for a 'yes' vote in ballots for strike action against the checks in Nottingham, Leeds and Birmingham ran into problems with CPSA officials. Before the vote WAR supporters leafleted and lobbied workers, putting the

IMMIGRATION

1956 CABINET MINUTES

GOING HOME: BLACKS LEAVE BRITAIN AFTER NOTTING HILL BACKLASH

long run." The needed imported labour. Public opinion mittee's second consideration.

'ETHNIC MONITORING' ON THE DOLE

Handsworth and indecisive issue and losing the vote.

Workers Against How are things policy of the CPSA going into work. The real problem management arguments with all their members.

In checks Nottingham workers immigration would give rise to problems which would be disproportionate to the difficulties and objections to be faced in enacting legislation to control it.

There seemed little doubt that some form of control would become necessary in the committee wanted to work out a comprehensive system of controls to be implemented when the economy no longer the was the cabinet com- Ministers from the debate. 'us' arguments for action against the scheme.

When the votes were lost in Nottingham and in Leeds, officials blamed WAR for politicising the One Nottingham official blamed lack of support from the section executive and 'WAR leafleting' for the bad ballot result.

He argued that we should have played down the politics so as not to upset more moderate members. An official in Leeds said that we put people off and 'harassed' his members was the reluctance of CPSA officials to have out the anti-racist Campaign lo our case. Nottingham workers unfortunately found out about the ballot from

WAR

rather than from their union reps who hoped to win the vote by playing up the arguments about extra work and attacks by claimants, and playing down the arguments about the being racist. One worker from said the union's approach could never work: "To me the whole point of available objecting to ethnic monitoring is that it is (01) 729 0414. noted that there had been little public concern here over the question of coloured recently." Tory leaders were reluctant to start a big immigration debate while employers still needed foreign labour.

Nevertheless, they recognised that any future legislation would have to be racist and that it was their job to win public backing for controls: "Although absence of any public demand for legislation was not in itself a sound argument for refraining from action if the government felt that action was called for, it was nevertheless true that in a controversial matter of this kind the government would need to be able to count on a satisfactory volume of public support for any step which they decided to take.

This is straight from the horse's mouth. It was the politicians who set out to persuade public opinion that immigration was an issue, not popular prejudice which pushed the government to act — as most accounts would have it Racist rantings from Tory backwoodsmen were par for the course. But the Labour Party and the TUC too played a part in popularising anti-immigrant prejudice. The cabinet committee noted that the motion condemning racial discrimination passed at the 1955 TUC congress was 'not entirely consistent with the views on this subject which the TUC had expressed on other occasions'. But the committee was confident that it could count on the TUC to toe the anti-immigration line once 'more serious unemployment developed, Their confidence While trade union leaders was justified. presented immigration as a threat to British workers' jobs, Labour politicians blamed blacks for the housing shortage.

By presenting immigration as a problem the labour leaders made sure that racism became a major force in British society.

The cabinet debates of 1956 prepared the way for the system of racial discrimination that emerged with the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act. The 1957 slump provided the economic impetus for closing the door on Commonwealth immigration The 1958 Notting Hill race riots provided the excuse for the establishment to turn immigration into a political controversy.

The 1956 cabinet discussions reveal how British establishment consciously planned to turn immigrants into public enemy number one when the time was right.

racist and as far as I'm concerned that was totally ignored. If racism was brought up as an issue it might have changed people's views. In Leeds too officials backed off putting racism at the centre of

TELL IT STRAIGHT

Avoiding the anti-racist arguments is a kick in the teeth for black claimants who stand to lose their rights, and an insult to rank and file workers who have fought off the checks for five years. Rather than unite workers and claimants around a clear antiracist platform, officials have appealed to workers' sectional concerns about overwork and assaults to win support. This creates an staff) against (counter 'them' (claimants) outlook and undermines the potential that exists for building a united campaign to wreck the checks. The issue is whether dole workers are prepared to play the role of immigration spies or whether they will fight to defend the rights of black people. We are convinced that if we put the argument straight we can win this battle.

There is still scope to scotch the scheme in all three target areas. In Leeds dole workers and WAR supporters have organised pickets to turn an indecisive vote into a majority for action. In Handsworth management have threatened disciplinary action against staff who refuse to implement the checks.

We need to build support for the workers' stand.

In Nottingham we have to carry on the convince workers of The battle against the race checks will not be pursued by the union leadership, nor won by their narrow and mistaken arguments.

We must make sure that control of the arguments and the action is put in the hands of rank and file workers who have every interest in wrecking the checks. Leaflets, briefing documents, speakers and help are WAR. Contact from us Richard Wilde

Don't trust Knapp's talks underground at the first sign that management was willing to talk. But we can W hen 7500 members of the National Union of Railwaymen voted for strike action London Underground, they wanted to block management's schemes for slimming down the workforce. But union officials had other ideas.

NUR general secretary Jimmy Knapp only wanted a 'yes' vote in the strike ballot to persuade management to talk to him. He called a one-day strike at eight days notice, giving the employers plenty of time to invite him round for a chat. The tube bosses asked the NUR leaders over on Monday, and management reaffirmed their commitment to abide by negotiating procedures. In other words, the employers weren't ditching their cuts, but were willing to talk to the union leaders about who should be redundant and how. That was enough for Knapp and Co, who 'suspended' the strike, leaving many of their members confused and dispirited. The NUR executive was delighted with the talks. 'It is an amazing achievement,' said the union statement calling off the action, to move from a position where the union was brushed aside to a situation where a firm commitment has been made to adhere to the spirit the machinery. Underground OI workers have a lot less to cheer about. The "spirit of the machinery' which the executive holds so dear has been responsible for the loss of half a million jobs on the rails over 40 icketing out the dole offices meant braving the coldest London weather on record. But members of the Civil and Public Services Association were determined to tell benefit claimants about their opposition to the 'availability' trap.

'We don't want to act as benefit police for the department of employment' said CPSA steward Ray Cartwright. If you listened to the debate about the latest government report on unemployment, you could have been convinced that there is no unemployment south of Watford. The traditional industrial areas in the north have certainly been hardest hit. But southern factories and firms have also cut back. Alongside the consequences of costcutting Tory policies, this has given people further south problems of their own. Area's like Greenwich in inner London have been devastated, as the dole office pickets who victims across Ene could testify. *This area has been seriously affected.

Molins tobacco plant closed last year. There have been lay-offs at Peak Freans biscuit factory and redundancies at SR direct-mail.

Even the Dreadnought seamen's hospital has closed - there's nothing left.

In some parts of Greenwich, unemploy-

IN THE UNIONS

BRITISH RAILWORKERS

Rail union leaders called off Wednesday's one-day strike on the London still build for effective action against job cuts made years of management/union negotiations.

The fact that Knapp has got his feet back under the negotiating table may have made his day, but it promises little protection for the NUR rank and file. Many NUR militants angered by their leaders' strike-call charade.

But they should not grieve too much over the loss of the 24-hour strike. It was never going to disrupt as many trains as the bad weather.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE 'SOFT SOUTH

Pickets close doles Greenwich dole office was closed on Monday. It was one of 25 London offices hit by strike action against 'availability for work' tests - the government's scheme to massage unemployment figures by denying 'lazy' claimants their benefit. In the forthcoming by-election in Greenwich, the plight of the unemployed will be an important issue for Revolutionary Communist Party candidate Kate Marshall. ment has risen nearly 100 percent in less than five years. The official jobless total in Greenwich is close to 15 per cent - 3.5 per cent higher than the national average. Far from getting off lightly, Greenwich is one of many WHere bearing the brunt of the employers' job cuts.

Labour leaders were quick to latch on to news of the North vs South divide, because it allows them to draw attention away from the important division in society — working class and the capitalists.

potentially explosive conflict which Labour leaders would rather not some especially when they are trying to court middle class voters in the run-up to a crucial by-election. By

RCP

Marshall is determined to highlight the issues which affect working class people.

Outside Greenwich dole on Monday, said: "The availability tests are an attack on counter Unemployed all especially vulnerable. action against the availability campaign unemployed person is a living wage, not co they're allowed trick questions. RAIL MILITANTS MUST OVERCOME THEIR ISOLATION AND UNITE ACROSS UNION LINES support. will be rightly and get action, solidarity trom appeal would attract support.

further action'.

BREAK OUT

stand

NUR

members was the all job-cutting schemes. traditional union direct communication people are was planning. channels Hallow • between the organisation. InIs Is d talk about, union officials Cockfosters candidate Kate she women are We're fully behind trap the impact Knapp had made sure of that by refusing to approach the train drivers' union, Aslef, for A one-day strike couldn't be anything more than a gesture of protest. If NUR members are to put real pressure on their employers and put an end to the plans for restructuring and redundancies, they need to forget Knapp's phoney approach to together to organise a campaign that will make management do a lot more than reschedule a few trains.

Such a campaign must involve winning union members in disgrace. working in the London transport network.

Despite the traditional sectionalism of rail union structures, there are signs that such an Despite the officials best efforts to ignore them, some Aslef militants were keen to take solidarity action with NUR members. We will refuse to drive trains down any parallel lines' promised Aslef steward Steve Forey.

•After consultation with the guards, drivers at British Rail King's Cross may take These BR drivers recognised that taking a alongside London Underground's best form of protection against their own employers" plans to introduce redundancies and job flexibility. Their solidarity action is proof of the potential for rank and file opposition to Yet this potential is held in check by procedures. Last week, Aslef activists at London King's Cross were preparing to defend 65 drivers' assistants' jobs. Meanwhile, Southern Region drivers were making similar plans. But because between different sections is not part of Aslef procedure, neither group knew exactly what the other the scraps We won't stand a chance against management's across-the-board offensive, unless activists break out of the of traditional union The old structures cannot protect rank and file workers. Their purpose is to protect and their stake in management's negotiating procedures.

Some railworkers have already learnt this lesson. London Underground workers at depot have disregarded traditional union procedures and voted for a depot-wide meeting, open to members of all London Underground unions, to decide how to organise their own defence.

If other activists follow this approach, railworkers in Britain could begin to match made by their French parts, whose strength has depended on their rank and file organisation and their usall to abide by the officials' rulebook.

: must learn from their initiative.

Andrew Calcutt

THE

PROPAGANDA

WAR

INSIDE THE CITY

Last week Labour's deputy leader Roy Hattersley declared war on erime in the City of London. After months of peddling Labour's economic policies at exclusive City banquets in the hope that British financiers might set aside a few billion to pay for Labour's plans.

Hattersley's renewed hatred for the City amounts to sour grapes at being told where to get off by City cynies In a fit of pique Hattersley reverted to Labour's traditional critique of the financial markets, saying that the City's interests were largely independent of those of the rest of the economy', of which it was the least reputable sector'. Labour's anti-City campaign has been spurred on by a series of scandals in London's square mile. The biggest concerns brewing giant Guinness, and its takeover of drinks firm Distillers last May, now being investigated by the department of trade. City sources have accused Guinness of illegally buying its own shares to try to bid up their price and improve the terms of the takeover offer. The company has been linked with Ivan Boesky, the disgraced US financier recently fined $100m for illicit insider dealing. Guinness boss Ernest Saunders and his Morgan Grenfell bank adviser, Roger Seelig, have resigned A few years ago Guinness would have been commended for skilful financial management. Now it is the latest in a string of City scandals resulting from the boom in big takeover battles and the liberalisation of share trading rules. The recent burst of activity by Whitehall's watchdogs is not about cleaning up the City. It reflects the dog-eat-dog environment of competition and recrimination brought about by the decay at the centre of the British capitalist system.

Since the Guinness scandal broke the Labour Party has effected the guise of honest broker in the City. At its policy planning conference in Bishop Stortford last week Hattersley blamed City financiers for refusing to bail out a bankrupt British economy. Labour's message is. — industrial capital is good and money capital is bad.

Labour blames City slickers and financial speculators for exploiting decent working folk, and extols the virtues of brass and muck British manufacturers who are working hard to make Britain great again.

But the real exploiters are the bosses whom Labour wants to put on a pedestal. They make their 'honest" profits by grinding their workers into the ground and throwing "surplus labour on to the scrap heap. The City vultures just hover around to pick up The anti-City campaign unites both rightwing Labourites and left-wing radicals in support of British capitalist industry and against British capitalist finance, A recent editorial in the Morning Star sounded its opposition to a takeover bid for St Helensbased Pilkingtons glass manufacturers: *Pilkingtons is a British company committed to manufacturing. BTR is a financial conglomerate committed to city manoeuvring...and destroying jobs.

Pilkingtons the British manufacturer has ditched two thirds of its workforce in the past decade. Yet the British left prefers ruthless exploitation by British bosses to shady speculation by City hustlers.

Ordinary people are right to be suspicious of squalid dealings in the City.

But they should be just as wary of the idea that our jobs and living standards depend on backing British industrialists. It's time we purged our own movement of insider dealers those dealing inside the capitalist system. the next step • 16 January 1987 • 5

he Labour leadership emerged from its T two-day meeting in Bishop, Stortford last week to announce that the party was on full alert for the general election. But how does Labour's election platform measure up to the requirements of the majority of people in Britain in, 1987?

ECONOMY AND

UNEMPLOYMENT

The centrepiece of Labour's election campaign is its promise to create one million jobs in its first two years in office. But at a time when the real total of those out of work is running close to five million, this amounts to a pledge to maintain unemployment for the indefinite future. For 40 years after the Second World War the Labour Party was committed to This goal was only formally employment. year's party conference abandOned SE Since the last election Labour has more and more come to terms with the requirements of British capitalism in crisis - and that means accepting unemployment as a fact of life. This is why Labour leaders have been unable to use the Tories appalling record on jobs to their own electoral advantage When Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley say that jobs are the key issue for Labour, this is just their way of saying that Labour is fully committed to the revival of British capitalism.

Yet they are well aware that trying to make British industry profitable will not create jobs.

As Kinnock told Channel 4 last week, 'we do not envisage that there would be a big increase in jobs in manufacturing industry over the first two years of a Labour government."

The 'party of production' is also the party of mass unemployment. At a time of capitalist recession, profitable production requires the existence of a reserve army of labour to keep up the pressure on people in jobs to accept worse conditions and lower wages. Kinnock and Hattersley accept the laws of capitalism - a future Labour government could be expected to impose them ruthlessly on the working class.

It is significant that the most specific promise on jobs to emerge from Bishop Stortford was that Labour would create 300 000 jobs on training schemes. More slave-labour and bogus training from the party that last time around doubled unemployment and pioneered makework schemes to keep young people off the streets! For all his jibes against the City, Hattersley's refusal to recommend any significant increase in taxation reveals the timidity of the Labour leadership before the British establishment. The working class, not the City, will have to pay the Labour government's DriCt u future determination to revive the of fortunes British capitalism.

TRADE UNION RIGHTS

The only mention of the unions to emerge from Stortford was the hint that the Bishop minimum wage policy agreed by the Labour Party and the TUC would have to take an even lower priority than expected on the agenda of an incoming Kinnock government. This is because the party leaders have calculated that even if the threshold was set at the proposed starvation level of £80 a week, it would still cost the government more than Labour considers it could afford for a luxury like alleviating the poverty of the lowest paid workers.

The original purpose of the minımum wage pact was not to improve the plight of the low paid, but to prove that the unions would be prepared to allow a future Labour government to regulate wages. One of the key factors which commends Labour to the British establishment is its capacity to persuade union leaders to sacrifice their members' living standards to the cause of national capitalist revival. Never before have the Labour leaders been so candid about their commitment to capitalist austerity before getting into government.

When Kinnock gets into power there will not even be crumbs for the working class - every penny will be devoted to the cause of boosting capitalist profits. shadow cabinet team devoted considerable time at Bishop Stortford to considering measures which a future Labour government could introduce at low cost, or no cost'. These include support for voluntary groups and measures to encourage nature conservation. Kinnock's pre-election message to the labour movement is clear: if it costs money - forget it! 6 • the next step • 16 January 1987 Labour's policy on union legislation is to repeal most of the Tory anti-union laws. But it also proposes to replace them with an even more legalistic framework to regulate trade union affairs. Labour plans to replace the rights of workers to organise collectively to defend their wages and working conditions with the right of the isolated individual worker to plead for mercy before a judicial representative of the capitalist class. Thousands of miners and hundreds of print workers can testify to the quality of justice that can be expected by militant trade unionists before the bosses' courts.

REACTION AND REPRESSION

Thatcher's Britain is a mean and vicious place.

The Tories' public order legislation gives the police a free hand to curb any expression of dissent. The government is moving ahead with plans to remove legal protections from partand Enoch Powell is women workers threatening to revive his attack on abortion rights. Cherry Groce, a middle-aged black from Brixton, woman appears court paralysed for life with a policeman's bullet in her back following a raid on her home.

The Aids panic rages on as a threat to the rights of lesbians and gays and as part of a wider drive to turn the family into a source of discipline and control in a disintegrating society.

Where does the Labour Party stand in response to these attacks on civil liberties, and democratic rights? It stands on the side of the forces of law and order and the preachers of prejudice.

Last year Labour's law and order spokesman Gerald Kaufman went to the Police Federation conference to display Labour's support for the forces of state repression. Leading Labour politicians reject gutter press allegations that party is 'anti-police' the and condemn resistance against police terror by pickets or demonstrators. Labour's political broadcasts depict the police as friendly bobbies protecting children and the elderly, and call for more officers on the beat. In his attempt to cultivate a respectable image, Kinnock has proclaimed that when it comes to questions of the family, he is a reactionary'. These reactionary prejudices may appeal to middle class voters, but they also help to condemn working class women to the drudgery of work in the home and the menial jobs that can be picked up on the fringes of the labour market. Labour promises to set up a Ministry of Women if it comes to power. Yet the party has avoided any specific policy commitments on women's rights. It has not allocated additional resources to ensure that the few measures it has promised, such as nurseries for three and fouryear olds and improved cervical screening, are in fact carried out. We can be sure that even these modest demands will be placed well down in Labour's list of priorities. On crucial issues of facilities women's rights work, for contraception and abortion, Kinnock has no policies at all. When it comes to racism, Labour leaders will of Tory excesses

MY TURN!

MY TURN!

WHY WE

ALTERNAT

After eight years of misery, bigotry and repre strife and scandal for them, the Tories are sti opinion polls. If the Labour Party can't or won fight the Tories, argues Mike Freeman, then i must make way for those who can and will treatment of immigrants, and left wingers will venture complaints about police sometimes brutality. But when the forces ot the establishment put the pressure on they can rely on the Labour Party to give way to the pressures of British racism When right-wing politicians or the pres. accuse Labour of being soft on immigration or of favouring an open door policy, Labour leaders insist on their commitment to firm immigration controls. When black youth fight back against police repression, Labour politicians can be relied upon to join in the racist backlash. The existence of anti-racist activists and pressure groups inside the Labour Party merely gives credibility to a party that has consistently upheld racist policies, both in government and in opposition. year's Labour Party conference approved a resolution championing the rights of lesbians and gay men. The fact that the party managers carefully staged the brief debate to coincide with Play School to avoid television exposure shows that Labour's commitment on this issue is likely to remain in the closet.

Labour's endorsement of the "safe sex' campaign entirely contradicts its conference pledge to defend lesbian and gay rights.

Combating the Aids panic is the front line in the struggle for the equal treatment of homosexuals and for the unity of the working class against Cartoon by Na

ELECT

the establishment's divisive moralism and phoney public health propaganda.

WAR AND PEACE

In an attempt to deflect the Tory attack Labour's defence policy, the Bishop Stortfo conference avoided any reference to the matt But the line of Labour resistance is alrea clear: its policy of unilateral nucle disarmament has become a policy for steppi up conventional forces to a level which wol render British imperialism menace to the world than it is already.

Labour's recent policy statement on defer only that money saved

CONTENS BOL

cancelling Trident would be used to strength conventional defences (not on hospitals as t left used to demand), but that overall milit spending would increase. Labour insists tl Nato must have land, naval and air forces tl could inflict defeat' on the Warsaw Pact.

Labour is committed not only to stepping British Europe. but forces ase strengthening its capacity to strike outside Nato area. After years of criticising the Tori 'Fortress Falklands' policy, Labour now insi responsibility" on Britain's general undertaking aggression overseas, 'most notal in relation to the Falkland Islands' Labour's December political broadcast wa celebration of British militarism on such a sc that it alarmed many party supporters.

party that has in recent years identified it with the cause of peace is increasingly revea in its traditiona role as a partv of war Labour leadership supported the Tory att on Argentina and objected to its involvemen last year's air-strike against Libya only beca it exposed Britain's subservience to the US If Kinnock ever gets to power, who will be first target? As the 1987 general election approach neither the Tories nor the Labour Party wan make the war in Ireland into an election iss Both parties have consistently approved Brit domination and every act of barbarism agai the Irish people. John Stalker, the Manches police chief who came within an ace of expos the truth about Britain's death squads Ireland, has been forced into early retireme A dozen Irish people languish in British jails bombings it is obvious to everybody they not carry out. But Labour will not try to embarrass Tories over these issues in the run-up to election. Under Roy Mason, the last Lab pursued similar policies government Northern Ireland. The same governm introduced the Prevention of Terrorism A the legislation that criminalised every person in Britain as a way of curbing resista to the British occupation of Ireland. Unde future Labour government the Irish peo British terror could confidently expect continue as usual.

IVE TO LABOUR

RETO

EKUMOKARY COMMUNISTTARTY

A PLATFORM FOR WORKING

ON '87

NEED AN

ion for us, and despite 12 months of internal riding high in the

CLASS UNITY

The Revolutionary Communist Party is putting the following basic demands as a platform for the general election. We are inviting individuals and organisations who agree on the urgency of giving the working class a voice in the election campaign to join us in putting forward a slate of candidates. Our full election programme will be available in pamphlet form shortly.

WORK OR FULL PAY

To survive in capitalist society everybody needs either a job at a living wage or the same level of income in the torm of henefits afford to lose our livelihoods employers cannot make enough profit out of our labour, or because the state says that it cannot afford to maintain our living standards.

What constitutes a living wage? This can only be decided by the working class itself, including wage-earners and those who rely on benefits.

We reject state attempts to regulate wages through any form of incomes policy.

DEFEND UNION RIGHTS

We stand for the repeal of all legislation that restricts the rights of workers to organise and take action in defence of working class interests.

We are opposed to all restrictions on striking, picketing and solidarity action.

state interference in the affairs of the labour movement, in strike ballots or union elections or in any other way.

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL

We are in favour of the widest extension of civil liberties and for equal rights for all citizens. We reject all measures which strengthen the power of the state and extend capitalist interterence of its repressive forces in society.

We repudiate attempts to criminalise sections of society as a way of winning public approval We cannot for more repression. because We oppose discrimination against women at work and call for the establishment of free nurseries, available all day for children of all ages, to free women to go out to work.

demand free abortion and contraception on demand. We oppose discrimination against black people in all spheres of society. We call for the repeal of all restrictions on immigration which divide the working class and give official approval to racism. We reject the Aids panic as a propaganda campaign designed to take advantage of a fatal disease to proscribe homosexual activity and bolster conventional morality. We defend the rights of lesbians and gay men to full equality We reject all in society. the D

STOP THE WAR DRIVE

We oppose all forms of militarism, both conventional and nuclear, and all alliances among imperialist powers, particularly Nato.

We oppose Western military interference in the third world and support countries such as Argentina or Libya imperialist agalst We support anti-imperialist struggles, especially that of the Palestinians in the Middle East, the movement against the apartheid regime in South Africa and the liberation struggle in Central America.

We place a particular priority on supporting the fight for national freedom and unity against British domination in Ireland.

the next step • 16 January 1987 • 7

A vicious racist attack in the New York borough of Queens has provoked As if the poorest nation on Earth didn't have war is now being made worse by a struggle between France and America for control over Africa. Andy Clarkson reports n the last two weeks Libyan Migs have launched bombing raids inside and French Mirages have replied by blasting the main Libyan airfield at Wadi Doum in northern Chad. This has sent the Western press into a familiar rant about Gadaffi's plans for Colonel Yet the latest upsurge of Connelo violence in the African land of sand-dunes has wider causes than the civil war being fought between Hissene Habre's government The and Libyan-backed rebels.

provoked far fighting was away Washington and Paris. The people of Chad now dodging bombs in the desert are the victims of a battle for influence between France, the old colonial power in the region, and the USA.

The Libyan attacks on the towns of Arada, Oum Chalouba and Kouba Olanga were retaliatory raids on military bases in response to a New Year offensive by Habre's regime. Habre has sent his torces north at the bidding of the USA. Reagan wants to use the civil war in Chad to destabilise Gadaffi, and to elbow aside his French rivals in the battle for power in Africa.

TARGET GADAFFI

Habre's attack was well timed to advantage of the current disarray among Gadaffi's Chadian supporters. Many have defected to the pro-Western camp in the civil war. The latest to be bought off is former and rebel-in-chief Goukouni president Oueddei, who was ousted by Gadatti when he attempted to open talks with Habre last Oueddei is now imprisoned in OCTOber. Tripoli, but his supporters in the Tibesti mountains of north-west Chad have been fighting alongside Habre's troops against the Libvanc Gadaffi has responded to the loss of his Chadian stronghold at Fada by full mobilisation of ordering a Libyan reservists. fter midnight on 20 December three A black men stopped into New Park • Pizza in the white, mostly Italian, working class neighbourhood of Howard Beach to use the phone after their car broke down. Finding the phone out of order, they decided to sit down and have a slice. Once outside they were set upon by a mob of white teenagers wielding baseball bats and tree branches and 'niggers!' One 17-year old attacker, Jon Lestor, yelled "There's niggers in the pizza — let's go kill them!' parlour Reports have emphasised that Lestor is South African-born, but you don't have to be from the apartheid state to be a racist thug in the USA. The attack left the men bloody and dazed.

One, 23-year old Michael Griffith, escaped and stumbled toward the highway.

other two were chased into a dead-end and Griffith, crawling on the attacked again. 8 • the next step • 16 January 1987

GREAT POWER GAMES

IN THE SAHARA

enough to worry about, Chad's 20-year old civil Chad, world fresh

CHAD

The weakness of Gadaffi's position in Chad makes the civil war an ideal setting for Reagan to follow up last April's bombing raids on Tripoli. The prepared to interfere in any blasted corner of the globe if it presents him with another opportunity to set up the bogey of Libyan take terrorism' American influence in the third world. Thus Reagan has long been encouraging Habre to attack the Libyan allies As early as last summer the London-based Africa Analysis reported a secret delivery of US arms to Habre, adding: 'US analysts believe that by luring Gadaffi into a costly conflict in create conditions for a coup in Tripoli. Last year the USA provided Habre with $10m worth of arms, with another $15m promised for the new year. The report concluded: *When the US supplies are ready for use after

RACISM IN THE USA

The Howard Beach affair a wave of black anger that is sending a shudder through the US establishment. James Malone reports from America side of the highway, was then killed by a car driven by Dominick Blum. The car crushed Griffith's skull and threw him 20 feet in the air. Blum's windshield was smashed, but he drove on, as he said he thought he had 'hit a dog or something'. He returned later with his father, a policeman. The victims who survived are sure that Blum is a member of the white gang. They smell a police cover-up.

and have refused to testify until he is charged screaming with murder. Because they won't go into court, a judge has reduced the murder and manslaughter charges attackers to 'reckless endangerment'.

Black people in New York are furious.

have played up media retaliatory attacks on whites. The New York press says there is now a 'Race War', and something The shocked to see unrepentant Howard Beach residents on television saying that 'the only time blacks come into Howard Beach is to

IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA

TIBESTI MOUNTAINS

WADI DOUM •

KOUBA OLANGA •

AKE CHAD

CHAD

N'DJAMENA

CAMEROUN

US president is as an excuse for maintaining Chadian rebels and their Chad it might be possible to National moderate speeches, Laura against three to give up apparently must be done. Liberals were church, has about

LIBYA

French

FADA

OUM CHALOUBA

Muslim

ARADA

the long road trip from Douala [the nearest seaport in neighbouring Cameroun], there may be an offensive by the now highly confident Habre.' But it also noted that the Libyans would not be the only forces in If Chad opposed to such an offensive.

Habre's attack went ahead, 'there could be subtle obstruction by French ground and air forces, numbering around 1500 [in Chad].'

The expected obstruction tactics of the French were borne out in their low-key starvation. response to the latest desert confrontation.

When Libya bombed the southern base of French Habre's forces to cut off his supply lines, the French defence ministry sought to make excuses for Gadaffi, observing that the raids were probably 'merely a way of saving face for Libya'. The French authorities only launched their half-hearted retaliatory raids to ensure that their other former colonies in the region did not turn to Reagan for assistance. Their caution indicates that the courses police has rob us,' and 'whenever they kill one of us we don't see any of you people.' When the black Association for Advancement of Coloured People and other black and left groups led 2000 in a protest march through Howard Beach, white locals came out in force to shout "Go home' and try to stop the demo. As the marchers halted for Blackburn, New York representative of the NAACP, suggested that they all sing the Star Spangled Banner because 'after all, we are all Americans.' The first few bars of the national anthem were booed by the marchers, and Blackburn had The Democratic mayor Ed Koch of New York was quick to come out against the Howard Beach attack, calling it a 'lynching' like those in the Deep South. Koch is desperate to show that he is doing something about racist violence. He visited a Howard Beach suggested racial awareness French are more concerned about America's designs on their power-base in Africa than Gadaffi's supposedly expansionist' ambitions.

SECRET DEAL

France is not keen to kick Gadaffi because of its important economic links with Libya.

In the first five months of 1986 Libya shipped almost one million tonnes of crude oil to France. . Last month the Paris-based Dati corporation won the $20m contract to refit two European airbuses for Libyan detiance of American trade alrines, in sanctions on Libya. French firms are even involved in arming Gadatii. In October the Thomson-CSF WaN accused of modernising Libya's Crotale missile system. was damaged in Walen April's US/British raid on Tripoli.

France's Libyan connections have encouraged it to try to avoid conflict with Gadaffi over Chad. In a secret agreement concluded in 1978, French president Giscard D'Estaing agreed with Gadaffi to share out Chad into informal spheres of influence'. Libya was to supervise the north of the country, peopled mainly by nomads, while the French would control the Christian south, where their cotton plantations provide 85 percent of Chad's foreign exchange. In November 1984, President Mitterrand met Gadaffi in Crete to ratify the deal, and establish a more definite boundary between their sectors at the 16th parallel which bisects Chad.

STARVATION AND WAR

Now Washington has seized upon Habre's ambition to recover control of the whole of Chad as a way of forcing Paris back into line against Libya. During the post-war years, the USA relied upon France to police north Africa. But when the French refused to Gadaffi, pact with the abase on mens Americans stepped in with an offer of assistance which Habre leapt at.

Reagan is making clear that if the French will not toe the anti-Gadaffi line, America is prepared to tread on their toes and deal with the problem itself. Since they gained their 'independence' in 1960, the desperate people of Chad have suffered an endless round of war and French paratroopers have reinvaded the country time and again, while armed and governments have funded first one side, then the other in the bitter civil war. Now, on top of occupying French forces, they also have to contend with the awesome arsena of the 588OS powerful nation on Earth. As the Great Powers jostle for the right to control and exploit Africa and the Middle East, the people of Chad and Libya are paying the price in blood. in schools, and staked black streets of cops on the plainciotnes Howard Beach Koch's hypocrisy is blatant. This is the man who saluted 'subway vigilante' Bernard Goetz - who gunned down four black youths on an underground train — as a hero.

Time and again Koch has defended his racist force, after it killed a black grandmother for being $60 behind on her rent (Eleanor Bumpurs), a black teenager for painting graffiti (Michael Stewart), and a black college student (Edmund Perry). Koch has also turned a blind eye to the notorious 'stun gun' torture techniques used on black suspects in police stations. But the mayor been under fire over reports of corruption recently, and is desperate to calm by showing that he wants reconciliation Black people throughout the USA recognise that the Howard Beach incident is not an isolated one. Even the government's phoney statistics on racist attacks show a threefold increase since 1984. The establishment is worried that racial tensions are about to explode. The Washington Post ranked the Howard Beach attack up there with Irangate, Ivan Boesky and the Challenger explosion as one of the most important events of 1986.

US authorities have always recognised racial divisions as their trump card for keeping society under their control.

Now they fear that their racist campaign could blow up in their faces and plunge society into turmoil. In Reagan's America, people are just not supposed to start jeering the Star Spangled Banner.

READ THIS!

The Irish Freedom Movement

TRISH

handbook the

WAR

Fighting the frame-ups The Irish War The Irish Freedom Movement handbook £2.95 (plus 85p p&p) Last week an all-party delegation of MPs and peers met home secretary Douglas Hurd to press for a review of the cases of Irish people jailed in the wake of the 1974 Birmingham and Guildford IRA bombings. Labour home affairs spokesman Clive Soley said that the reputation of British justice was at stake. But as the Irish Freedom Movement handbook points out, 'British justice' put the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four behind bars in the first place. They were convicted on the basis of confessions beaten out of them and discredited forensic evidence. All this did not matter, because in British courts, to be Irish is guilt enough. The Irish War explains how the British judicial system has criminalised the Irish people, and argues that the only way to stop the frame-ups of ordinary Irish men and women and the imprisonment of Irish freedom fighters is to join the struggle to force Britain out of Ireland.

THE SOVIET UNION

DEMYSTIFIED

Frank Firedi Things fall apart The Soviet Union Demystified Frank Füredi Hardback £12.50 (plus £1.20 p&p) Paperback £5.95 (plus 85p p&p) The British media's latest anti-Soviet jibe is to blame the Russians for the bad weather - apparently it was sent from Siberia. Meanwhile Gorbachev's celebrated open society is closing off the riot-torn republic of Kazakhstan to foreign pressmen. The Soviet Union D'emystified gets behind the media's Soviet-bashing banalities and explains the forces that are fragmenting Soviet society.

Order from Junius Publications Ltd, BCM JPLtd, London WC1N 3XX.

Cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd. Five or more items post free. Lloyd, 1984-5: Loss Without Paul, £14.95 boss an Macareer Tory minister Peter Walker as one ot ine mortems, ar neare him seed such as Eric Hobsbawm and Raphael Samuel sat after

• AIDS

John Green and David £5.95 here a clear account or tne causes the disease. maze of immunology and anti-homosexual prejudices Francis Coppola (Director) nigh school reunion and is grown-up ole mistake

RAKING OVER THE COALS

Scargill v MacGregor? Martin Adeney and John The Miners Strike was osE Limit, Routledge & Kegan Sydney webb On BBC last week former coal General Strike. gave his

EVASION

gloating account of the miners' strike, refusing to discount even enemies witn Arthur Scargill hates these post nd not just when they come from the victors. Last time Brodswonh miners wellare in Yorkshire. Full of scorn, he told us how in 1986 'intellectuals' difficult to the New Capitalism is sick too Miller, Aids: The Story of relationships. a Disease, Grafton Books, Green and Miller are leading Aids counsellors. They provide human immuno-deficiency virus (now designated HIV) which and an unpatronising guide through the virology, explaining words like antibody and Kaposis sarcoma he as see tome surrounding discussion or Aids in Britain, and pay particular

• NOSTALGIA MOVIE

Browsing in time Peggy Sue Got Married, The detail Peggy Sue faints at her 25th transported back to 1960 to inhabit the body of the teenage the mind of an adult with two children who is in the midst of a divorce. She had jus heen moaning to an old friend t I knew then what I know now I'd do a lot of things differently. The she would like to have avoided was her marriage, but even when she does know then what she knows now, she ends up talling tor him again.

Well she would, wouldn't she? So this film would have us believe.

REVIEWS

dinner in Hampstead discussing what went wrong, why strike who was to blame and how 60 years earlier a different group of 'intellectuals and GDH Cole, did the same for the 1926 Scargill is right to dismiss these pompous academics who spread doom and gloom about the working class, and the Fleet meet nacks whose babe. pilloried both the miners and their leader during and after the strike. But the purpose of what has now become the preamble for the NUM president's every speech is to evade any probing is now impotent in the face of mounting attacks from the coal clever device because it is not persuade a hall full of miners that Hobsbawm and Samuel are a pair of pilchards.

and Lloyd were the for the BBC industrial reporters and the Financial Times respectively. Lloya, at least during his FT days (he now edits Statesman), displayed an often incisive grasp of trends in me coou movement ney had access to the exclusive circles of both Hobart and Congress House. Their book has plenty of good inside information and gossip but overall is an expensive disappolitici falling well short of their aim of areas. attention to dispelling the myths wait sunoune nomosexual Their dispassionate treatment of homosexuality and their medical clarity, nowever, are no match for the anti-gay hysteria The real story of Aids goes beyond the disease itself. Green and Miller fail to confront why the establishment has used the Aids issue to persecute homosexuals. Like Hany ga activists thev underestimate the ideological battle being waged to re-establish social control conservative moral values. Aids comes at a good moment for crisis-ridden capitalism. It is the .0•Om The story itself plays second fiddle to what must be the most nostage reum verto ar idealised late fifties America.

Through Peggy Sue's tear-filled eyes we soak up the happy families, the gleaming cars , the confidence and the style of a world now yearns as a lost paradise. Just how strong is our may be judged by the stvlish fifties-stvle adverts fo Georges Marciano jeans anc Southern Comfort which precede man who made the Godfather films, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish could serve up such soft-centred than just describing it. Loss Without Limit makes the same mistake as every other bourgeois account or the strike Scargill and MacGregor are set up as irreconcilable opponents who could not compromise out of principle. After an accurate presentation of the traditions of consensus and collaboration that grew up between me cod boare and the NUM in the period after Adeney and nationalisation, Lloyd argue that this tradition me is ceoor cal chalenge from both Scargill and MacGregor (backed by Thatcher).

FACE-SAVER

The real challenge came from a government which could no longer afford the luxury 01 tripartite collaboration in the conditions of the recession eighties. But, as the books own evidence makes clear Bol tE board and the union were buried so much in the past they could not make me weak on which tre survival of both depended. The rot went so far that the board's staff were industrial relations mostv former NUM officials. Coa board bosses would go to areds where a pit was coming up for closure and spend time with the area union leaders. Normar Socal wore scue not night drinking whisky with Mich ease the thing Mcganey to through. in this wav leaders like Peter Heathfield 'quietly acquiesced in closures in their need areument drams exud marital sex and homosexuality, and for heterosexual monogamy and motherhood. Aids hysteria (and it is hysteria - we have many similar killers amongst us, from heart disease to motorbikes) is a qualitatively new manestator of anti-gay prejudice. Provocation of fears that lesbians and gays wii morav nec as well as morally offend has led large sections of society to endorse attacks on gay rents and on gay establishment's success in isolating the gay community is responded to the debate on the moralists' terms. For example. Green and Miller conclude that a safe sex Came a cmone groups is the best answer to Aids. Using condoms is sensible sexually transmitted diseases just as basic hygiene and correct nonsense as this. He made it clear though that he was aiming for a commercial feature and is no doubt aware that the market is ne tor reassurance. coopold co-produced American Graffiti, George Lucas film which in 1973 launched this nostalgia from his 1982 film One From the Heart that he has a strong belief in couples sticking it out in the face of messy, inadequate . The woman in that film also decides to give the man anomer chance aloudl she doesn't go as far as Pegg Sue in offering him some goo cooking to go with it Kathleen Turner is excellent as both mother and teenager and manages to bring off some scenes as she gets a second chance to show her true appreciation of her family, her grandparents and the school swot: a second chance too to make it with the local Jack But this adult version Kerouac. of Back to the Future lacks that film's ingenuity and Scargill's mobilisation of his army, which Adeney and Lloyd argue was part of an effort if not to overthrow the state, ther to establise it. was i redit an attempt to force the board to return to the cosy collaboration of the past Scargill's famous showed ine intestinal fortitude which MacGregor accused many on his own side of lacking) in the end became just a face saver aralist di 1 ecually resolute but more powerful opponent.

In Loss Without Limit Lloyd in Labour prejudices to get in the way of a clear view of the problems that beset the miners up with pessimistic postmortems from the Eric Hobsbawm brigade and off-themark anases tom ounaist. playing politicians, the miners will always be the losers.

Joan Phillips food preparation are a good idea IT Want to avert gastroenteritis or Salmonelle poisoning. But the safe sex campaign is not as innocent as complements the moral crusade against promiscuity, extra-marital sex and homosexuality. It obscures the fact that the only : way to eliminate the risk of Aids is to find a cure and a quickly. l preventarve vaccine reinforces the idea that Aids is a question of individual rather than a responsibility medic problem that requires the mobilisation of massive social and scientific resources. It fails to confront the fact that Aids is a portical issue AS d result, the government gets away with a cheap campaign bolstering the backwardness and bigotry which are a bigger tired to gays and the working class than the disease itself. Jenny Granam lightheartedness. Weighed down by the baggage of its fatalisti mora it tries too nare to recove the golden age and to convince Peggy Sue that it's a wonderful SiTe When Peggy Sue confides in her grandmother that she has come from the future the old lady, as complacent as me Thin itself, tells the child that she is in time and simply 'browsing should choose the things snes proud ot. coppola squanders une opportunities offered by the device of characters travelling intervening in your own history with the benefit of foresight is a (as James • Cameror fertile one showed in The Terminator), but it is not deve ose nee sevone the plea 'Change your destiny!

which is clearly to b disregarded. He could have compared the eighties with the fifties, but we get only an exercise in nostalgia wich tells use or ne as omal time and nothing of our own.

Pat Ford the next step • 16 January 1987 • 9

e

AT LAKHE

FORCED FIGARO TO EAT ITS WORDS

French letter LAST September the rightwing Figaro magazine proclaimed with satisfaction that the 'new wave of French youth had shifted to the right and now embodied the conservative values of "family, fatherland and work'.

At the time such an assessment seemed plausible. After six months in office, Jacques Chirac's rightwing government had met no IN OCTOBER we published a survey for our readers to complete, and 256 replied.

Most were supporters of the RCP. Three quarters of the people replying had sold the next step, reflecting the loyalty and activism of our supporters, 86 percent had read the next step before, 37 per cent claimed to have read 'every word', another 37 per cent more than half the paper. Four people had read less than one page, but still sent in the survey - maybe to explain why they found it so indigestible. Only 12 people said they had bought the paper because of our hard sell.

TOO FEW

The big problem with the survey was the small data base it produced and the predominance of active supporters among those replying. We would have liked to hear from more new readers too, to help us assess the paper's wider impact. This drawback reflects the problem which Mick Hume identified in last week's issue - our need to make the next step connect better with people's concerns, and to open a 10 • the next step • 16 January 1987

FROM 'CONSERVATIVE VALUES' TO 'MENTAL AIDS': FRENCH STUDENTS

stream of 'neo-liberal' economic measures (privatisation, job losses, tax bonanzas for the rich). Backed up by repressive and racist legislation, France seemed to be sinking into a period of blackest reaction, symbolised by the expulsion of 101 Malian immigrants, who were handcuffed together and herded aboard a charter plane, bound for By the end of December Figaro was describing the 'new wave as a 'herd of Readers' survey results dialogue with our readers. It indicates that we have yet to establish any real relationship with many of the people who buy the paper.

The survey results should remind us that we have to use tns as a political tool, not just sell it like an ordinary newspaper. Nevertheless the survey was a reflection of what people already close to the RCP think of the next step.

The centre page feature was our readers favourite page. The editorial was also popular, with 17 per cent preferring it to all other The reviews won in articles. the unpopularity stakes with 11 per cent of respondents giving it a major thumbs BeniSt in 10 pt was down. close behind with cent saying they hated it most.

ISSUES

We asked what you would like to see extended, particularly when we go to 16 pages. The international page and the letters page were both judged to be too short by 16 percent, the party page by 12 per cent and the news coverage by nine per cent.

LETTERS

LENTRE LALI DE VAGUET

CONDORCET

CONTRE

APOLiTiQUE zombies, infected with mental Aids. It has lost all its natural immunities: even decomposing virus affects it.

The student revolt has hit French society. The enormous demonstrations of students, backed by tens of thousands of organised workers, the intervening riots, Chirac's ignominious climbdown - these events have significantly changed the political atmosphere in rance Louis Dufoix Paris We asked what people thought were the three most important political issues of 1986. Anybody who watched Newsnight and all the other boring reviews of the year would have seen how the established media thought that the Chernobyl disaster and the Challenger crash were the biggest events wider view. Well over half named racism, nationalism with 34 per cent and the third most important issue and gay rights.

EXPOSURE

Most respondents (two thirds) were in a political group, campaign or union, although this included NUS (27 people) and the Tory Party (three people). Of those specifying a trade union, most were Nalgo members. What sort of meetings do our readers had been to a non-RCP meeting, organised by Movement, LPYS/ Militant, campaign. jails.

WORRYING

(closely followed by the Royal Wedding). Our readers took a or chauvinism as the number one issue. Next came Ireland was moral panics and women attend? Around 60 per cent groups like the Anti-Apartheid CND, NUS, SWP/SWSS or a Aids & Nazis I FULLY support the imprisoned lesbian and gay comrades for their militant stand against Tories, police and jailers over the Aids scare (letters, 9 January). But I'd like to make one fraternal criticism of the letter Councillor Brownhill is not a Nazi. He is a Tory, and a fairly unexceptional one al that, with the weight of the whole British establishment behind his anti-homosexual I think we on the left have too otten made me Mistake of branding right wingers as "Nazis'. It's easy, and it usually gets a positive response from the many people who instinctively hate fascism. But dismissing To the point Why no Ward? While looking for the full number of an Irish prisoner of war in The Irish War (Junius) I noticed that no mention was made of Judith Ward. Having looked through the list of innocent political hostages including the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, etc, , 1 thought there may have just been a printing error and that she had been listed among the recognised PoWs. However there was no mention of her there either. Is there a reason for this, or is it just an accidental omission? She does appear to be the least publicised of the innocent Irish hostages in English Vaughan HM Prison Hull meeting on Hungary organised by a number of different left groups. It was good to see that our regular readers can be exposed to and still other political ideas come back to the RCP for the answers; 80per percent of respondents had been to a recent RCP meeting or event.

We asked how you voted in the 1983 general election.

Although one woman refused to disclose how she voted (on the grounds that her politics were a matter between her and the ballot box), 68 were too young to vote, and 23 were either foreign nationals or abroad at the time, we found more people abstained on principle (28 per cent) than voted Labour (17 per cent).

Only one person voted for the RCP - probably because so few of them had the opportunity to do so. Our readers 'other newspaper of the year was the Guardian, which half take daily. Only five admitted to reading The Times, but the Independent and the Financial Times each have seven percent of our readership. However, a staggering quarter of our readers said they didn't read any daily paper. A similar proportion don't read any weeklies apart from the next step. This means that even many of our closest supporters don't know what is going on. Relying on ts opponents as Nazis can also be an excuse for not taking up their political ideas which often, like Brownhill's antilesbian and gay bigotry, have a wider hearing. Instead,!

think we should concentrate on exposing how Brownhill's rantings are only the logical end of the government's socalled public health campaign on Aids, and pin the blame where it belongs - on every defender of the rather than just their system, lunatic fringe. Surely winning the arguments about homosexual rights rather than about fascism is the way to make sure that people like the jailed lesbians and gays are not isolated? Julie Hawkins London Why no WAR? Having noticed that Workers Against Racism claims to be at the forefront of antiracism in this country I can't help wondering why it doesn't get involved in the Broadwater Farm Defence Campaign. Over the last year been under siege from racist and oppressive policing. I don't know what reservations you have about working with the defence campaign dislike of the broad left?

but it seems time to drop these, pull your fingers out and prove that you are committed to aiding the anti racist struggle in Tottenham.

Jack Hughes Tottenham for all your news as well as politics is dangerous because we're not yet in a position to replace the dailies. It is a worrying sign that one in four of the readers who responded don't take the time to study a serious newspaper.

MORE DEBATE

Our survey says that our average reader is male, white and under 30. Only one quarter of respondents are female, eight per cent are black or Asian, and 12 per cent are non-British. Twentysix per cent have a job, 18 percent are unemployed and 40 percent are students (the other 16 per cent didn t tell us). We know from our selling experience that our real readership is far more mixed than the survey - though it still suggests doesn't cover as wide a range of experiences as we would like We ran the survey to try to assess who reads our paper.

While we did not get enough of a response to be able to generalise from the results we remain very keen to discover you. We can improve tos if you tell us why it doesn't meet your needs and what you think we could do better. The letters page exists to reflect what our readers think. We've issued a challenge with our politics.

We want our readers to respond. Kate Marshall

Making Bloody Sunday an issue Trying to convince people to join our contingent on the Bloody Sunday Geno starowa weeks' time raises the problem of making Ireland an important issue for British people, at a time when the war is largely out of the headlines over here.

some ot our suboorters have found it dificult to clinch the arguments with people who are not unsympathetic to the cause of Irish freedom, but say that Bloody Sunday was a long time ago and things have changed in Ireland since n w Cawe win over people in Britain wno want to know wildt relevance Bloody Sunday has for them? For a start we have to show that the massacre of 14 Irish civilians by British paratroopers might have happened 15 years ago, but a lot of Irish blood has flowed on the streets of Derry and Belfast since then. We only have to look at the cover-uo ot the shoot-to-kill atrocities benine une ona olaike! controversy to show that brus eanos sI as brutal and just as bloody Tor Iish Hatronaisls loddy as it was in the first five years of the Irish War. In 1972 people all over the world watched their TV screens in horror as British troops gunned down antiinternment demonstrators.

Diary EDINBURGH: Tuesday 27 January, 7. 30pm. Public womansroat to work Wit sacked Ardbride worker Anna ruggen and a speaker from the unemployed workers cente. races coln Picardy Place (opposite Playhouse) GREENWICH: Anybody who wants to canvass tor te ker Greenwich, get in Knight on touch with Rob LONDON: Thursday 29 January, In 1984 TV cameras snwe ne ceg assassins of the Royal Uister Constabu arv shoot the life out of John Downes al point blank range at the end of another antiintemment demonstration. Today, while the British forces try to cultivate a civilised image by not murdering people in front or me meaid, te Loyallsu paramilitaries (many of them armed and staffed by security force members) wage a sectarian assassination campaign against Irish nationalists.

The British war machine kills on. But cold, hard facts are not enough. They can prove to somebody that the war between the British state and Irish nationalists 7.30pm. All-London supporters' Why we say Troops out group, now!

TUIUFFE LIOTCRY

neobales node noeom tuoe LoNDon uescav s reomuar 7.30pm. New Living Marxism series starts. This week, Freedom and liberation in Marx un versiw or london Union, Malet Street, WC1 (Goodge MANCHESTER: Fridav 6 February, 12 noon. Demonstration, Defend George noucou, Nu trole ucpurlatulls.

-Assemh e a saints continues, but by themselves they won't convince many to take sides with the Irish people.

Through the logic of our arguments, we have to convince our audience that their interests lie in lining up with Irish freedom fighters against the warlords of the British establishment. Winning the arguments on Ireland is part of a broader political struggle to change the way working class people see the world and their role in changing it. In a sense, the most important point we have to get across is not about Ireland at all, but about British politics. We have to establish that there are two sides on every issue in Britain - that of the ruling

MARCH

AGAINST BRITISH MURDER IN IRELAND

SATURDAY 31 JANUARY

SHEFFIELD

For transport details ring (01) 729 0414 Oxford Road NEWHAM. Thursdav 12 February, 7.30pm. Public meeting, Racists on the attack - stoo tem

. OL JOITFES CHUTCH

inetitute komore коаа. Stratford SHEPHERD'S BUSH: Monday 26 Januarv, 1.30pm. Public debate, Ireland s seace possible? Clive Soley, Labour AP and John Fitzpatrick, RCP sheoneres sush Villaze Tall Bulwer Street, W12 (corner of Wood Lane and Shepherd's bush een

THE PARTY PAGE

IRELAND

RELAND

TROOPS OUT NOW!

class and that of the working class. Ordinary people here have no more interest in agreeing with me sams inciur Ireland than they would have in siding with Thatcher on wages or NaSCUTS Seen in this light, taking sides with Irish freedom fighters against the authorities ceases to be a matter of simply sympathising with the Irish and becomes a vital part of building an opposition movement within Britain. It strikes at the heart of one of the biggest political problems facing the labour movement today - British natonds The popular nationalist view inal brusn bosses and workers are all on the ;Become ian

RCP

supporter! I want more information about the RCP 1 want to become an RCP supporter I want to sell tns • I want to make regular contributions to the RCP I want to help set up a new branch in Nome Adaress

SKITISH LAW& ORDEP

OSSFC'

same side has had terrible consequences for us. It has meant thousands of carworkers, steelworkers, etc, losing their jobs to keep our maustes anodt and millions of people losing their lives to win wars against 'our enemies.

If we can show working class people that accepting the establishment's arguments about 'our' right to rule in Ireland means allowing our class opponents to monopolise political debate, we will be we on mne wavtomanie Ireland an issue over here.

we can aiso staned debate by bringing the dessons or te lisn war te bear on the problems and concerns of activists in Britain. For example, people here who are concerned Phone movemend about the assault on civil liberties enshrined in the Public Order Act, which became law on 1 January, could learn a lot from the Irish people's disregard for police powers. Irish nationalists have broken every ban on the right to demonstrate because they recognise the law as a weapon in the enemys armoury, and don't allow the paramilitary police to ousn inem around People here who still put their faith in the efficacy of radical police committees and campaign to bring the police ünder 'democratic control' could save themselves from serious physical damage in the future if they follow the Irish people's example. Long experience of riot batons, plastic bullets and CS gas has taught Irish nanonals lu Have iu truck with the forces of law and order. After the experience of paramilitary police operations in the miners' strike and at Wapping it is easier to convince trade union militants that British law and order means britisr bosses' violence on both sides of the Irish Sea. In the next two weeks, connecting Ireland to the immediate concerns of British people will be a vital part of building our contingent on the Bloody Sunday march in Sheffield.

Send to BM RCP. London WCIN 3XX the next step • 16 January 1987 • 11

BROADCAST

BIGOTRY

Despite its pretence of moral neutrality, the government's

•AIDS ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

in the attack on lesbian and gay rights W hat have icebergs and exploding mountains got to do with anal intercourse? The question probably occurred many disappointed right-wing moralists catching their first glimpse of the government's Aids adverts for TV, radio and cinema last week.

They wanted the Tory marketing men to broadcast a broadside against promiscuity and homosexuality. Instead, all they got were some rather bizarre images of nature at its most violent (the sort of thing Hollywood used in its primmer days to represent a sex scene), against a background of doom-laden chimes and chants ('eerie electronic SFX according to the press-released script. The voice-over was just a guarded reference to a deadly disease that is a threat to us all, and advice to read a leaflet now falling through our letterboxes. No 'repent ye sinners', nothing. So what is the government's game?

In fact, the fire and brimstone brigade have nothing to worry about. The Tory 'safe sex' propaganda fits their twisted requirements like a sheath.

Despite its neutral tone, the advertising campaign will endorse all the public prejudices about Aids and step up the pressure on lesbians and gays. In launching the campaign, Tory health chief Norman Fowler avoided any explicit moral attacks on those considered to run a "high risk' of contracting Aids, especially gay men. Instead Fowler posed the whole thing as a public health campaign to protect everybody. He proposed the use of condoms as a strictly technical solution to a strictly medical problem. While various vicars, gutter press editors and Tory councillors have made outspoken attacks over Aids, calling for homosexuals to be shunned, interned or even gassed, top Tories and government officials have kept their distance.

This reflects the division of labour which the establishment has set up.

Having started the panic about the gay plague' in the first place, the authorities are content to let the backwoodsmen and bigots do the dirty work for them, stirring up a the nextstep

TORIES

advertising campaign on Aids is another stage public mood of fear and hostility towards homosexuals. Meanwhile, ministers stand to one side talking about public health and trying to look sober and responsible. They have no need to get blood on their hands when there are so many others pumping out anti-gay propaganda from the press offices and the pulpits, and while the police and freelance 'queer-bashers' get on with the job of driving lesbians and gays off the streets and into the closet. Fowler summed up this two-track approach at last week's press conference: *My own view is that the government's aim of teaching prudence is complementary to the of the church and other teachings religious leaders.' The Tory 'health' campaign is complementary to the idea that homosexuality has been sent from hell. The government's "safe sex' propaganda has caught the imagination of people across the political spectrum. Yet it can only help to keep public bigotry on the boil. It spreads more speculative scare stories about how Aids is sweeping the nation, and ignores the fact that just 610 people in Britain have contracted the disease, of whom 293 have died. Its dire warning that Aids is *a threat to us all does nothing to counteract the widespread belief that the 'threat' comes first and foremost from gay men - all gay men. The campaign's emphasis on avoiding casual sex and promoting monogamy as the only safeguard against Aids adds fuel to fires on which the new moralists want to roast those who stray from the sexually straight and narrow — especially gay men.

This is where the 'scientific' and the 'ethical wings of the British establishment meet in a Despite joint offensive. studied

ELS

neutrality, the government is gearing up for a renewed onslaught on lesbian and gay rights — which, it will no doubt claim, has been "forced' on it by 'public opinion'.

In their hypocritical campaign about Aids, the Tories are taking the role of master criminals who sponsor and organise the crime from afar. But when the deed is done, when the 'queer-bashers' put the boot in or employers victimise homosexuals. the government is elsewhere with an alibi 'don't blame us, we're only telling people to look after their health. The Aids campaign is not about health at it is part of a political drive to re-establish the hold of traditional morality over society.

The Tories recognise how useful ideas about the virtues of marriage and monogamy can be in strengthening the grip of reaction, and moulding the way people see the world to fi in with establishment views.

While the phoney campaign to get everybody using condoms will make little headway, the political effort to mobilise public opinion against sexual 'deviants' is already a success.

This is confirmed by the fact that lesbians who, with nuns, are least at risk from contracting Aids through sex have suffered increased discrimination in the backlash prompted by the official Aids scare. If we recognise the Aids campaign as a political strategy targeting lesbians and gays, we must respond in kind. That means refusing to join the public chorus calling for sexual conformity, and highlighting the attack on homosexual rights that lies behind the hypocrisy about public health.

A government that is prepared to let homeless thousands of people and pensioners freeze to death for the sake of knocking a few quid off the social security bill could not care less about the health of ordinary people. Its only concern is to survival of its system, ensure the by spreading right-wing ideas about how people should live their lives. Our concern should be to stand up for the rights of lesbians and under and gays allack campaign turn the tide against the to moralists. As the 'Don't die of ignorance leaflets hit the doormats of Britain, let's make sure that people don't suffer from ignorance about the malicious motives of those posing as the champions of the public good.

AIDS

DON'T DIE

IGNORANCE

LESBIANS & GAYS

FIGHT BACK

Last week we published a letter from Winson Green prison, written by a group of 12 lesbians and gays from the Midlands.

They were arrested and held for a week for the crime of protesting outside the home of a Tory councillor who had called for gays to Now they are organising a be gassed. London meeting to launch a defence campaign. It's on Thursday 29 January at 7.30pm, in the Red Rose club, 129 Seven Sisters Road.