The Next Step: No. 13, 8 April 1988

VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIANS! - see page 2

ONLY BOLDNESS CAN BEAT THE TORIES

THE MEEK SHALL

INHERIT NOTHING

the next step - 13 Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly WE need a bold opposition with the nerve to stand up and fight the Tory government. The bishops and the Labour Party/TUC bureaucrats do not fit the bill. The official opposition has given up fighting the government and taken to praying for salvation. The Labour leadership is now widely considered irrelevant to political debates. Even right wingers like Enoch Powell and the editor of the Daily Telegraph have attacked Neil Kinnock for bowing before the Tories. The TUC is applying for a new job as the employers' doormat. After the Ford Dundee fiasco (see page 4), TUC chief Norman Willis declared that the unions

KINNOCK OF LABOUR

ins must never upset such a corporation again - that is, they must obey the bosses at all times. Many union leaders are already operating along these lines. The National Union of Teachers is the latest to adopt the timid and placatory approach of New Realism, reflected in the change of union symbol from a burning torch to a begging hand. The opposition's collapse threatens to present the Tory government with a walk-over. For example, the Tories are Support our fighting fund pay for your tns 8 April 1988 the observation that they were 'downright immoral'. Nobody

BISHOP OF DURHAM

IS NOT THE

E1

NEED -

preparing to implement the first cash cuts in welfare benefit since the thirties next week. This is a vicious assault on the working class. Yet its security. most prominent opponent is the Bishop of Durham. The maverick 'man of the cloth' declared Tory welfare policies to be 'wicked'; the Labour frontbench merely backed him up with mentioned the idea of fighting the cuts. Millions of claimants were left leadership.

WHY TONY BENN

ALTERNATIVE WE

Pages 6 and 7 40p with the impression that the Second Coming was their only chance of achieving a decent level of social An opposition which tails the Church of England and tries to look meek is no match for a ruthless capitalist class. Sermons won't stop social security cuts, any more than an arty image of an outstretched hand will save teachers from low pay and worsening working conditions. We need a new opposition which is willing to match the Tories in the struggles ahead. To win, it will have to be a lot bolder than the bishops or their acolytes in the labour movement

WILLIS OF TUC

101) 2 • 8 April 1988

PEACE TALKS HIDE

ISRAELI TERROR

VICTORY TO THE

PALESTINIANS

S secretary of state George Shultz arrived in Israel on Easter Monday, latest move in his supposed attempt to find a peaceful LO The Americans problem. proposed an international peace involving conle ence. permanent members of the United Nations security council, to bring together the two siaes in conflict. Israel's hardline prime Yitzhak Shamir minister opposed to the plan because he fears that Israel would be isolated at such a conference. Shultz went Jerusalem to convince to scentical Shamir that his fears were unfounded. interview In on television after the talks, Shultz went out of his way to emphasise

ANY FRIEND OF ISRAEL

IS AN ENEMY OF THE

*OPPRESSED

Revolutionary Communist Party summer school Friday 22 to Friday 29 July Central London

PREPARING FOR

POWER

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that he was acting in Israel's best interests. stack had to be strong. "But strength by itself, he added, 'is not a sufficient condition to give you peace. Peace and secunty come trom negoud tions.' In case anybody was still unsure of his intentions, told the Israell public that he would on no account allow the peace conference to decide what your borders have to be here, there or elsewhere'. his peace moves were no threat to the integrity showed that the real purpose of his the trip was not to bring peace, but to conceal the continued oppression of the Palestinian people. have the state of continued denial of the rights of the Palestinian people. ve that uprising, the month, is giving heart to oppressed peoples East and threatening US interests in the region. His peace negotiations aim to distract attention from the Palestinian fight for freedom the and restore a measure of stability.

'GRASSHOPPERS'

Israeli Even as Shultz gave his backing for "strong" Shamir spelled out exactly how he intended to use that strength. The he hijacking of mad Arab terrorists - and cover up Western the hijacking the whole Middle East.

* the hijackers is not yet known, but this has

LOL

'experts' guessing which terrorist outfit they belong to. According to Thatcher-Reagan the It Is mistory generally kaffiven headscarves, who are to blame for the turmoil in the Middle East. The hijacking of flight KU422 came just at the right time for the Western powers, who were worried that the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories might expose too much about the real source of the main Middle Eastern conflict.

Now they will attempt to explain Arab away tional fanaticism.

DOMINATION

In reality Western intervention is the root cause of the conflicts in the Middle East, which has suffered decades of interference by outside powers from Palestine to the Gulf.

Israel and sustains it today with huge injections of cash and weapons.

Whatever their Zionist state, support Israel's right to terrorise the visit the Israelis he announced, Day Cene Trees in Galilee.

RAMPAGE

Shultz of wave Palestinians Shultz's acknowledgement that of the israeli state into Shultz knows that the survival of israel means the But he Palestinian the now entering its fifth the Middle camo in Gaza territories, on a rampage. On Friday, Yitzhak Israel. Hebron Palestinians. The West hijacked the Middle East a Kuwaiti Jumbo jet with 22 Britons on politicians to revive the myth of powers in role As we go to press the identity of #lasses stopped Western Western Shah. main fanatical Arabs, and Iraq and wearing massive Kuwaiti shipping. as irrapeoples of resistance deranged struggles are a Western The West backed the creation of criticisms of the Western diplomats Palestinian people, he explained.

*are like grasshoppers compared to us; the Israeli forces would crush them as they would grasshoppers.

In the week leading up to Shultz's gave a graphic demonstration of Shamir's policy.

More than a dozen Palestinian were killed as the Israelis reacted with savage ferocity to forestall the the occupied territories on Land - when Palestinians inside commemorate those who died in 1976 protesting against land expropriation The Israelis are terrified that the protests might unite the occupied territories with those living within the Green Line denoting pre-1967 Israel. On Tuesday therefore, the imposed unan precedented clampdown on the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For three days Israeli forces turned the area a closed military zone. -alesunlaus were prevented Irom leaving their home town. Troops stopped all food and fuel from Some 20 teaching tre terrories. villages, towns and refugee camps, including the whole of the Gaza Strip, faced a total curfew.

soldiers shoot in the air if they just see us in the windows, said Leila Khaled, a refugee from the Balata Having sealed off the occupied and excluded all journalists, the Israeli troops went troops stormed a mosque in the village of idna near two

SHOU

cede On Sunday a Pales- Palestinians. Despite attempts to distance themselves from the Iran- Iraq war, the Western powers have sold tens of billions of dollars worth of military equipment to both sides since the war began in 1980. The West encouraged Iraq to attack Iran in the first place, after the Iranian overthrew the Kuwait, the destination of flight KU422, is caught between the two Middle East conflicts. It is very close to the fighting between Irall, sheikhdom is home for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

naval task wester force, still menacing the Gulf, was ostensibly LU Its true purpose was to reassert Western power at a time when it was on te wane inrougaout we region.

By popularising the idea that the the Middle East are fundamentalists and fanatical terrorists, Western rulers hope to hide the fact that their response to the oppressive conditions imposed by Western domination. Our job is to point out that the real terrorists are have who BOWerS hijacked the rights of the Middle Eastern masses and to win working class support for the fight against imperialist aggression. Daniel Nassim tinian youth was electrocuted after troops forced him at gunpoint t climb on to live electric cables to • down Palestinian flag Israel's defence minister Yitzhak Rabin crowed about the killings.

'In the majority of incidents', he boasted. the controntations were a result of our initiatives.

Shultz's diplomatic games are a charade whose only purpose is to conceal the continued oppression Palestinian people. The ot the savagery of the Israeli response to the threat of Palestinian protest there can be no

SHOWS

unal emplomanc solution to the contlici Israel survives only through the of the systematie Palestinian people and the denial of their basic rights. Only a victory for the Palestinian people, and the Zionist state destruction of the which is the force for barbarism in the area, can bring genuine peace.

... • ••

TEACHERS

AGAINST

THE

CLAUSE

JUST as the Tories are getting ready to outlaw any promotion of homosexuality in schools leaders of the National Union of Teachers are getting ready to ditch the fight for lesbian and gay rights. The Local Government Bill contains a clause which will make it an offence for teachers to do anything that might encourage their pupils to take a positive view of homosexuality. Even before the Clause has become law it has encourased a back ash acainsi lesbians and gays. Bradford's Labour-controlled education authority recently suspended a gay teacher who refused to hide his sexuality, before pressure from local teachers forced the council to reinstate him. In Wakefield the Labour council banned a lesbian support group from holding a workshop as part of an International Women's Day event. Once the Clause receives the Royal Assent there will be nothing to stop the bigots acting on their prejudices - except rank and file trade unionists.

DISGRACE

In this context the failure to agree on any policy in relation to the Clause at last week's NUT annual conference was a disgrace. During a weekend in which the leadership of the largest teaching union was going out of its way to project a moderate image, the conference organisers were keen to avoid standing up for lesbian and gay rights. While ordinary members argued for a resolution committing the union to oppose the Clause, the executive moved an amendment removing all mention of the need for positive images of lesbians and gays. Then in the finest tradition of official labour leadership discovered there was no time to take the issue to the vote. The standing ovation given to a lesbian delegate proves that there are plenty of teachers who want to fight - it is up to rank and file activists to coordinate the campaign to defeat the Clause which their leaders cannot contemplate.

the next step

recent upsurge violence has been followed flurry of by political and acavity Northern Ireland. Tory King Tom has

LILTEISLEE

holding separate 'talks about talks' with Unionist politicians and with the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party. Media commentators have begun speculating about a breakthrough' which could create for devolved Ene

CODORS

assembly, as a big step towards a political solution to the 19-year old conflict.

SHAM

In truth, there is no prospect of a British political solution to the The current round of Irish war. talks just sham 1S diplomatic initiative. It is designed to maintain the impression that Britain is a force for democratic in progress Ireland. while Crown forces get on with pursuing their war against republican supporters of Irish unity.

The Tories know that they cannot negoulate any enecuve compromise deal in Northern Ireland.

The contradiction between the British authorities and many Irish nationalists is irreconcilable, because it centres on the fundaot sovereignty. Whatever

SDLP

leader Hume and his supporters might do or say, and whatever assemblies the British might set up, the core of republican supporters will accept nothing less than full Irish freedom from British rule.

Recognising that they cannot end the war on their terms, every British government since 1969 has sought to contain it, and to isolate from wider Iepubnicalls support in Ireland and Britain.

This British containment strategy involves a sustained propaganda campaign to depict Irish republicans as terrorists, 'criminals, etc: also involves the never-ending ot DreLenCe scarching political solution. Whenever make embarrassing v obvious that British state is at war with nationalist community, This political snake-screen. what is happening today.

BLOODY

This year has been marked by a series of bloody events, it began with the refusal to prosecute top Royal Ulster Constabulary officers involved in a shoot-to-kill campaign, continued with the execution of unarmed members in Gibraltar and the murder of three more nationalists by a Loyalist gun-and-grenade attacker in a Belfast graveyard.

and culminated in the killing of two British soldiers who threatened another republican funeral procession three days later. All of this has helped to expose something of the truth about the Irish 'troubles. It has suggested to the televisionwatching world that the conflict is not a law and order campaign against a tew LeT OISES. colonial war between the supporters of the British and Opponents The Tories' occupalon enthusiasm for talks is an attempt to put the mask back in place.

talks' 'talks about designed to distract attention from the fact of war, and to restore the myth of British democracy in Northern Ireland.

It how IS progress towards devolution the Tories can make at the moment.

British establish- But trom the ment's point of view, the important thing is that the political process is seen to function; the result of the talks is secondary. The influential Economist summed the versionary function of such British *Northern Ireland needs plenty of politics — concords, initiatives, communiques, commissions of the next step of The British been government's current 'talks about talks' with Northern Ireland politicians have nothing to do with any search for peace the

HAI

John local the

IRA

inquiry and much more - so that its are politically and not by the gun."

In fact the conflict will continue even intensity: the and authorities are now planning mass arrests ir COLUCCHOl Belfast killings. Their hope is that the crescendo of talks can drown out the sound of the British politicians have tried this trick often before at moments of crisis. in an attempt to restrict resistance to their rule.

Back in 19/2. paratroopers shot dead 14 unarmed Derry marchers on Bloody Sunday, Labour Party Harold Wilson suggested that the and Tory government should announce much plans to withdraw from Northern 15 years. was well aware that withdrawal would take place. His aim was only to limit the damage done by Bloody Sundav and to discourage more nationalists from turning to the IRA to defend them.

di- *If men of moderation nothing to hope for', Tories, warned violence will have something to shoot for.' iwo years later. as prime minister, Wilson continued BRITISH POLITICAL INITIATIVES AND MILITARY REPRESSION ARE ALL PART OF THE SAME STRATEGY this twin-track strategy of phoney conducted political initiatives and repression.

shortlived power-sharing executive British to introduce the bas and remove political status from Irish prisoners with the of war. gunfire. struggling status, provided damning evidence Britain's republicans were isolated criminals.

Tier BriTish leader Wilson no such have Wilson snes Chair

THERE IS NO BRITISH SOLUTION

TALKS WON'T

END THE

IRISH WAR

His government presided over the South in Northern Ireland, while planning 100 000 funeral. responded rounds The hunger-strike of 1981, in which 10 republican prisoners died Assembly regam pouncal claim that Dublin

PUBLIC MEETING

Hammersmith and Fulham Trades Council

IRELAND-THE ISSUES

Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, W6 (nearest tube:Hammersmith)

THURSDAY 14 APRIL 7.30PM

Sinn rein council of the have cacy Before he died on hunger-strike, IRA volunteer Bobby Sands was elected MP for Fermanagh and Tyrone. When he died, The Tory Bowernment Tory more with several of talks and political initiatives. First it set up an Ulster in 1982. When that empty shell fooled nobody, the tories went turter and signca the Anglo-Irish agreement with the in 1985. talks, Sea. of abour ton on Ireland Irish Freedom Movement Trades Council Through those years of hype and hypocrisy about political progress British towards peace, the authorities ran shoot-to-kill campaign and introduced a system showtrials to supergrass repress republicans British diplomacy and political initiatives in Northern Ireland have never been an alternative to military repression. They are parts of the complementari government's containment strategy.

The idea is to isolate the committed republican community by political scheming, to prevent the military campaign against from provoking wider resistance.

'COFFIN'

The relationship between the two strands of British strategy is well illustrated by proposals from prominent British newspapers that Peter Robinson, deputy leader of Democratic Unionist Party, should take a leading role in the has talks because he recently Robinson's become a moderate new willingness to talk has not to Irish altered his attitude republicans. As he told a Loyalist rally last Monday, "It is not the conference table but the coffin that the right place for the Provisional IRA. Such 'moderation' is the stuff of which British political initiatives are made in occupied Ireland. The Tories and their predecessors successful in been

HOSI

creating their political smokescreen within Britain itself.

Over here, many people - and all major political parties accept that the government's search for a political solution is a sincere one.

We should be clear that there is no between the strands of British strategy. It is not that the political initiatives are good and the military repression is bad; both are connected aspects of Britain's war against Irish And nationa ists neither could operate effectively without the other. However the Tories promote their political and military policies today, there is no British solution to the Irish War. British imperialism is British imperialism, whether it wears the pin-striped suit of a civil servant or the battle-dress of ar SAS assassin. All it can offer Irish nationalists is continuing oppression under different packaging. That is the guarantee that the struggle against British rule will continue.

CONFUSION

The Irish War will only end when it is won. The nationalists are the side struggling for true demoand peace in united Ireland. Yet they cannot defeat the British state alone. Britain's containment strategy has succeeded in creating a stalemate within the war zones of the North. To break it, the nationalists require support from Southern working Ireland. The British working class also has a key role to play in balance altering the in the Irish War. Our is to bring British aIm people into the struggle, on the side by nanonalists. building a solidarity movement here. To do that, we need to cut through all the confusion about "terrorism' and political initiatives, which so clouds public perceptions on this side of the Irish We need to equip ourselves with the arguments to destroy all the myths about Britain's "progressive role, and to show our audience that forcing the British authorities out of Ireland is the one solution we should be fighting for.

The Irish Freedom Movement dayschool, "Time to end the Irish War', in London on Sunday 17 April, is the place to pin down these problems and take forward the campaign to get the troops and their political paymasters — out of Ireland now. 8 April 1988 • 3

Joe Hall argues that the TUC's attempt to regulate competition

TGWU CHIEF RON TODD HAS NO RIGHT TO POINT THE FINGER

light of the Ford Dundee fiasco 'W e must never el unis happen again' clared TUC Norman Willis after it became clear that the Ford Motor Company had pulled out of Dundee for good.

Willis did not mean that the unions should never again grovel to the employers only to be kicked in the teeth as they were over Dundee. He meant that they should never again allow the employers to use the excuse of inter-union squabbles to ditch a single-union deal. Alter Dundee it seems certain that the TUC general council will approve new proposals for regulating single-union agreements. What Is the row over recognition all about, and what should our attitude be to single-union agreements?

INEVITABLE

The trade union chiefs have no objection in principle to singleunion deals; they only complain when the sweetheart deal is done by a rival union. An interim report by the TUC special review body obtained by ins noted that most large unions organising in the private sector are offering singleunion agreements to employers, and as generally Creare accepted spheres influence, some competition and conflict is inevitable. The problem for the TUC is not that these deals are taking place, but that up to now there has been no means of regulating saustactory union competition. At Dundee the AEU took advantage of advance information about the planned Ford plant supplied by its leader Gavin Laird, director for the Scottish Development Agency. In return for single-union recognition the

AEU

agreed to warts conditions tar inferior to those obtaining at Ford's 22 other UK When details of the deal Blalis. the other became pubnc, were incensed. complaint was not that the AEU had siened awav

ILS

men Ders rights, although this is what the transport union tried to argue later, but that it had shafted the other Ford unions. "Why

TGWU

complained engineers. official Bill Morris, 'when we are the union with the largest number of members in Ford UK plants?

Ford used the inter-union row and the TGWU's threat to boycott the plant as the pretext for pulling out of the Dundee deal. It seems posible that Ford had "no intention of building a plant in Dundee, and simply used the negotiations to test the water with the union leaders. Ford management used the talks as an exercise 4 • 8 April 1988 over single-union agreements will intensify in the to lind out it the union leaders dewould ditch the national agreechief ment which covers every plant, at the same time as they were pushing them to accept a punitive pay and flexibility package on behalf of Ford's 32 000-strong workforce. Whatever motives in floating the Dundee deal and then killing it off, the company certainly the unions' cringing willingness to While the TUC age. never before, the Tories were able to blame the unions' petty rivalry for losing jobs.

QUEUE

Once it became clear that the scotching the Dundee deal, Ron Todd, leader of the transport union, insisted that he had objection agreement or to the AEU having it, but he could not accept the plant's employees being offered terms and conditions than those in other Ford UK plants. This was simply an attempt by make the TGWU's opposition to Dundee the principled than it was. If Todd is really SO concerned about members" and pay perhaps he could explain why he tried so hard to sell Ford's recent punitive and package to his members, and why his union has signed at least half a dozen single-union truth is that Todd is concerned to make sure mal ms union is al tne head of the queue for recognition what the no Mis memoers We have no objection in principle single-union arrangements what we object to is the sectional deals pursued by the TUC unions the terms on and are negotiated. We are in lavour of one union Ford organising workers in a single Their industry with the aim of uniting and strengthening the employer. against anathema to leaders for whom single-unionism means making any concession to the the employers if it will gain them recognition against a rival union.

They have even been prepared to sign away trade union rights, as they did at Dundee, before any workers have been employed or any members recruited. ne single-union deals have led to a dilution of pay and conditions, but argues that this is the price the unions must pay for recognition in today's hostile climate. It accepts that single-union deals often entail some sort of no-strike arrange-

AFTER THE

DUNDEE FIASCO

SAY NO

TO THEIR

DEALS

strike in the industrial relations. British Ford's •Dundee happening again. manipulated formalising crawled as single-union example of competition: Welsh the authorities, single-union company. After worse would

OPCS

Todd to emulate trying to AEU/Ford deal at Dundee. look more his the

TUC

sees conditions ol calise productivity idea of une The deals. be the judge organisations are up to scratch.

to

COS

which they forces OUl This than others. the official union report admits that

SINGLE-UNION

ment, but claims that the unions have long accepted that they must *qualify the ability of workers to interests of stable The only point at issue for the TUC is how to regulate inter-union competition tiascos The proposals put forward by the special review body amount to what 1S arcady standard practice in development areas such as Wales and Scotland.

The TUC interim report on the issue gave the Wales, where the TGWU led the way in establishing the framework for single-union "The main unions /then agreed informally for a period that in exchange for notification from inward investment those unions which wished would each meet a new discussions the posible new company would then decide which union to recognise and the abide threatened to decision." The Scottish TUC was the Wales Channel experiment by pushing through the It has now got to the stage where role as the

-ITS

oi a beautv contest Act. which allows the employers to be the judge of how unions should be organised. If we are to re-establish independent trade unions we have to insist that the circumstances, they working class, not the bosses, must of whether their ballots. we lose. They're all at it MANY TUC unions like to pretend that their opposition to particular sweetheart deals done by their rivals is a matter of principle. But, as the TUC list reprinted below shows, their real objection is that some unions have successfully done more such scabbing deals

COMPANY/ UNION (S)

AB Electrics EETPU/APEX • BICC Cables GMB/MATSA Bowman Webber EETPU • Cadburys, Chirk TGWU Christian Salvesen EETPU • Eaton Axles AEU • Hitachi EETPU IBC AEU/EETPU/TGWU/TASS/ASTMS • Inmos EETPU Merchant Bar ISTC • Iveco Ford AEU/TGWU/EETPU • Komatsu AEU Matsushita GMB • NEK Cables GMB • Nissan AEU Norsk Hydro TGWU • Orion Electrics EETPU • Pirelli GMB Sanyo EETPU • Sharp EETPU • Shotton Paper EETPU Toshiba EETPU • West Ferry Printers NGA/SOGAT/AEU/EETPU Yuasa Batteries EETPU • Xidex EETPU • UK Optical TGWU

CRINGING: AEU LEADER GAVIN LAIRD

Tories tryit on Two decisions last week show how the Tories are using the law to test the water as they dismantle the trade unions f proof were needed that the law exists to protect the power and privilege of the capitalist class, last week's high court decision against the National Union of Seamen provided it. Mr Justice Latey banned the union from even balloting its members employed by Sealink over strike action against redundancies. The Nus had decided on the ballot after Sealink boss James Sherwood had cutting ferry crews on its cross- This ruling operatons extends the scope of the employment law to prohibit not only secondary action, but also a ballot preceding such action under the 1984 Trade When employers, they can use this act to force a union to hold a ballot before taking strike action. Now the courts have made it clear that, in other will interpret orv anti-union laws so as to bar Heads they win, tails The high court judgement is only on the most far-reaching of a series of unprecedented legal moves against the seafarers' union Earlier the high court had ordered the NUS not to call a national strike whatever the result of a ballot then in progress, and threatened to rob the union of its funds if it disobeyed the ruling. In the past employers have used Tory anti-union legislation prevent secondary action. But they have never before used the courts, as P&O did in this instance, to preempt the outcome of a ballot by arguing implementing the action threatened would infringe government legislation.

move designed to In another undermine the unions, the government announced an inquiry by the Com- Monopolies and Mergers mission into work practices in the television and film industries. Employment minister Norman Fowler warned that the investigation under Section 79 of the 1073 Han Trading Act was only the start of a clampdown trade union across industries. The significance of this move lies not in the particular industry that has been targeted, but in the fact that the government has signalled its willingness to use the law for the first time to regulate working practices The clauses under which the inquiry has been authorised were inserted into the Fair Trading Act by the Heath government of the early seventies as a gesture of evenhandedness; it made sense to extend powers against restrictions on the supply of goods and services to the supply of labour too. This was done the understanding that they would never be used for fear of provoking the unions — the fact that the government Is no longer concerned about the reaction is an how powerless the marcation Of unions have become. The Tories are trying to make union-busting sound modern by presenting trade union restrictive practices as obsolete, and using the to stamp on any opposition which threatens to upset their plans decent wages and conditions a relic of the past.

the next step

tenext step Revolutionary Communist Party weekly 'A FOOL AND AN ANTI-CHRIST' was how Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn described Bishop of Durham David Jenkins, after the bishop attacked the government's new social security cuts as 'wicked'. The ease with which the government can brush off such moral assaults confirms that anti-capitalists, rather than anti-Christs, are the only people with the arguments to take on the Tories today. The Bishop of Durham's remarks are only significant because they capture the tone of most official opposition to the Tories today. The Labour Party has now been reduced to echoing the opinions of Church of England dignitaries. When Jenkins said on Easter Sunday that Tory economic policies put statistics before people and would make the poor poorer and the rich richer, Labour frontbenchers were quick to back him up. This is part of the general Labour and CofE preoccupation with 'the greedy society' which Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have created, and which they want to reform by redistributing some resources towards the NHS and the welfare state. According to the opposition view, too many people in Thatcher's Britain are only out to grab whatever they can get for themselves and damn the rest.

The media is full of images reflecting this idea, from the 'Loads-a-Money' lout on Friday Night Live to newspaper strip cartoons featuring Yuppies with credit withdrawal symptoms. The arguments about the greedy society, which have dominated opposition thinking since the general election campaign, are based on the belief that the Tories have divided Britain between a prosperous majority and a poor minority. In fact the strength of this idea among opposition spokesmen reflects the Tories' real success — not in making millions of British people rich, but in making Labour and the rest believe that they have done so. The notion of a prosperous majority is a myth of Tory propaganda. If Labour leader Neil Kinnock tried to address the £400-a-week docker he is always on about, he would find that such wealthy workers do not exist in Britain's ports. The biggest areas of employment, like local government, the civil service and the NHS, are still bastions of low pay - and workers in all of them are now facing further assaults. Skilled workers elsewhere have seen their incomes rise slightly.

But they are hardly living the life of luxury which Labour spokesmen believe; indeed, much of their extra cash comes from bonus and productivity schemes, implemented through speed-ups and drastic changes in work practices like those which recentiy caused a wave of disputes in the motor industry. The only people who have truly got-richquick in Thatcher's Britain are the top City whizz-kids, a very small number of people whose position is already threatened by the impact of last October's crash. The Tories have not achieved power by creating a prosperous majority.

What they have done is to imbue public opinion with the perception that the next step their economic policies hold out the only hope of progress. They have been greatly aided in this by the widespread view that there is no worthwhile alternative on offer from the official opposition. This is the true import of criticisms offered by everybody from the Bishop of Durham to the leaders of the Labour Party. Far from being a problem for the government, they only serve to confirm the lack of credible alternatives to Thatcherism. The most recent opinion polls on political and economic matters bear this out.

On Monday, a Mori poll in The Times showed that despite their unpopularity over everything from the health service to the poll tax, the Tories are still at 49 per cent - nine points ahead of Labour. The overwhelming factor in the Tories' success is the popular belief that they have the best policies available for the British economy. The number of poll respondents who thought that the British economy would improve under the Tories this year stood at 37 per cent, up from 31 per cent before the budget. The very groups which Labour most needs to win support from, such as the skilled impressed with the idea that Kinnock could do better than Thatcher with the These statistics reflect a basic acknowledgement among many people of the way that the world works, and the unworldly nature of opposition policies. These people recognise, if only semi-consciously, that there are certain rules governing the operation of the capitalist system. This does not mean that they appreciate or accept the underlying reality of the employers' need to accumulate capital through raising the rate at which they exploit acknowledge that factors such as efficiency and competitiveness are crucial to the health of a capitalist economy. In the conditions of a world economy which has been suffering severe problems since the early seventies, increasing capitalist efficiency and competitiveness must concentrating resources in productive sectors. This is a lesson which the Tories have taught important sections of the working class. In light of these perceptions, the opposition's ideas on redistributing ruelsner hevolutionary communist rary BM KEE LOndon WIN SAX S CODyieA Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16 Annual subscription rates • Britain and Northern Ireland £26 • Europe destinations sunace man nosi All cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd.

Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX ISSN 0144 350 X 8 April 1988. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

No 13

THE EVILIS

CAPITALISM

wealth towards unproductive spending on health and welfare make little sense to many people. It is not that people are too selfish or greedy to care; given a specific instance, such as the NHS crisis, the overwhelming majority of British people will support an inorease in public spending. Yet these same people can see that, at the level of general economic policy, it makes no sense to try to run a humanitarian lines suggested by the CofE and the Labour politicians. Thus whatever sympathy they might feel for the welfare state, they will grudgingly accept that the hard-headed Tory approach is far more convincing.

All of this comes down to one fact: there is only one viable economic policy for the government of any capitalist country to pursue today. It is being implemented not just by the Tories, but by governments of various political complexions across the differences over public spending details, even the Labour leaders now openly acknowledge the primacy of market forces in making the world go round. The logical consequence is that there is no alternative to Thatcherism, so long as you accept the boundaries of capitalist economics. We do not.

The desperate state of health and welfare services in Britain today is not an argument for fiddling around with the finances of a corrupt system. It is an argument for revolutionising the entire basis on which society produces and uses its wealth, by breaking the power of the profit-hungry capitalist class and creating a new order in Many people who hate the excesses of capitalism see such arguments as impossible to win given today's state of public opinion. But we should be careful not to confuse the Tories' success in marginalising their official Thatcherite ideology is deeply embedded in the working class. Every available indicator shows that the Tories standing is intimately bound up with public confidence in their economic policies. If this confidence is dented by events, things could appear very differently. Understanding this is particularly important today, given the current drift of the world economy back towards a full-blown and Irish Republic £34 • North Africa and Middle East Editor: Mick Hume In the same edition of The Times that carried the poll on present attitudes towards economic policies, Mori boss Robert Worcester pointed out that, despite appearances, the The main element holding the Tory share of the voting intention in the upper 40 per cents is the credit Mrs Thatcher is given for management of the economy. If the widely forecast American recession blows its way across the water, then what for Mrs The recession which will hit the British economy in the not-too-distant future will remove the strongest plank from. the Tory platform. It will leave the deeply unpopular aspects of the government's policies unprotected, and open up fresh opportunities for challenging all that they stand for. But if the only alternative on offer is the joint Bishop of Durham/Labour Party appeal for moral economics and minor tax changes, that opportunity will be wasted and the capitalist class will In conditions of recession, the idea of redistributing resources towards the welfare state while keeping British capitalism competitive will seem even less realistic than today. If such a misguided approach remains the focus of opposition, it can only lead to demoralisation among those looking for an alternative, and a growing conviction that nothing can be done.

consequence of their class position, not their un-Christian principles. The only way to win the arguments against them is by putting the case for a new society, freed from the constraints of the capitalist profit motive. The creation of a world in which the majority can truly benefit is not a pipedream; it is a pressing necessity if we are to escape from the scourge of unemployment, poverty, exploitation and oppression. Our aim is not to embarrass people away from selfinterest towards Christian charity, but to convince them that the way to improve their lot is to join the struggle against a system which survives at the • Don't panic: last week's tns did not appear and this week's is shorter than conference. Back to normal next week.

- All 8 April 1988 • 5

BACKWARDS

the propaganda 'COME as Robert McLennan and no one will notice you, urged the invitations to the fancy dress party at the Young Llandudno last weekend. But even the Democrats' faceless wonder of a leader would have found it difficult to remain anonymous at the party. Just nine delegates turned up for TC TCL SESS0 OPEre conference (the drunk sleeping Tete aroe fame seafront denied that he was a had turned up, even Mac ennan's experience in organising the SDP's merger talks could hardly have prepared him for a farce in Llandudno. The Mayor of Aberconwy borough, Concillor Victor Williams, arrived at the conference centre on Friday morning to extend the customary welcome to the delegates. Deciuins uat it was beneath his civic dignity to adress eight men, one woman (and no dogs) he turned tail and left. Half way through the first session the woman disappeared as well. Rachel Pitchford, president of the Young Liberals, decided she'd had enough and took the next train home. And then there were eight... What the remaining they made up in retoric. They were particularly incensed that the glory that is the Young Liberals might soon be merged with the Young Democrats.

see it as a poor successor to the Liberal Party,' declared Andy Cooper, the delegate from Colne Valley. 'All I have to say of the months ahead is "abandon ship and row like hell. We can only hope that the lifeboat does not require more than eight pairs of hands at the oars.

THORN

It was a less-than-grand finale for the organisation once dubbed the 'Red Guards', which had been a big thorn in the side of the Liberal establishment. In their heyday the Young Liberals claimed 24 000 members and hogged the headlines with their stance on issues such as South Africa HaW-diors. The Young Liberals were Tormea i aovo py nervert Gladstone 'to train young people for politics, by debates, lectures, demonstrations, the circulation of books and active political work of all kinds through the year. By 1910 the organisation claimed 550 branches nationwide. It declined alone with the party's senior wing, as the Tories replaced the Liberals as the champions of the British cantalist class, sut the sixties revived and transformed the Young Liberals. They became the beatniks of British politics, who worshipped Joan Baez and Jane Fonda, cried 'Judas' when Bob Dylan went electric, grew The Young Liberals' role was cHees au-e bewee ne radical movement and old.

fashioned British politics. They sought to combine the revolt of trudge of a middle class political machine. They evolved what they called a 'dual approach to politics', working 6 • 8 April 1988 war

LAST POST FOR 'RED GUARDS

established structures. They popularised 'community politics', providing a means by which the radicalised middle collective activity without sullying their hands with class struggle. The Young Liberals were prominent in the squatting movement of the early seventies and in organisations such as the Campaign against the Criminal respass Law, Incy nempea vorm the 'Stop the Tour' campaien in 1970 to nrevent the Springboks playing in Britain. They were to the fore in the Anti-Nazi League. They were vocal in calling for British withdrawal from reland. A Young Liberal delegation even met Gerry Adams at Westminster.

BRIDGE

If the Young Liberals were a bridge between radicalism and the status quo, the organisations of the British left were the ones who crossed it.

The left joined many of the campaigns associated with the Young Liberals - from nuclear disarmament to sanctions against South Africa. Left wingers adopted community politics' and the 'dual approach' - combining extrapar lamentary stunts with campaigning for the Labour Party. The left was willing to follow the Young Liberals to gain some respectability. In 1979, on the tenth anniversary of the arrival of British troops on Irish streets, the combined forces of the British left turned out to march behind a handful of Young Liberals on the Time

LU CU UCHOIL CUO!

The left's accommodation persuaded leadine Young Liberals like Peter Hain to join te Labour rary, wiere tey could pursue the same policies with a greater chance of achieving national prominence.

Hain has since played a prominent part in moving the Labour left firmly on to the middle ground. He backed Tony Benn in his bid to be deputy leader in 1981. Two years later he helped organise Neil Kinnock's bid for the leadership of the party, and the rightwards followed it. The recession and the coming of Thatcherite reality signalled the end for both the Young Liberals and the leftwing radicals they influenced.

The new generation of middle class youth din't mind eating Joan Baez (although they preferred Suzanne Vega), but were more interested in looking pursuing community politics.

Not for them a drauehty souat on Elgin Avenue and marching to save the environment; they preferred the comforts of a bijou terrace in Islington and shares in Thatcher's revolution.

The demise of the Young Liberals is symptomatic of the decline of the liberal left. It is a fitting comment on the opportunists of the left that une midoie Class group wilch they once courted as a DONOU COHe COTEe British politics should end up as eight people huddled together in a draughty conference room in a North Wales seaside resort. Kenan Malik last desperate revive Labour's left wing.

It's been Labour left since 1981. When Tony Benn almost beat Denis Healey in the deputy leadership election at the 1981 seemed as if the left was a force to be reckoned with. The Labour lett appeared to have strong support in the party's constituency organisations, and was firmly entrenched in local government. The Greater London Council and city authorities like Liverpool and Sheffield were the left's flagships. Many acuvss were convecca unal was only a matter of time before the left took the

U VC

national level. During the however, it has become obvious that the much-vaunted power of the Labour left was entirely illusory.

parties was bureaucratic manipulation rather mobilising Similarly, lett wingers won power OH themselves nominated as official Labour candidates, because they convinced the voting public to policies. As Labour's leading lett-wing activists were well-trained in wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, proved singularly nept at connecting with the concerns of ordinary people in the world outside of the committee rooms.

HUMILIATION

Because the left did not represent anything but itself, Labour's right wing had little trouble isolating radicals behind him. Kinnock became Labour leader, with the left's support, in 1983, his nartv bureaucraev has inflicted one humiliation after anther on the left without provoking much Lacking Colsaucc. power base of its own, the left has been forced to retreat and to await the coming of its moment of glory.

So as. Benn forward, has the moment arrived?

the al ot discussion about the Benn/Heffer he Tony Benn/Eric Heffer challenge, challenge to Labour Party obscured. leader Neil Kinnock and his deputv Rov Hatterslev Is a gamble downhill for the while Thatcher year's Labour conference, prospects.

SILENT

New mounted against it. ata party last seven years, achelal became Kinnock The left's grip on constituency the of product of influence won through political support. consce ucrices councils because they got and not support left-wing

COSSCUUCICO

but steellnes. become truly ame COnCret

MODEST

Benn and the The aim Since Neil together the public chl y Posid opinion. and Heffer step early media the

ERIC HEFFER: POINTING THE WAY AHEAD — TOWARDS 1945

point has been During the past five years, the wing of the Labour Party which these two represent went along with the Kinnock leadership at every critical moment. Thus, Kinnock Thatcher during last general election campaign, the left kept its head down so as not to undermine Labour's electoral Benn and Heffer certainly had serious reservations about Labour's wholesale adoption of right-wing they never Realism. Yet public any campaign Leading left wingers allowed Kinnock to dictate what Labour said and did, while they stayed silent and tried to avoid being branded as splitters. In the crucial months betore last year's election, Benn himself invisible and allowed to monopolise the presentation of Labour policy.

This inaction means that the left's crucisms ol Amnock nave been mere opinions with no practical Through their silence and refusal to stand up to Kinnock in public, Benn and the rest became accomplices to Labour's drift to the right.

Kinnock has long made clear his determination to accept nothing more than a token presence of the lett in Labour politics. For its part, the Labour left has decided that a token presence is better than none at all. Kinnock had little trouble asserting his authority, since the left lacked public support and influence. Banished to the political the Labour left has increasingly divided of Benn/Heffer the election campaign is to cohere remaining forces of the Labour left. The two Campaign Croup candidates recognise that they cannot win wider influence inside Kinnock's party. They also understand that they are in no to influence public Their objective is more modest. Through their campaign, they hope to rally the old troops and give some sense of purpose to depleted demoralised and TanKS Or mne saDouen

THE BEI

In their challe have put them alternative in that we don't On the day he announced his candidacy, Jonn carve or the Guardian asked Benn why he was standing when he was bound to be defeated. Benn's reply captured the downbeat mood on Labour's left wing today: 'You see we couldn't be at a ,lower point than we are, and so in that sense there is nowhere to go but up. The scorn and contempt poured on people who hold the views I hold, coming from all over the place, has been on such a scale now that there is no such thing as defeat." In other words, the Labour left has already been beaten so badly that it is punch-drunk. Benn's highest hope is that simply showing his old supporters that he is still alive might help them to stay on their feet a little longer.

WAITING

In the absence of anything else to occupy them, it is likely that the Benn/Heffer campaign will attract considerable support from groups further to the left. The far left inside and outside the Labour Party has lacked any direction for some time.

It has been doing little more than wait for something to turn up. No • doubt the far left will now try to something convince itself that important has turned up, and throw its newspapers and posters into the Benn/Heffer effort.

But the left wingers election campaign lacks momentum. It will not be able to the reverse declining fortunes of the old left.

The big problem confronting Benn and Heffer is their lack of any distinctive policies, of anthing new LU SaY. In many respects the Labour left is the most conservative political trend in British society. It hangs on to the discredited Labour policies of the seventies. In their speeches, left-wing •Labour spokesmen like • Senn ane neer never ure

IN/ HEFFER CHALLENGE

CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

ge to the Labour leadership, Tony Benn and Eric Heffer selves forward as the champions of a left-wing ritish politics. It's important, argues Frank Richards, et them get away with it ur

NEIL KINNOCK: HIS ONE SUCCESS HAS BEEN AGAINST THE LEFT

reasserting the values of the 1945 Labour government. In the harsh conditions 1988, such backward-looking orientation can only come across as embarrassing sentimentality. During the Thatcher years Benn particular in Bas ceve osed special gift for providing rhetorical gestures which are meant to serve as substitutes for real policy. Back in May 1985, the left was involved in a post-mortem on the miners' strike and the defeat of the ratecapping campaign, and a debate about where to head as Kinnock stepped up the witch-hunt. Benn's big contribution was to suggest that the left should go backwards: *What we need and should be campaigning for is a refounding conference of the Labour Party just like in 1918, where the unions affiliated for the first time, along with the socialist societies and so on....It may be a mid-term or longterm demand, but the demand for the refounding of the Labour Party as a fully federal and representative body is a legitimate demand for the left to make.' We would have thought that one experience with the Labour Party was more than enough. attempt

LOC-CUB

would, history under disqualify circumstances, being a politician. It is a measure of the dissolute state of much of the left today that such embarrassing ramblings have been strategic proposals. anything become eccentric in

WAG

the excesses of Thatcherism.

inability to upon sorely lacks. of socialists and Christians: line-up Christianity and analyses who capitalism and militarism.'

SCENES

ANOL

the moderating influence avid Kourke to the offensive. unlikely that will Labour left. welcome passes for socialism in Britain.

Benn's

UNDERDOG

70 years of normal him Labourist sentsy the underdog considered as serious During the past year, Benn has if play a even his political pronouncements. For a brief period he their flirted with the ideas of the Greens, assul drue as he groped around for some, any, plausible policies. He is also very within the party. impressed by the revival of the role of the church in British political life.

The decline of the Labour Party has brought church leaders to the during tore lo pose as the conscience of the nation and wag their fingers at The fact that the bishops can play this role is one symptom of Labour's left for oppose the Tory Until recently the Church of England was always considered as the Tory Party at

JOINED

prayer. So desperate is the old left, however, that it is now prepared to this reactionary institution as a potential friend.

Instead of addressing the working far-left Benn looks to Christianity for solutions, in the hope that the moral teachings of the church can find the resonance which Labourism Benn's recent Tawney Lecture, for example, was an attempt to promote an alliance *Looking ahead to the politics of the twenty-first century, worldwide, it is now possible to imagine a new ot forces between those who follow the ethical values of the economic of socialism, and thos synthesis of Christian ethics and socialism indicates the dead end of his left-wing Labourism.

Traditionally it was the capitalist establishment which sought to bring working class protests under of the church, as a way of heading off the class struggle. Now the spokesman of the Labour left offers up this dogooder morality as an alternative realpolitik of the Tories.

Benn is telling us to pray for the capitalist With such a political outlook, it is the Benn/Heffer manage to all the remnants of the It can only expose the left's weakness and its lack of engage.

with the real world. We this exercise in sellexposure, because it will help to clarify the shortcomings of what Despite his political incoherence, Benn has played a critical role in politics. His radical image and his sincere defence of served the nave Labour Party well. From 1980 it was Benn, above all others, who personified the conviction that the Labour Party had the potential to progressive role. Many people who were disillusioned with the last Labour government had faith renewed by the somebody that like Benn could achieve prominence In the early eighties Benn went out of his way to attract the hard left to the Labour Party. Back in June 1981, when the far-lett groups were filling up his election rallies the deputy leadership contest he tod them that they home was back within the Labour Party with him. 'If the left joins the Labour Party, as it were, Benn declared, 'then the influence of the for socialism within the Labour Party is stronger."

His message did not go unheeded.

Many left-wing activists who should have known better joined, or rejoined, Labour's ranks. Other such as the 2luOs Socialist Workers Party, hung on to men organisauonal maepen dence but still threw themselves

TONY BENN: 'NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP'

politics, by into abour Benn to become paigning for deputy leader of the party. As late 1985. Benn Januar rambled on about relaunching the Socialist Worker Labour Party, wrote that 'he has good ideas. Last week the same paper demanded that "active' and 'un- Its readers give compromising support to Benn the Christian soldier's latest crusade.

Benn's ability to harness the energies of the far left to the Labour Party's electoral machine probably his contribution to British politics.

Over the past few years, he has played a critical role in sustaining te wasten tat Labour coulle represent a progressive alternative party. He thereby helped to ensure would face that Labour little pressure from the let and tha Kinnock could do as he pleased.

CONFUSION

Benn has been indispensable in helping to channel the anger of construction of an independent political alternative. He more than any individual has been responsible that the eighties ensuring became decade of political confusion and disarray within the working class. benn and heners campaign should be seen much as a challenge to Kinnoc and Hattersley, but as a restatement of their own irrelevance to the British working class. Pandora Anderson 8 April 1988 • 7

LOSE OUT IN BRITAIN

A flood of recent reports show how black people are still pushed to of the queue for jobs, reports Kenan Malik A report by

LOCCHIL

Commission for Racial Equality showed black teachers were at the bottom of the class when it came to job prospects. A survey of all with a higher than average black population. revealed that just two per cent of teachers were black. Seventy-eight per cent of black teachers were on the lowest scale 1 and I, compared to 57 per cent of white teachers. Just five per cent of black teachers were heads or deputy heads, compared to 13 per cent of whites. The report is the latest in a series which show that even middle class discrimination blacks face of job employment. survey prospects Tor graduates revealed that while eight percent of white graduates were unemployed a year blacks the graduanen. figure was twice as high. Those who obtained work had to settle for more menial jobs than their white counterparts.

CRE

investigation Another showed that almost a third of black doctors have to make more than 10 applications before they get a job.

Black doctors are confined to lowpaid and unpopular jobs; a much higher propo tion work : as locums. In February, the CRE revealed that St George's Hospital medical school in London deliberately discriminated against black applicants. The school used a computer programme to potential

SOCCE

students interview.

TOT

programme, designed to mimic the human assessors it replaced, gave a higher rating to "Caucasian' •What is disturbing students. said about this case, chairman Michael Day, is that discrimination is occurring where one would least expect it, at a medical school with a progressive reputation and a relatively high of ethnic students. These reports show that racism is endemic in British society.

Even middle class blacks face might least racism where they 'M ost techniques used in Britain in the context of race relauons, ports out Elizabeth Burney in last month's Runnymede Trust report, adopted been borrowed or have from the United States.' The riots which shook the American cities in the sixties forced the establishment its attention It tried to stem black relations. dissent by creating a black middle class with a stake in the svstem and introduced affirmative improve the job programmes prospects of blacks. What has been the effect of these • programmes? In 1963 there were 135 elected black politicians. Today there are 7000, with another 60 000 appointed black officials. major city apart from New York is run by a black mayor. There is even black candidate running 8 • 8 April 1988 the that The expect it. The majority of black

CRE

people know only too well what to survey

CXOCCL.

employment prospects published by the last month Trust concluded that the relative position employment minorities remains as bad as, and in some repects worse than, it was when the first Race Relations Act was passed in 1968. Every study conducted in the eighties this out: Lessons from America president. There are a quarter of a managers million black 401521013. and almost teachers professional and technical workers.

Even for this privileged layer of blacks life is precarious. Many who have finally made it into the black middle class, Week survey race Business professionals, economic insecurity."

POVERTY

action' The majority or blacks nave not secured even the precarious gains of the black elite. The gap betwen the black middle class and the rest or te black community is 1986 families received 47.7 per cent of the Every wealth; the bottom fifth received 3.4 per cent — down from 4.1 per cent in for 1980. Since the end of the sixties,

RACISM IN EMPLOYMENT

HOW BLACKS

DESPITE ATTEMPTS TO CLEAN UP ITS IMAGE, BRITISH CAPITALISM IS STILL A RACIST SYSTEM • Employment Black people are concentrated in manual and unskilled jobs.

•OT hack 1981 Labour Force survey found that 31 per cent of black men were Runnymede in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, compared to 20 per cent of white of racial The 1984 Institute survey found that 83 per cent of West Indian and 73 per cent of Asian men workers compared to 58 per cent of bears white men. and poverty 300 000 black million lived below the poverty per cent concluded a recent of black between black *still live in pupils cent 10 years later. growing. one fifth of black layer equality majority policies have brought no change.

• Wages The The Policy Studies paid more. skilled were manual • Unemployment The showed the number of blacks below the 20 ine has increased by per cent while the number of whites has fallen by five per cent. In 1986 31.1 per cent of the black population white men. line. For whites the figure was one in 10. The median black income is still only 57 • Youth of whites' and the gap and white incomes even has increased over the past decade.

The proportion of black high school going to college has fallen from 33 percent in 1976 to 26 per The real lesson from America is that "positive action" has propelled a year olds small layer of the black community into relative affluence. Even for this with counterparts is a pipedream. For the blacks government found jobs by being to PSI survey found that the weekly earnings of fulltime white male employees in 1983 was f129 compared to £109 for West Indians and £111 for Asians.

Within each job level, whites were For example, white workers and manual foremen earned a median weekly wage of £122 compared to £112 for black workers in the same category.

1985 Labour Force survey that the unemployment rate for West Indian men was 23 per cent, more than double the rate for white workers. More than a third of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were unemployed. According to the PSI survey, over half of all black unemployed men have been registered as unemployed for over a year, compared to a third of For young blacks the position is 1984 Labour Force survey showed that 41 per cent of Afro-Caribbeans and 26 per cent of Asians between the ages of 16 and 24 were unemployed compared to 19 per cent of white youth. A study in Sheffield in 1984 found that 73 percent of black 17were unemployed compared to 47 percent of whites.

class. In Birmingham, of the 16-year olds who left school in July 1984, only three per cent of Afro-Caribbeans and seven per cent of Asians had Novembe • Qualifications Shetted senool Dul Ve leavers found that discrimination was greater against more highly qualified blacks. The chances of unemployed lowtor qualified blacks was one and a half times greater than for whites, but nearly three times greater for highly qualified blacks. • Local Authorities A survey in the journal Labour Research last May showed that eyen local. authorities with 'equal opportunity policies continue to discriminate against black people In only two councils - Hackney and Lambeth — did the proportion begin to approach the percentage of blacks in the local area. In every council - including Lambeth and black workers were Hackney concentrated in the lowest grades.

"successes' claimed by Even the councils were a fraud. The GLC introduced a special recruitment policy to increase the number of blacks in the fire service. The proportion of black firefighters increased by 36 percent -from 1.2 to 1.6 per cent. Continued discrimination in the labour market and the failure of policies equal opportunity to combat it has put the anti-racist movement on the defensive. In its 1986 annual report, the CRE notes 'change of emphasis; it now 'concentrated on areas where there is a real prospect of effecting change quickly. n emplovmen this has involved looking at...the professions, at areas such as entry accountancy higher generally? In other words, the CRE has given up any thought of fighting racism and is simply intent on helping a few upwardly mobile blacks. But as its surveys on graduates, doctors and have showr it Is not teaches capable of doing even this.

The Runnymede Trust report argues that the importance of antiracist policies is not to fight racism but to appear to be doing so. "As long as some blacks are regularly accepted [for jobs],' the argues report, rejection of others will not be seen as a racial barrier.

Anti-racists today restrict themselves to calling the government to implement a USstyle policy of "positive action' Black people have had plenty of experience of Tory-style "positive The police killings of action'. Cynthia Jarrett and Clinton McCurbin, the Broadwater Farm showtrials, visa restrictions on black visitors and the refusal of benefits to immigrants — all show that the Tories are not short of ideas about how to treat black people It is simply absurd to expect such lead the fight a government to against racism in the workplace.

The only force capable of taking is not the real anti-racist action Tory government but the working Until anti-racists organise working class defence black rights black workers will continue to find themselves at the back of the jobs queue. the next step

MARTIN

LUTHER

1929-1968 M artin Luther King is the only black man to have one of the USA's tew national holidays named after him, on the date of his birth on 15 January 1929. The son of a pastor from Atlanta's prestigious Ebenezer Baptist King up

COUCH.

prosperous 'sweet' Auburn Avenue, the capital of the black bour- Following graduation scorsic from Morehouse College in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary. having been ordained the previous year into the ministry of the National Baptist Church. He was one of six blacks in a class of 100, and he finished first in his graduating class. He graduated from Crozer in 1951 and received his doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955.

King Coretta Scott mel married on Boston, and they 18 June 1953. King became minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. Known as "the big people's church, its small but influential congregation emanated

1C0 UCCL

ability. The segregation of white supremacist Montgomery jarred King, who had become accustomed to integrated life in Boston. He got involved in the moderate National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, and became the figurehead of the black civil rights movement which grew out of the Montgomery bus boycott.

MOUNTAINTOP

3 April 1968 King On speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, where black sanitation workers gone on strike protest against low pay and the killing of two black garbage men. It was a removed from protest far tradition of civil disobedience and Christian forebearance that been his hallmark. King predicting the success of when his speech took a struggle. different course, but one consistent with career evangelist and civil rights leader: 'I don't know what will happen now. But it really doesn't matter to me now. Because I have been to the mountaintop. I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now.

I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I mav not get there with vou but l want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised I'm not fearing any man. land. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. King's musing almost At 6.08am the next day prophetic. he was killed by James Earl Ray, while the police who were supposed to be guarding him were absent.

Within hours the black ghettos in 125 US cities had erupted in anger and protest. The authorities sent 65 000 troops on to the streets, and 1500 arrests and 38 deaths semblance of order was restored. The local DJs played Brown to keep James people's minds off politics, and the stations replayed old film of King the next step

BOUND

Twenty years after Martin Luther King was assassinated, Alan Harding assesses the life and times of America's leading civil rights campaigner himself calling protest. Right to the end the US estabishment tound a use Martin Luther King. Martin Luther given a public holiday alongside George Washington, not because of reconciliation his strategy worked but because it offered Us

O TI

rulers the chance to reconcile blacks to their oppression. Today the lives of American backs are just as scarred by racism as they were when King made his 'I have a dream' speech in Washington in 1963, or his promised land' speech in Memphis in 1968. King has been feted by the because he sacrificed his life for a tradition that saw racism, not as the hallmark system and the American way of life, but as an evil aberration that could overcome by 1n and self-denial.

CROW

The collapse of the Southern slave economy in the Civil War of 1861-65 did set The blacks free. Northern industrialists who ran the Republican Party soon came to accommodatior Southern Democrats who had championed the slave plantation system. To secure the presidency in 1876 the Republicans promised to curtail civil rights, and re-establish white supremacy. Every man, woman and child lived in dread, under system of legal and was repression known as Jim Crow.

Between blacks were voched. and the Southern nights were lit by the flaming crosses of the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights White Camelia. the From 1900 to 1930 1.4m blacks had left the South, but migration was no escape from oppression. Jim was the Crow' followed the train lines to the industrial centres of the East coast and the Midwest. Only the an Great Depression halted the flood, between 1940 and another 1.6m moved North.

US capitalism prospered on the vicious exploitation of black labour, and on the ethnic divisions in the working class *Jim Crow'. Confronted by a labour movement inspired by the example of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the bosses, the federal authorities and the union leaders combined to break the unity different ethnic backgrounds by unleashing an anti-black pogrom.

In the "Red summer" of 1919, 70 blacks were lynched, and 38 people were killed in the Chicago race riots the same vear

OBSCURED

pervaded every *Jim Crow' life. aspect of social Atlanta outlawed black barbers from cuppingne nair or waite children and women. In Birmingham a 1930 ordinance unlawful for a black person and a white person to play together or in with each ComPany Cueckers TV discrimination such as this served to reaffirm the inferior status of

FOR GLORY?

for peaceful King has been establishment capitalist love American victorious blacks. Second World War every black lived under the with the Crow. It is not surprising that the struggle for civil liberties became the rallying cry of black opposition, that oppression was obscured. black had repercussions for the lives of black people. comprehensive registered for segregated armed forces in the informal Second World War. The demand for labour to supply the war effort brought one million black workers into the factories, and increased the number of employees from 50 000 in 1933 te of the 200000 in in The prosperity of the post-war years led an educated and vocal section of the black population to demand a ticket to the American Dream. The National Association for the Advancemen of Coloured People, been founded in 1910 to put the 1950 case for black professionals and and businessmen, more than tripled its membership between 1934 and 1944.

BIGOTS

embodied in For many strategy of fighting for desegregation through the law courts was slow. The

LOO

income Montgomery, Alabama, was $970 of ot workers boycott began, blacks were Early in 1955 a weary Mrs Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the whites-only section of a bus. Her action led to an almost 100 percent black boycott, which became the national focus rights struggle. King assumed In 1926 the black resistance. challenged

WOWCH

and made goads, truncheons and guns of the state troopers and the Ku Klux other' Klan. They marched into Southern -al Petty cities and took Freedom Rides into 'no-go' areas in clapped-out buses.

New organisations such as the From the 1880s to the

OI JIM

Conference. Halle Taclal

KENNEDY

The US advance to world power Leading Three million service the affront integrated labour black federal archaic respect which had elections, John F Kennedy Kennedy blacks the NAACP's challenging racism, average annual for a black worker in 1955 before the historic bus and barely 2000 registered to vote. break of the civil leadership of sparked which Thousands of black men and Southern he tocus braved the electric The response Vietnam Student Non-violent Coordinating 'No Committee sprang up, constrained neither by the desire for respectability of the old NAACP or the Christian self-restraint of King's Southern Christian Leadership establishment figures King's were quick to recognise talents. They shared his dislike of York deep the - In because it was human dignity, but because it was dil impediment to al market. They wanted to break down the more forms racial discrimination, and King's strategy of non-violent direct action and the he had the black community would be a bulwark against the social unrest that was bound to follow. So when King was arrested on a sit-in protest in the run-up to the 1960 presidential candidate Democratic intervened to secure his release. This action won the black that brought him to the White House slim majority over Republican Richard Nixon.

Kennedy had no intention o or alienating white racist voters. But a few token buy off black workers whose daily The experience told them they had no place in the system. The uneasy of coalition of black groups, with King as its figurehead, began to The of integration was challenged on the right by black entrepreneurs who wanted black capitalist businesses, not seats on white buses, and by radical black nationalists who knew that the system had nothing to offer and who wanted nothing less than an end to oppression.

ot black resistance moved North. In 1964 there were riots in Harlem, in 1965 nine cities, in 1966 in 38 and in 1967 in 128.

many

YOUR

blacks to being called up to fight in up Muhammed Ali when he explained called Vietcong ever me nigger and refused to fight for the oppressor The radicalisation of the black threatened to

HHEOYCHICHEE

SWEET

King aside. He had reaffirmed his commitment to the system by condemning blacks who fought back against white murder squads in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The New commented that Times leaders now respected busines. know Dr King and his people are doing their best to prevent a Godawful revolution. The problem for King was that many back workers knew it too and they did not like it King was forced to adapt to the new mood of militancy. His deeply held Christian beliefs remained, but they were put to the service of a crusade for social justice. In 196, he declared that as long as profit motives and property rights are considered more important thar racism, militarism and people, exploitation *are incapable being conquered. King wanted to see an end to injustice, but he did not want the social revolution this demanded. he need tor social justice was the message he brought to Memphis in April 1968, but his idea of salvation was still on the other side of Jordan

FREEDOM

message we should recall from the past is not King's promise redemption in the promised land, but the pledge by another inspirational black leader to fight for freedom in the present: "Hurl me into the next existence and the descent into hell won't turn me. I'll crawl back to dog his trail forever. They won't defeat my part of a revenge, never. m righteous people who anger slowly, but rage undamned. We'll gather at his door in such number that the rumbling of our feet will make the earth tremble.' Black Panther George Jackson murdered by racist screws while serving an indefinite prison for holding sentence up a petrol station. 8 April 1988 • 9

Patrick Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, Macmillan, £6.95 AS the depleted ranks of the hard left form up for another ritual joust with Neil Kinnock and his dented shield bearers, this detailed account of the fortunes of the left in the Labour Party in the post-war period makes interesting reading. The constitutional reforms of 1980(a new electoral college for the leadership election and mandatory reselection or parliamentary candidates) and the narrow defeat of Tony Benn by Denis Healey for the 1981 deputy leadership are widely seen as the highpoint of the Labour left in recent times. Following the 1983 general election defeat the left fragmented and declined. In Patrick Seyd's words, it displayed ideological uncertainty, programmatic weakless and strategic myopia.' seva is better au describing this phenomenon than he is at explaining it. For example, he notes that in the Benn campaign the left for the first time ever...engaged in an extensive campaign to win the support of the rank and file trade unionists. He doesn't explain why they failed; after all Healey won 62 percent of union votes cast, to Benn's 38 per 10 • 8 April 1988

LABOUR'S LEFT

STRATEGIC

MYOPIA

cent. This wasn't just the block vote at work. The transport workers' union cast its one million votes for Benn, even though those members who were consulted appeared mostly to support Healey.

Seyd gets nearest to the mark when he concludes that the left has suffered from a organisational matters' and a 'poverty of ideas. The very fact that its high-point was marked by organisational changes is testimony to that; but Seyd's own strategic myopia prevents him from hitting the nail on the head. Even though his definition of the left' appears to apply at times to everbody in a broad church from Militant to Bryan Gould, his own sympathies are obviously with the current leader. This is not a good vantage point from which to explain the left, because its demise has been no more than part of the demise of the Labour Party generally. It was difficult for Benn to appeal to rank and file trade unionists in 1981 of the Labour Party since betrayal. Benn himself had been a cabinet the Labour minister in governments which put the boot in. It should have surprised nobody that there was little reviews letters interest in the internal power struggles of a party which had consistently failed to deliver the goods. Benn himself acknowledged as much last week, at the start of the current contest, when he said that Labour's incomes policy was the least socialist thing we ever they threw did, for which us out in 1979. The enthusiasm for the 1981 campaign came from the influx of young middle class radicals in the late seventies. sevd charts a dramatic decline in party membersnie trom 1964 onwards. This was the seventies as the post- '68 generation of university and polytechnic graduates and the more radical of the feminists enrolled. Some working class militants joined up too, mostly employed in the public sector or by trade unions. Transfixed by the weight of the structures tney nau enterca, mese elements never provided fighting party or for a left-wing challenge to the control of the leadership and ine unions. Many o them are now comfortably gathering around the realigned centre of the Seyd records that party. after Benn's narrow David defeat, Margaret Beckett bitteriv denounced the traitors' who let him down. Last week she left the Campaign Group in protest at Benn's new campaign. If Benn has learned little , Seyd seven eds. has learnt nothing. His prescriptions for the left are coded but clear. He suggests that the market does play a significant role in stimulating the economy]'. He criticises the left for avoiding the 'politically sensitive issue of incomes policy. He highlights the 'very analysis' required to pursue LabourS Hon nuclear defence policy. student of politics to realise that Seyd is in favour of 'social ownership', incomes policy and staying in Nato. This was the substance of kinnocks 1987 election campaign, thrashing. Sevd's book contains much useful information and statistics about the Labour Party and the fortunes of its left factions, but his own poverty of ideas is such that ne cannot erasp the point which stares him in controlled by a labour bureaucracy committed to the existing order, the left is doomed to be a 'gadfly' pressure group, or to follow former left wingers like Kinnock and Beckett into the mainstream of the party. Jon Hann 19 years of shoot-to-kill I'D LIKE to comment on the shoot-to-kill policy which the British authorities have used for the last 19 years in Ireland. Remember 1969 when the RUC and the B' specials attacked the Divis flats and Bombay Street in Belfast, accompanied by hundreds of Loyalists. They were burning and looting nationalist homes. Dozens were killed and many wounded. The same was happening in Derry. It was then that Republic of Ireland prime minister Jack Lynch made his famous speech: 'We shall not stand idly by and let the nationalist people be murdered. What did he Write to tns, BCM JPLta, London,

WC1N 3XX

Nuclear nightmare THE EEC has begun an investigation into illegal activities at nuclear installations throughout Europe, uncovering alarming evidence of serious violations of safety procedures. What emerges is an industry unable to cope with the sheer scale of the problems posed by nuclear waste disposdi The EEC watchdog will receive little help from the Tory government. Britain is expected to refuse to reveal safety arrangements at Sellafield, on the grounds that tney die d matter of national security. do? Nothing except send a few ambulances to the Border to collect a tew o the wounded January 1972 came along and the British Parachute regiment shol dead 14 civilians. The Derry coroner, himself a former British Army officer, described the killings as 'murder, bloody murder. But no charges were ever brought against the paras. In 1982 five unarmed republicans and a young down by the shoot-to-kill squads. When Stalker was ready to expose the RUC the British government removed him. And it happened again in Gibraltar where three Again on Aids in Africa THE reply by Don Milligan (letters, 4 March) to my comment on tre lacist fallacy in the Aids campaign misses the point. My challenge to tns is to provide a Tacied alternative interpretation of what Milligan asserts as fact, namely the alleged African origin of the Aids virus. I do not contest the evident fact that there is a serious epidemic in central Africa. But I have drawn attention to the possibility of a connection between Aids and the presence of considerable numbers of white tourists in the satan nolady lures and the American military bases in some parts of Africa. It is this connection that I wish to highlight but which both left and right in the West continues to ignore In the absence of hard right to claim, as Milligan aoes, uat it seems linely The Tories estimate that with another five or six nuclear power stations in operation, they would be able to withstand any future miners' strike. Workers in the nuclear industry will suffer from privatisation, and the government's need for cash to build new reactors (there will be hardly any private investment because there are no short-term gains to be had). Nuclear power repubicans wert murdered by SAS gunmen. this day, and the Brits now know that they can shoot down Irish men and women witout diy objection from the Free State government. Tony Frankland Prison the virus originated in Africa. In view of the prevalence of the disease among specific social groups in the West, groups which are non existent in Africa, or insigniticant in numbers it seems more likely that the aisease originated ir the West and subsequently spread to Africa, where poor medical facilities made things worse An Englishman of simple liberal disposition intrigued me with his conviction that Aids might be a secret invention o the right-wing moral backlash in the West, designed to frighten homosexuals into sexual conformity. I thought that was ridiculous. I am sure you will agree. But, ridiculous or not, it may help to draw attention to the real place of origin of Aids Tunde West Yorkshire workers will see their wage claims held down, and are likely to consider strike action for the first time this decade. A major initiative must be mounted to make contact with these workers. With their support the miners could have won, and winning their support now would be a major weapon against Thatcherism. Liverpool the next step

he Fight Alton's Bill campaign (FAB) is the latest victim of the New Realism trap. New Realism is the dominant trend in labour movement politics today. assumes that left-wing ideas and militancy are no longer Class viable, and that the best way to achieve something is to present a respectable campaign with realistic" — moderate - demands. he dire consequences of New Realism can best be seen in the trade union movement (see page 4). Now the infection has spread to the fight for women's rights.

MODEST

FAB was set up by the National Abortion Campaign in October 1987, shortly after David Alton announced his bill to reduce the upper time-limit on abortion from 28 to 18 weeks. Since its formation in 1975 the National Abortion Campaign has formally stood for abortion on demand, the decriminalisation of abortion and adequate facilities to allow all women access to NHS abortions. However, FAB was designed with a more limited brief ts aim was to cohere the possible widest support on the basis. of defending the existing Campaign abortion

CONCLUS

organisers argued that it unrealistic in the current political mobilise Tor anything more radical than the status quo. FAB's approach soon revealed several big problems. First, while FAB set itself the limited objective of defending the current law against a reduced timelimit, Alton and his supporters launched propaganda

WICCI

offensive against a woman's right to have an abortion. Alton made it clear that in his view, all abortions were murder.

He has taken every opportunity to outline his belief in the absolute right to life from conception. He was prepared to compromise on a reduced time-limit in order to win wider support. But his campaign idea nas centred on the abortion is an abomination, which should DC sufferance in the most restricted circumstances possible. The lobby behind the Alton Bill has put on a no-nonsense display of bigotry, led such openly anti-abortion DV organisations as Life and Spuc. It has helped to create a fiercely antiabortion climate in which, according to opinion polls, majority of people in Britain now favour further abortion rights.

PRAGMATIC

While Alton was more than clear about his opposition to all abortion, FAB seemed less than about its for clear

SUODOLL

woman's right to abortion. Instead countering the anti-abortion O1propaganda with the reasons why women need the right to abortion, the campaign organisers decided on a pragmatic shift of their own.

They felt that any hint of militant for campaigns abortion on demand would only alienate people.

they Instead, hoped to support the 'soft' way, by stressing the problems that the Alton Bill would cause for those women who would attract the public sympathy. The campaign organisers reasoned that even people generally might hostile abortion sympathetic in cases where the baby would be severely deformed.

So FAB's main argument against Alton became that amniocentesis tests to detect fetal handicap could not be carried out until 18 weeks.

Alton's Bill therefore discriminated unfairly against older women who were more likely to have handicapped babies The plight victims of rape and incest and of young women who concealed their pregnancies were also promoted as arguments against Alton. This argument did nothing to undermine Alton's campaign. In a the next step It was

MANY ACTIVISTS HAVE BECOME DEMORALISED

that on the on way FAB was helping Alton to remove legitimacy from many late abortions. By finding special cases where abortion should be allowed (cases of fetal abnormality, rape.

FAB's incest. etc), implicitly accepted instances of late abortion make up the vast majority of them — were less legitimate. Many FAB acuvisis were Ioorea when Alton agreed to adjust his bill to deal with the problems of rape victims, and even suggested that comoromises cases ol nandicap. revealed that the time-limit might be altered from 18 to 24 weeks in the house of commons committee stage. thus allowing in among some FAB supporters.

Without taking the on about on abortion STrICTIon unacceptable restriction on women's rigals, wacy were running out good reasons why Alton should be opposed. At recent women's conference in London, for example, the workshop run by FAB was dominated by of looked like being modified they didn't know how against it. The second problem with FAB's campaign is that, by setting out to current abortion

NO. T

ALTON

YES TO

CHOICE

FAB

HOW NOT TO STOP ALTON

ISN'T FIGHTING

Anne Burton looks at the crisis of the campaign to stop David Alton's anti-abortion bill against Alton, they have become champions of itself restricts women's access to abortion. The 1967 Abortion Act does not give any woman the right approach to an abortion. that other remains illegal unless two doctors - walen convinced that requesting medical conditions. Doctors can if abortions he might pregnancy will injure the physica or mental health of the woman or When it was any of her existing children, or if the fetus would develop into a severely Doctors also have time for refuse to refer , etc, panic set abortions because it offends their own conscience. central

DENIES

any wasan must be carried out in licensed premises that health provide those facilities. The 1967 student Act gave doctors the right to carry

- OUL

defined women circumstances. women no rights at all. It makes no to base woman's right to terminate an unwanted defence of a law that specifically denies women that right. law Leading

WHY FAB

legislation which Under the current law abortion to the it meets specified perform only continuing the abortion in handicapped baby medical the right to for women women abortions At a The law specifies that abortions the control - but it does not specify authorities grounds of areas, abortions in certain strictly It ga ve City the fight for by pregnancy the give abortions on FAB organisers have for strictly Pandora But win. the argued that defending the 1967 Act is a first step in fighting for the abortion rights that women need.

Judith Arkwright, a member of the FAB steering committee, argues in Socialist Outlook that by fighting defend the 1967 Act we can build a successful movement to defeat Alton and begin to alter the balance of forces towards women fighting for what we really want."

Unfortunately this is not the case.

By fighting to defend the premises of the 1967 Act we lay ourselves open to more and more attacks.

The The act puts decisions about the hands of the fight establishment. Consequently the state does not even need a bill like Alton's to deny recent Spuc rally a gynaecologist from Northumberland could boast that no abortions took place in her area because of sary of anti-abortion gynaecologists opting out on . In many conscience health authorities have imposed their own arbitrary timelimits and criteria for abortions, to the help them cope with NHS cuts. An "Abortion Service Protocol' issued and Hackney Health Authority states that they will only to women aged between 16 and 40 who are over 12 weeks pregnant if it is carried out medical reasons. In other words, in Hackney the upper time-limit on abortions for healthy under the 1967 Act is women already 12 weeks - much lower than Alton could hope to get on to the statute books today. A recent house of lords committee was so impressed with existing administrative restrictions on abortion that it decided that there doesn't need to be a legal time-limit at all.

DOWNWARD

The third problem with FAB's realistic' approach is that it has focused the campaign on possible ways of stitching the Alton Bill up current law by default. This has had a demobilising effect on the campaign and reduced the many women who want to fight Alton to the status of passive spectators After all. what's the point of organising demonstrations,

•COM

ferences and protests if you believe Alton's fate rests with the debating skills of Jo Richardson and a handful of MPs? This approach has prevented FAB from consolidating support. Instead of building up momentum,

-SHE

campaign has declined. You only have to compare the two demonstrations called by FAB to see the campaign's downward The trajectory demonstratior called the eve of the bill's second reading in January wildly exceeded the organisers expectations. It was planned as a small, symbolic, torchlit womenonly march to provide an evening photo-opportunity for the press thousands

WUSS CE

turned up than were expected. The atmosphere of the march was angry and forward looking.

• These ouu0 women wanted to nant to . The most popular slogan on march was •Women need - stop Alton's Bill. By contrast, last month's march was disappointing. It was called as major demonstration on Saturday afternoon, and Wal supposed to have been the focus of a four-month mobilisation in the student and trade unions. But the demobilising effects of the official campaign made themselves felt. The march was only half as big again as the torchlit photo-call with half the anger

RIGGING

Without a clear set of arguments against Alton or a clear public focus for the campaign it was impossible for FAB to convince people that the fight was worth up a Saturday afternoon giving for. If you're out to defend the status quo, and if you identify parliament as the main arena for battle. then individuals with influence who can fix things with a word in the right ear take on extra Things mass so ance demonstrations become an interesting side show, superfluous to the main business of rigging parliamentary debate. If we are to beat Alton we need to review the campaign strategy.

We have to face up to the fact that support has been demobilised over the crucial last four months.

thousands of women who came to our first meetings eager to for abortion rights have disappeared from the scene. Many activists have become demoralised.

many are confused about what to argue as the bill changes its shape in committee. The FAB steering committee's answer is to focus on selebrating the twentieth annivers This glorification of our lack of control over our lives can only be a death warrant for the campaign The Revolutionary Communist Party has argued from the start of campaign that the only effective way to fight against Alton is to build a movement against all restrictions on abortion rights including those imposed by th current legislation. Those who are about fighting Alton should take the opportunity to start this fight before it's too late.

8 April 1988 • 11

the next step Irish Freedom Movement Dayschool

TIME TO END

THE IRISH WAR

6. 1 Sunday 17 April 10am - 6pm North London Polytechnic Prince of Wales Road Kentish Town, London NW5 (Camden Town or Kentish Town tube ) £3 waged/£1.50 unwaged Creche facilities available Sessions include: • From Gibraltar to Belfast: Britain's war strategy today • • The problem of Loyalism • The myth of the 'religious conflict' • Why Britain stays in Ireland • Ireland, South Africa, Palestine: British imperialism against the oppressed

TROOPS OUT NOW!

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE IRISH PEOPLE!

Phone (01) 729 0414 for more information