ABERDEEN: SC available at Boom SUNDERS let Chast aside Bos 105500 He from tral Sia He contact Joni Youngion. I% Fumest Crescent s Eller Ci ni. Hamilton or Wales JEWORT: every Sat in town sente PONTYPRIDO: 5C sales every Sa SWANSEA: SC England par cutside she Koman Bath BIRKENHEAD: SC Labour Club, cleveland sale ar precinct IRMINGHAM, SC on sale at The reinto phone se BOLSOVER, Cros Keys, every Fri *PaTrones 10 Chelentam sale every sat 12.30pm COVENTRY: SC availisie from ailable ar Peacework LEEDS: Sat Heading Andite Cd 10. 30.12 TOm NoW on hate from Nawa MANCHESTER a T. a S tom Nowhere * precine and at Metro Beckon SHEFFIELD: 3C STAFFORD: SC on Sale Marker Sa SWINDON: SC on t London BRENT: SC wold Willesden Junetic at 10.30 2 die Waterin Gabridge tube Mation ones, Chiphem: Paperback Cen vian: Oval tube kiosk, Also so Bookshops BANGOR: Holyhead Fourth Idea Hock BRIGHTON: The Pablic Hoose, Lit BEST Farmarks, Tid Cheter BIRMINGHAM: Cher bookshop DURHAM, City Coun FORD So Fee Bobshon 139 MILTON KEYNES: Oakieat Books OXFORD: BOA Boaks, 14 Cowley Following the wave of media interest in Tariq Ali's application Labour Party, Socialist Challenge asked Steve Potter, national secretary of the International Marxist Group, for his views on the controversy.
There are two major raised by comrade that his resignation is not of 19 November implied Morning Star report part of a sophisticated plot Tarig resigned from the IMG to the Labour Party against our advice.
SELe HITSE question whether Marxists should Labally Pere i Co basis Labour Constituwhatsoever for the threats of the Labour leadership to exclude Tariq from the Many proscribed organisation.
Nor is there any party rule specifying that former members of revolutionary BEEn NaTE should te cant their views, or stand in the corner repeating "1 must believe in parliamentary democracy (as Neil Kinnock MP sug gested in a letter to the Guardian) before being a Some Labor Mes Labour clusion because views on parnamentary democracy But never have Labour members been obliged to believe that parliamentary activities alone could bring about socialism.
to the distribution thereof that may be possibe upon i basis ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system popular administration and control of each in dustry or service The IMG, and LOUSE fight for clause 410 be im Lane will plemented. This is more Dham: GM COOKSON than can be said, I suspect for most of the Labour leadership. have пО alter native but to consider standing our own candidates in elections to present our ideas to working people.
This is then used as a basis to justify our continued exclusion from the party, even mouen on th few occasions, where we have stood IMG салdidates have always called for the election of LOCALIEN council, and will continue to do so as a class vote while Labour remains the mass party of the working class.
Tony Benn -candidate for expulsion?
I think there is a slightly artificial division between what's called purliamentary politics and grassroots industrial politics. We must have both. I've never believed that change is triggered off at the top Change always begins permeates inrough to the top. what is going on, but they don't actually determine the way issues develop. Insofar as the Labour Party has become an electoral organisation through revisionist leadership, to that extent it has failed its historic purpose. activity and struggle with a process of persuasion that historical method by which the labour movemen. has advanced in the past and the way in which it has to do so in the future.
Tony Benn, Challenge, 25 September 1980 £5.50 tional, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Tariq Ali at the recent 'debate of the decade in London The argument on interWHETORE affiliations even more absurd. From ine very outser socialists have organised on an infront the Capians system This even more essential in the •CTE multinationals, NATO and the EEC The Labour Party itself affiliated to the Second International for the same reason. It is therefore inevitable that other trends ment would have internathe bottom The votes in the House of Commons indicates "The combination of industrial and community majority is the interview with Socialist tional affiliations the early Communist Party the Third Interna tional, and the IMG with the Fourth International.
None of these excluSionary argumena are applied to the right wins 10S100 the who organise openly tions like the Labour Committed atlantic Understanding who, like Frank Field MP call for desclected MPs to SLane - Labour candidates Other wingers like George Cunningham MP for islington South, are BIYCHI important parliamentary sibilities by the part leadership, while openly admit their possible defection the Democratic Party The Labour Party claims to want to unite all those fighting for the inwelcome the IMG, the CP and the SWP into its ranks to strengthen the united struggle for socialism? Why does it only let the right wing organise inside the party Michaci Foot and the Labour leadership epeatedly appeal for pa ty unity. The left shoul reply by demanding an end to witch hunts and exclusion: and insisting tha he Labour Party shoul be opened up to all ge nuine currents of working class opinion both Mark ist and non-Marxist.
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If so, why does pipe If so,