MINERS' STRIKE... ... see back page was the direct result of sabotage of Peter Tatchell's campaign by the right wing of the Labour leadership: * for organised to force his Labour Party to select a different candidate; * Bermondsey's electoral address and first press conference were scrapped by Party officials: * Militant's editorial board was expelled the day before polling.
The sabotage shows the bankruptcy of attempting to compromise with the right wing. The right wing of the leadership does not want to win an election on Labour's socialist conference policies. They will pull any stunt to sink the possibility of socialist victory.
Yet the derisory vote for O'Grady in ship's right wing.
biggest leaders who:
of the right wing stead of conference. the voters had no loyalty at all to the old Labour machine politicians.
The press smear campaign against Tatchell would not have been possible without the witch-hunt and harassment he received from the party leaderBermondsey showed that Labour's liability is those right wing * Divide the party with expulsions, attacks on local parties and interfere with democratic selection procedures, inleading a united struggle against the Tory government; * Discredit Labour by openly stating that they will not carry out the overwhelmingly carried decisions of party These same leaders will take the redouble their attacks on the left and on socialist policies. It was the leaders like these - Healey, Shore, Hattersley et al - who dominated the last Labour government and who led that government to defeat by breaking its links the trade unions disastrous incomes policy. social expenditure and passivity in the face of rising unemployment.
Today they would even coalition with the Liberal/SDP Alliance to a Labour government that fought the British establishment to carry through socialist policies adopted by Party conference.
The peace treaties in the party have been entirely one-sided. The left can no longer afford them and neither can the their cuts in over pit closures.
prefer a clearly as ment and tion laws.
left.
responsibility the basis for a right for years. leadership Listing policies membership!
tory:
ment people -comes policy • For full employment week. • For women's rights Fighting for ward. Tories, but it is not by the Labour party keeping quiet about the socialist alternative. The Thatcher government is on the defensive over nuclear weapons. They have just suffered a defeat at the hands of the waterworkers. Now they are being challenged by the miners There is an enormous well of disgust and hatred for the Tories which Labour can tap - by siding with those in struggle against the Tories, by coming out the champion of the unemployed, the peace movement, trade unionists fighting for a living wage and for jobs, the women's movethe black communities harassed by the vicious new immigraBut the right wing will have none of it, and Foot himself capitulates to them at each crucial turn of events. Instead of a bold fight against the Tories we have only the witch-hunt against the If Labour voters are confused, then no wonder! Instead of a party united around a clear alternative which offers a way forward from Thatcherism, they see a vicious war, which is entirely the of the right wing Capitulating to the right will not win Labour the election - and it will create continuation of the witch-hunt and the dominance of the The existing policies, and membership hopeless slogan - a whole section of the leadership is trying to smash the exand the existing After the expulsion of the Militant leaders and the sabotage of Bermondsey the left must re-organise around the fundamental plans for a Labour vic• For a full and unequivocal commitment to unilateral nuclear disarma• For a Labour government which raises the living standards of working no cuts, no statutory inLa Labour government must introduce a 35 hour • Against Tory immigration laws.
these policies and defeating the witch-hunt is the way for-
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