Step up Fight to Oust Labour's Tories

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Every opportunist, every defender of this government's record of strikebreaking, wage-cutting and social service wrecking will attempt to portray the increased Labour vote in the Hamilton by-election as a vote for their reactionary policies. But. they will be drastically and dangerously wrong.

The support for Labour came in spite of and in no way because of Labour's record in attacking the working class.

It came as a class response by workers, seeking to defend their rights and living standards through their traditional organisations.

And it highlights the necessity to step up the fight in every area to drive out those sections of. the Labour leadership that defend the anti-socialist Lib-Lab coalition and who stand openly aligned with the interests of the employers and British imperialism against the requirements of the working class.

Abstentions

Unless this fight is taken up, thousands of workers who have been driven into demoralisation and apathy by four years of Labour betrayals will abstain at the next General Electionopening the door for a further reactionary Lib-Lab coalition, or a Tory victory.

There is no doubt that a firm fight taken up now within the trade union and Labour movement for a socialist programme on which to fight the next election would attract the best and most class conscious sections of workers.

The swing from the Scottish •Nationalists to Labour at Hamilton marks an increasing awareness within the working class of the danger of the return of a Tory government with policies even to the right of those pursued by the hated Heath cabinet.

Ally with The Scottish Nationalists (who held a party convention during the actual campaign at Hamilton, and whose leading spokesman Margo MacDonala was the candidate) were clearly and correctly identified by workers as a capitalist party which would ally with Tory attacks on jobs, living standards, social services and the nationalised industries.

But while these questions are easily understood, the task remains of establishing an alternative to the capitalist policies pursued by successive Labour governments.

However much workers hate and despite Thatcher, the bitter memories of Labour's military scabbing on the firemen's strike: the hospital closures, the education cuts, the continuing huge unemployment figures, the handouts to private capitalists, the historic cuts in workers' living standards, the immigration laws, and the vicious repression of the Irish working class, all stand as obstacles to a Labour victory.

The coalitionist Callaghan leadership that has imposed these policies on the labour movement must be driven from office. We call on all readers and supporters to join with us in the fight for trade union branches and Labour GMCs to take steps to ensure that the Labour Party conference is recalled prior to the General Election, and the Callaghan Healey slightest sign of such a fight we extend both critical support and the demand that they press further and fight for a socialist programme based on the Demand Healey abolition of wage controls, restoration of all cuts in social service spending, a crash programme of public works to create new jobs, and nationalisation of the banks and major industries.

In this way we can demonstratę that the lefts' are incapable of seriously challenging the right wing or solving in Parliamentary fashion the problems faced by the working class.

In these fights within the mass organisations of the working class important steps can be taken towards the construction of the revolutionary party that alone can resolve the problems of the working class through the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a planned, socialist economy.

Mikardo The Socialist Workers Party have launched yet another right to. work march which started in Liverpool on 30 May and is due to arrive in London on 13 June.

It is clear that yet again

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