'Lefts' stand aside as TUC talks go on

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Skinner? He, along with Neil Kinnock, was one of the 'new broom' left wingers elected to Labour's National Executive by constituency parties this year.

As a member of the NEC Callaghan :

For the Tories, it must For the Tories, it must have been a frightful sight. ave been a frightful sight.

In the midst of a national strike at Fords-centrepiece of a wages movement that could yet bring down the Callaghan government-the mummified he was mandated by vote of conference to take part in a campaign against the government's 5% pay limits.

But last week, as TUC leaders in the midst of the Ford strikes trooped in to Downing Street to attempt to patch up a means of controlling wages which is less brazen and contentious than the 5% Phase 4 ceiling, not a whisper of opposition was to be heard from Skinner or his 'left' colleagues in the "Tribune' group.

Rapidly forgetting his demagogic statement at the Tribune rally that "we have got to get rid of the pay policy once and for all" Skinner has retreated to the sidelines while union leaders and the right wing Callaghan cabinet discuss new means of holding back workers' pay demands.

. No doubt as the outcome of these talks is implemented by the TUC and Labour leaders, Skinner will, if pressed by sections of workers in struggle, turn up now and then and offer them a left' speech condemning Callaghan's policies.

But if such talk is separated from an all-out campaign now within the Labour Party to drive out the Callaghan-Healey leadership, it means nothing.

The kind of feeling now running through the trade union movement on this issue was refelcted last week in the "left' speech given by the London Confed Secretary Bill McLoughlin to the rally in support of the Fords strike.

Pointing .out that Callaghan and Healey are now the mavericks of the labour movement, pursuing a policy rejected by individual unions, the TUC and the Party conferenee, McLoughlin called for them to be removed from office.

And he went on to call for other sections of workers to prevent the iso-. lation of the Fords strike by coming out on their own pay claims at once.

If top bureaucrats such as McLoughlin are making such statements, then clearly there must be a growing willingness within the working class to fight for this perspective.

Rather than develop and strengthen this movement, offering a concerted campaign to drive out Callaghan and Healey, Skinner and his fellow NEC lefts' have already junked Labour conference policy and effectively washed their hands of the In demanding they break from this position and lead a serious fight inside the Party and the unions, more and more workers will see for themselves the inadequacy of left' talking reformism in the struggle for socialist policies to defend the independent interests of the working class. LABOR Skinner British imperiailist British imperiai list troops repressing Irish and repressing irish and other workers, and to increas workers, and to increase the armed forces.

And the entire body of large and small businessmen, shareholders, landowners and assorted. over-paid well-heeled

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PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Wiard,