An interview with Keith Veness

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Party. coming against The conducted North Islington Healey? attempts were also made to right.

cancelled. by what you do.

Anti-fascist demonstration in Brick Lane reinstated from a not pathetic NEC.

You must retain the right to be a member pending appeal/ NEC ratification. As it is you could be prevented from standing as a councillor, for instance, through the delay.

It's also shown North Islington to be more and more out of step with the general radicalisation going on in the Labour This is clear from Annual Conference-other delegates are much younger and put forward different kinds of policy. Don't you think the slowness of the NEC to act came from their fear of a strong left alternative in N. Islington?

No, it's rather that the NEC are afraid of upsetting the status quo.

It comes from the parliamentary tradition, the belief of the left in the possibility of gradual change, their unwillingness to use tactics the right would have no hesitation in using against them.

They really believe that the right to elect the leader of the party at Conference will be won by degrees.

TIFER 100 IPCM ROLS! Labour conference delegates You don't see the left as scared by the impetus of a real fight to throw out the right wing?

it may be true of the Mikardos -not the Dennis Skinners. In fact without a sharp immediate fight you won't be able to remove the right-nor in fact to mobilise support to do it.

What do you see as the key questions to take up in the Labour Party now?

The key question is accountability. The machinery to get rid of an MP is tremendously cumbersome.

You won't be able to choose the best people-it shouldn't require a vote of no confidence.

You can't begin to fight for what you want if you still have representatives who have no intention of carrying out the decisions.

Conference decisions mean nothing because they're ignored.

Whare is the 'sharp immediate fight' then?

The immediate question is the return of a Labour government.

Why do you support SCLV rather than the Socialist Press line of fighting for the kicking out of the Callaghan/Healey I'm not against removing Callaghan and Healey.

The SCLV aims to unite various left groups in the Labour Party for a positive, socialist vote for the Labour It's an attempt to fight those on the left who abstain or work separately-to force them to take a position.

The return of a Tory government would be an enormous setback-you wouldn't get any clarification in the Labour Party then.

Don't you see it as around the strikos actually goin' the pay policy and redundancies, etc. and to link that to the fight to throw out Callaghan and That assumes all the splinter fights can be brought together. I don't think they can.

As long as there's a Labour government it's quite clear where everyone stands-but it won't be if the Tories get in.

At the moment no one doubts that Callaghan is on the What is your opinion Socialist Press policies on Your programme is determined The crucial question is what you do in practice-you've got passive view.

It's necessary not just to denounce MPs but to organise to kick them out, to get candidates who will fight for alternative policies, and for an alliance of forces to achieve that.

There's nothing in the SCLV campaign that Socialist Press could disagree with-if there is you should say so.

We regard SCLV as too bluntedged. It lacks that 'sharp immediate fight' SCLV organised far more meetings than you around Fords, and around Brick Lane against the ANL.

It was SCLV that put forward the resolution against the 5% at the Labour Party Conference and for the abolition of all immigration controls, against the sus charge, and for self-defence. against It's the first time in 20 years that the debate on race has moved to the left, and that's because the people speaking were those who'd been involved in the front line.

That forced the exposure of Alex Lyons who's always been paraded as a left on race.

He landed up saying every village in Bengal was teeming with people ready to come here.

SCLV is central in the Hackney and Tower Hamlets Defence Committee-Patrick Kodikaree is one of our members.

Only a few hundred rather than 2,000 would have marched against the fascists while the ANL were off at their carnival — if it wasn't for us.

Then why didn't you fight to set up defence squads in the How to fight Veness East End-which " the WSL fought for and campaigned for in a number of ways?

We did organise defence in Brick Lane-the march was it.

The majority of Bengalis believe in the police and were asking for more police protection and visiting the Bangladeshi High Commission-that was the level You're only going to build defence squads out of the successful defence of the areaflushing out the NF..

SCLV had a much better record than anyone else. But the Bengalis-especially the youth-were already calling for nd carrying out self defence he crucial fight was to forc the local Labour parties and trade unions to take that upbuild systematic defence squads-lists of volunteers ready to come out at any time.

We alsc aisaoree witt the way SCLV embraces the left: rather than exposing them. The evolutionary strategy involve breaking the working class from the "lefts" as well as from the right.

Yes, of course, but you have to mobilise people round a parti ular campaign you have to have an organisation an orot iatiy lefts do support • NO many • letts the SCLV because it is so hard e.g. on Ireland.

It is our method to put these people on the spot, and that's not something tacked on to the end of the programme-it's the core of it.

The key question is whether it's possible to form an agreement on a minimal programme to unite the forces to carry this •Wenty moviet came thai evidently the WSL doesn't. Tha is what we have to discuss. Available (price 30p plus London NW5 1HR

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Sit-down strikers take it easy inside a car plant understanding the tactical entry into the Socialist Party in the US in 1936.

Before going into the details and consequences of the entry into the American Socialist Party it 1S necessary to answer two questions.

What were the objective conditions in the struggles of the working class in America at that time, and what was the nature of the Socialist Party itself in the mid-1930s?

The world crisis of capitalism, known euphemistically as 'The Depression', ' had hit the American working class most severely of all.

Unemployment fluctuated between 17%-22% of unionised.

Many of the politic: conscious layers of milita rejected the ingrai Stalinism and degenerat of the American Commu But the newly-fu Trotskyist Workers Pa was still tiny and only j turning to mass work al several years as a pur propaganda group.

This leads to the secc question-the nature of Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party 1 split twice, in 1919 : 1921, as part of the ea development of the Communist Party. • Its membership dwind and it degenerated into ‹ of the world's shabbi expressions of social der cracy.

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