Kick Outcallaghan Fight for a Socialist Alternative

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MARCH FOR 150,000 French workers march on Paris-see back page As we go to press there seems a slim chance that the Callaghan-Healey •government might scrape through Wednesday's vote of confidence by the skin of its Cond the Election be postponed it would be little consolation to the working class. While no worker wishes to see the Tories come to power, Inla wretched Labour cabinet, comprising scabs, collaborators, careerists and torture-chief Mason, is good for nothing..

Its five-year record of wage controls, mass unemployment and cuts in the social services have antagonised thousands of the working class supporters that put Labour into power hoping for socialist policies after the miners had brought down Heath's hated Tory government.

Sickened

Callaghan's present Parliamentary minority is itself the product of successive by-election defeats in which sickened Labour voters, seeing Callaghan offer nothing but plunging living standards, crumbling social services. and growing dole queues, stayed at home or even cast protest votes for other parties.

As a minority the Callaghan clique has continued to rule only by the most reactionary deals and alliances.

The Liberal Party's decision last year to break up the anti-socialist Lib-Lab coalition deal was followed by a succession of squalid back-stage manoeuvres with the "tartan Tories" of the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Then more shameful st came deals with the Uls Unionists to legislate the cons idation of British imperial rule in the occupied six count Having pulfed back from October election Callaghan n forced to pursue this wheeli and dealing while working mig and mane to force home fourth phase of wage control:

the 5% limit..

Yawning gulf

But a massive wave of working class resistance-beginning with the Fords strike and lasting through to the present Civil Service pay struggles-exposed more vividly than ever before the yawning gulf between the pro-capitalist policies of the Callaghan government and the mood of the working class.

The result is that even while the diversionary "devolution" charade collapsed around their ears, the usefulness of the Callaghan cabinet to the capitalist class as a mechanism for controlling the working class dwindled to vanishing point.

Now anxious to get her hands directly on the windpipe of the working class, Thatcher has moved in for the kill, confident that Callaghan has driven away sufficient Labour voters to ensure a Tory victory.

£700m cuts A sample of the policies to be pressed home by a Tory government was revealed in Thatcher's speech on the weekend, where she looked forward to cutting at least £700 million off public expenditure-even while boosting spending on the armed forces and the police.

These well paid state thugs would no doubt be kept busy: Thatcher also proposes to attack trade union rights on picketing and the closed shop.

Tax cuts for top management will be coupled with new taxes on unemployment and sickness benefits. Thatcher's government will make even Callaghan look like Santa Claus.

It is of course Callaghan and the right wing Labour leadership who have opened the door to the Tories.

But they have been allowed to do so by the wretched opportunism of the Tribunite left' wing that has time and again refused to lift a finger to fight for the removal of the Callaghan cabinet, or even to vote against their reactionary policies in Parliament.

As a result of their spinelessness, the Labour Party faces the prospect of a 1979 election with d manifesto that contains nothing • whatever for the working class.

Callaghan's election propaganda will focus on the reacționary TUC/government "Concordat", which itself proposes attacks on trade union rights and permanent wage control.

Labour offers not a smell of nationalisation; nor a breath of anti-imperialism; not even a hint of even the most puny reforms.

This bankruptcy is the Tories' greatest weapon.

Remove them!

This crisis cannot be resolved while the Callaghan gang remains in the leadership of the The task of removing them must be confronted now. The precise timing of the election is a side issue to the massive crisis of leadership facing the working class.

Socialist Press has repeatedly urged socialists in the labour movement to campaign for a re: called Labour Party Conference to provide the platform to kick out the existing leadership and wage a struggle for socialist policies:

But in the event of an April or May election, socialists in each union branch and Labour Party must demand that their CLP draw up its own election manifesto based on the socialist policies necessary to defend the interests of the working class.

Withdrawn

Labour candidates in each area should be forced to declare support for such policies or have Party backing withdrawn in favour of a candidate who will.

At the same time any Labour lefts' who still profess to oppose Callaghan must be called upon to come out clearly RIGHTS!

CERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTI ON ABORTION RIGHTS Assemble at 1.30 p.m. Saturday 31 March at Hyde Park Callaghan-opened door to Tories and lead a campaign for the removal of the present leader. ship and the adoption of a socialist internationalist policy.

There is no question that the best elements of the working class will respond ta any serious campaign, to keep the Tories out of office.

But these workers must also be offered a perspective for ousting the Tories in their own ranks.

Those lefts' that refuse to mount such a fight reveal their own inability to struggle for socialist policies.

Revolutionary party Indeed, whatever the precise developments, the next few months will be crucial months for the construction of principled, revolutionary leadership in, the working class.

The Workers Socialist League, fighting to build such a leadership, will continue to campaign for the organised working class to take up the struggle for the following policies:

*End all wage controls! Defend living standards through wage claims with cost of living clauses to protect against inflation!

"End unemployment! Defend existing jobs through occupations demanding work-sharing on full pay. Demand a crash programme of useful public works to create now jobs!

*Open the books of employers that refuse waga demands or threaten sackings! Prove the case for the nationalis. ation of major industry without compensation under workers' management.

"Strike to stop the cuts in public services! Fight for a siding scale of public spending protected against inflation. End private health care and aducation. Nationalise the suppliers.

"An end to national opprassion and racism! Withdraw British troops from Ireland now! Scrap the racist Immigration laws! No to import controlsi

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ay Wednesday March 1979

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KEIDS du Controle Sontion Sur still, John Sturrock, Repo

ohn PHOT