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ALO Callaghan clique that might Last week's surprise events in Newham North East Labour Party confirm once again the dependence of Callaghan's right wing anti-socialist leadership on the aimless 'lefts' of the Tribune Group.

As former Tribune Group chairman James Dickens resigned in a huff as prospective candidate after failing to get a unanimous vote for his draft election address, Callaghan and fellow right wing Transport House bureaucrats nominated Tribune editor Richard Clements as one of their three proposed substitutes for the seat.

Flushed out

Still mourning the desertion of Tory infiltrator Prentice, who was eventually flushed out by a sustained struggle in the Newham Party, Callaghan clearly sees Tribune's politics as a crucial barricade to halt any advance of principled socialist policies.

The Newham Party however had registered considerable opposition to basic elements of Tribune's so-called "left wing" platform as put forward by Dickens in his proposed election EEP TORY E AP PARV address.

Some members of the General Management Committee had challenged his refusal to oppose inımigration controls.

Nationalist

Others opposed the nationalist call for import controls which, under the guise of "defending jobs" in this country, seeks to create an alliance between workers and "British" employers and threatens to create unemployment in other countries.

Delegates also challenged Dickens' failure to call for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland.

And there were demands that his address should include an explicit commitment to fight for the removal of the present right wing leadershipp of the Labour Party and, against wage controls in particular.

Dickens however refused to concede on any of these issues and clung doggedly to his support for the reactionary TUC-government Concordat.

Instead, he launched a vicious attack on Labour Councillor John Plant, who last year himself stood in the local elections and unseated a Ratepayer on a socialist manifesto opposed to, the Callaghan-Healey Callaghan He declared that Plantwho has since been suspended by the Labour Group for his consistent struggle against the right wing, and is a well-known supporter of Socialist Press -Should not be in the Yet it was clearly Dickens himself who was refusing to put forward a programme to defend the working class.

When his adoption was formally Dickens» put to the vote, position acneved a 17-13 majority. Petulantly declaring that this was inadequate, he stormed from the meeting and submitted his resignation as prospective candidate.

Predictably, the Tory press-which, along with Labour's entire right-wing, defended crypto-Tory Prentice until his final gasp in the Labour Party-has now rallied to the defence of supposed "left winger" Dickens against "extremists" and "Trotskyists" in Newham.

For the Tories, for Callaghan and for Tribunites like Dickens it is unthinkable that Labour Party members and the trade unionists who sponsor the Party should have the slightest control over the MPs that they put into office 81 80 17 Healers Budast-zove for the poor, main course for the rich The strange case The City and CBI of Julian Lewis and the Newham can now vote Labour! Morth East party Blog Tribune-no fight But while these people openly argue against moves to make Labour MPs accountable, the so-called "Trotskyists" of the Militant Group have back pedalled frantically away from from any confrontation with the Callaghan leadership in Newham.

Denied moves

Militant supporters Andy Bevan and Nick Bradley have fallen over themselves to deny any attempt whatever to stand Bradley (Dickens' runner-up in the selection procedure as a possible candidate in Newham against Callaghan's chosen three-man list.

Though some Militant supporters spoke up against Dickens, none wish to risk a serious fight against the endanger their cosy relationship with the party bureaucracy.

It seems therefore, that having disposed of Tory Prentice exposed a Tribunite 'left' the Newham GMC will this week face a Hobson's choice between fellow Tribunite Clements, right winger Bryn Jones or anti-EEC left' Ron Leighton.

Newham struggle, rudely disrupting the reactionary election truce within the Labour Party and forcing PHOTO: Chris Prentice the reactionary politics of the Tribune Group into the limelight shows the necessity to carry forward the struggle within the Labour Party against not only the right wing but also the left' fakers who claim to represent a socialist alternative.

In exposing the hollowness of the rhetoric of Tribunites and Militant supporters alike, such struggles point unmistakeably to the necessity for the construction of a principled Marxist leadership in the labour movement which alone can take forward the fight for a programme to defend the independent interests of the working class.

Oppose Concordat This must include opposition to all forms of wage control, the Concordat and all anti-union laws; the fight for a sliding scale of wages to defend living standards; opposition to public spending cuts; the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland; and a programme to mobilise the working class in the struggle to force the nationalisation of major industry, without compensation, under workers' management as the basis for a planned, socialist in the election Price 5p from Socialist Press sellers or 7p postage) from 31, Dartmouth Park London NW5 1HR dancy notices expire, the Dunlop "Action Committee" supposedly leading the fght to defend 2,500 jobs at the firm's Speke factory has produced its own plan for mass sackings and speed up.

Again and again the "Action Committee" has vigorously denounced Workers Socialist League leaflets which have called for a policy of occupation linked to the fight for solidarity strikes throughout the Dunlop combine as an essential starting point for a fight to save the jobs.

Instead, led by TGWU General Executive Chairman, Stan Pemberton, they have headed down the blind alley of protest gimmicks, wheeling and dealing, and seeking alternative ways to make the plant profitable for Dunlop management. Pemberton Last week's mass meeting saw the bitter fruits of this policy, as Pemberton unveiled the "Action Committee's" "workers' "plan" which proposes the scrapping of 1,000 jobs through 'voluntary' redundancies and the renegotiation of all manning levels and present agreements on mobility and flexibility of labour.

To spell out the abject collaboration of this line, the "Action Committee" went on to cancel the Day of Action planned for this Wednesday (the day before the redundancy notices expire) in order to allow Dunlop managers to look at their scheme "without undue pressure".

So wretched was this plan that for the first time three speakers from the floor got up at the meeting to oppose the platform and call for a defence of all jobs.

But with the closure due this Thursday and management showing no interest in even the sky-high rate of exploitation offered by the "workers' plan" this resistance may well have come too late to avert the final betrayal by the plant's bellycrawling convenors.

Only a cynical turn-round by management or a last-ditch move by workers to vote down their convenors and occupy the plant can prevent another 2,500 joining the dole queues of Merseyside. (plus Hill

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