EEC fraud s flat

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OPEN THE BOOKS OF THE OIL FIRMS that the country was being "held to ransom"

Now with the complete support of the press a handful of unknown, highly paid managers and industrialists, accountable to nobody and basing their decisions solely on their own profitability, are literally holding every car driver, rail or bus passenger and working class family to ransom. Prices are rising almost weekly. There is no end in sight.

The Tory press eagerly clamours for these faceless bosses to "price motorists off the road" • Who are these anonymous "motorists" who would be forced to abandon the use of their cars by massive petrol price increases?

Middle class

Of course they are not the employers, the managers or the prosperous middle class who (in the rare instances where they actually pay for their own petrol and cars rather than claiming them on expense accounts) have fat salaries and plenty of cash to spare.

The casualties will be the working class: family holidays;

Yet the release the unnamed constable last week without charge means that still no arrest has been made for the murder, carried out during the Southall anti-racist demonstration on April 23.

And the inquest has been postponed until July 17. The police clearly intend to take no action at all, and to use the killing of Blair Peach as a precedent for establishing their right to maim and kill demonstrators.

It is vital that trade unionists everywhere take up 'the struggle for a full-scale workers' inquiry into Peach's murder and the actions of the SPG in Southall.

And, while we support the growing demand for the disbanding of the SPG, it is; important to recognise that the role the SPG play is simply an extension of the day-to-day repressive role of the entire police force as armed defenders of thel capitalist state. the worker who has to long distances to work; n omen in the home; and all those whose wages barely cope with existing prices of fuel and transport.

Profits

Meanwhile the oil firms themselves are raking in huge profits from the present crisis: the world shortfall of oil supplies gives them the whip hand to raise prices to new dizzy heights-and to direct supplies to countries where the price is highest.

In the USA, the profits of the Exxon oil monopoly have risen by 40%. In Britain BP has also turned in increased profits.

The workers' movement must demand a full scale inquiry into the workings of these profit-grabbing firms.

This means fighting to force the opening of the books of the oil firms and related companies to elected trade union committees.

The figures released would undoubtedly spell out an unanswerable case for the nationalisation of these firms, without compensation under workers' management.

Such nationalisation, inconceivable under a Tory government, would require the full scale mobilisation of the working class to defeat Thatcher's gang of employers, speculators and bankers.

Central to such a mobilisation must also be the question of defence of living standards.

Big wage increases to catch up on recent price rises must be demanded: but at the same time steps must be taken to protect wages against inflation through the fight for cost of living clauses, providing regular automatic rises to keep up with a trade union prices index.

SERTUC

CONFERENCE «Care of the Under Fives"

Saturday 30 June 1979 Congress House, Great Russell St, London WCI Credentials (50p) from Jim Watson, 106 Mount View Road, London N4 Speakers:

Arthur Latham, Chairman, London Labour Reg Race, NUPE Margaret Cohen, National Campaign for Nursery Education Chair: Tess Gill, NCCL Behind the barrage of boring and absurd generalisations about the "swing" in last week's farcical European elections, one clear result stares every politician and Eurocareerist in the face: had the election been a referendum on whether Britain should stay in 1 EEC, the result .. vuld obviously have been a resounding 'no'.

The abysmal 32% turn-out was not the result of apathy. It was a clear indication that for millions of workers the election-to a totally impotent and fraudulent "Assembly"offered them no way of expressing their hostility to the EEC itself.

"Democracy"

Workers correctly saw that to vote for any candidate meant lending credibility to the spurious facade of "democracy" with which this reactionary capitalist bloc has sought to disguise its arbitrary and anti-working class policies.

This is why in general it was working class areas including the major industrial centres that turned out the most laughably small vote: and why Labourite opportunist Barbara Castle who postured as an outright opponent of the EEC was among the most successful Labour candidates.

With further substantial EEC price increases to come in Britain in the near future and attempts by the European bourgeoisie to step up the integration and rationalisation of basic industry on a EEC-wide basis, there is little doubt that this mass hostility to the Common Market will continue to grow amongst British workers.

But the answer is not to call simply for 'Britain Out' of the Common Market. Workers have no common interest with "British" employers.

The fight must be for socialist revolution • in Britain and throughout Europe.

The struggle to force a British withdrawal must therefore be coupled to an appeal to workers in the other EEC countries to take up a similar struggle against their own ruling classes and to fight for a Socialist United States of Europe.

OXFORD TRADES CONFERENCE TUC Under-fi' Sunday July 8 OCCR Hall Princes Street peakers from Oxfor ity Nursery Campaig and the NUT among others