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Weekly paper of the Workers Socialist League * No. 155 * 20 June 1979 * 15p Budget means slump and runaway inflatior every one of Thatcher's budget vague terms about fighting for minister Tony Benn continues front workers must look increasThe Tory government was elected to a five-year term of office with can impregnable Parliamentary majority a mere five weeks ago. But already the debate is raging within the workAnd those Labour and trade union leaders most openly dedicated to the preservation and strengthening of British capitalism have rushed to declare their opposition to any action that would stop the "democratically elected" Thatcher government carrying through its attacks.

No answer They do so in the wake of a budget that has set a definitive course towards runaway inflation, mass unemployment and slump.

[Budget analysis page 5] Even the latest treasury forecasts show a drop in industrial output next year, a 20% inflation rate this year, and a total of more than 2 million unemployed for the next few years.

Of course there is no answer to this type of crisis within the framework of capitalism.

As a totally anarchic system it is rons wracked by ar insolube interratora =5s This is man ine Tory ailacks aprasar: a familiar echo of similar "austerity" plans in countless other countries, and an intensification of similar attacks carried out by Cattaghan's reactionary Labour Ever, attempt to resolve the provem of falling profits Through "reforming" ОГ rationalising capitalism mustparticularly in this period of economic crisis-result in attempts to foist the whole burden onto the shoulders of the working class.

But that is not so easy. Bravado Despite the arrogant bravado of Howe and other Tory spokesmen; nobody seriously doubts that the working class, which toppled Heath, and which last winter crushed the Labour government's 5% pay policy, will move massively to resist the Tory attacks.

It is fear and hatred of such mass struggles, and awareness that they have no alternative policy to offer, which has forced Labour and TUC leaders into outright statements supporting the "right" of the Tories to carry. out their policies unhindered for the next five years.

Callaghan in particular has repeated his opposition to trade unions taking action to bring down the Tories:

"The Conservative Government was elected through the ballot box and it must be removed from office by the same method."

Devastate Callaghan's veneration for threatens to devastate the living the kind of "democracy" that standards of millions of Labour supporters was an echo of a statement earlier in the week by miners' leader Joe Gormley, who declared that:

«We shall have fights with governments of all varieties but we must never give the impression that we or any other union will go on strike in order to change the government."

The realitv of course is that unless there is massive working class action to bring down the Tory _government, then Howe proposals and other attacks will be pressed through ruthlessly by a l desperate capitalist class, which has scant respect for the democratic rights of trade unionists or their families.

No substitute But left speeches and abstract denunciations of Tory policies by union leaders like Mick McGahey are no substitute for nrenaring the kind of action needed to oust the Tories.

McGahey last week talked in the return of a Labour government.

But he significantly declared himself in practice opposed to unofficial strikes, in favour of improving productivity, and in favour of talks with the Tories!

Similarly the NALGO leadership which last week declared support for strikes against the Tory cuts, opposed attempts at the NALGO conference to spell nut nolirios se tha haris far runt uur pumico do tilt vasis Ior SuCr action.

And in the Labour Party itself former strikebreaking to nastiira ae a "'lett' annanont pustuia ao a IcIl UNpUlIElL and alternative to Callaghan, while refusina tn mnunt the =•- HIVUILL LIIC slightest struggle for the removal of the right wing leading clique.

These bankrupt 'lefts' offer workers no lead whatever. The fact is that there is no way of stopping the Tory attacks through speeches, through Parliament, or through mere protest.

The only way Heath's government was stoppea was by massive working class action.

In fighting Thatcher's attacks as they emerde on everv ingly towards coordinating and centralising their struggles towards such mass action through the building of councils of action in each area, comprising delegates from trade union bodies and every working class organisation.

Such councils of action can provide an arena within which all sections of workers and socialists can challenge the control and the policies of the trade union and Labour bureaucracy, and fight for the strengthening and spreading of strikes and occupations on wages, against the cuts and in defence of jobs.

Councils of action

And at a time when growing numbers of workers are acutely aware of the complete treachery of Callaghan's government and of the need to. replace the Tories, councils of action enable revolutionaries to argue for a principled programme and for demands which can expose to workers in practice the bankruptcy of their existing reformist leaders.

To carry. through this kind of nalitinal intarantian VI political trenton a revolutionary party must be built, capable of fightina everv form of bureaucratic betrayal and consistently mobilising the working class in defence of its independent interests. This is the vital preparation for the mass struggles ahead.

The Workers • Socialist League fights to build such a party. Today's situation above all cries out for the demands we advorate • muruvala.

*Defend living standards! Wage increases must be protec-. tad anainst inflatinn throunh mania «RAA II 'Thatcher mațic rises in line with a trade union cost-of-living index.

*Defend all jobs! Occupy to stop redundancies! Demand work sharing between the whole existing workforce without loss of pay.

*Fight for mass action to bring down the job-cutting Tory government of employers and bankers!

*Open the books of the oil monopolies, along with the major industrial firms, the banks and the insurance companies to elected trade union committees! This will prove the case for their nationalisation without compensation, under workers' management.

*No to impori controls! Create new jobs through a crash programme of public works for nationalised industry under workers' management.

We urge workers, housewives, youth and students to consider the dangers now posed for their living standards and to join the WSL in our struggle for class action to bring down the Tory government.

PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Gormley

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- INTERNATIONAL Poses voTes IRIKS* Police car turned over rickets by; НР 45 30Г Wednesday results of the Italian parliamentary elections earlier this month provided no comfort to the Italian bourgeoisie they were even worse for Enrico Berlinguer and his clique of agents of the bourgeoisie at the head of the Communist The campaign of the CP was directed against the Christian Democrats: not, of course, against their anti-working class policies-but against their "arrogance and inefficiency".

Longer memories

But the voters whom the CP was vainly wooing had longer memories and stronger class feelings than their Stalinist misleaders gave them credit for.

They remembered that since the last elections the "arrogant,

----- pull-quotes -----

PREPARE TO BRING DOW THATCHER.

ing class as to how long Thatcher will last.

cost-of-living ciauses giving auto. SWP: The politics of no politics LABOUF ISN'T WORKINI

taly's CP of youth