Give troops a chance LABOUR _nloade Hoffan pleads Heffer

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Eric Heffer has spoken out on the question of British imperialist troops in But he did not call for their immediate withdrawal.

Rather he complained about the use of disciplinary measures against soldiers serving "under a strain' in Northern Ireland.

What they need, declared Heffer, is not disciplinary action but a bout of hospital treatment or of removal from Ireland.

That, presumably, should put them on their feet again, ready to gun down Catholic workers and youth, kick in front doors and carry out their general duties of intimidation of the nationalist population.

• Trade union ' Heffer's concern for the plight of these armed thugs of British imperialism is not matched by any interest whatover in the plight of the Irish people.

He went on to propose that members of the armed forces be allowed to form a "trade union" of their own outside of the TUC-along the lines of the Police Federation!

And he was at pains to stress that he did not want to "undermine" the Forces.

In this reactionary stand Heffer speaks for the whole of trade union delegates the Kank and File group has ever called.

Called Defend Our Unons" the conference had struck a chord inside militant sections of the working class, as well as with left facing sections of the petty bureaucracy.

SWP leaders, boggle-eyed at the numbers hailed the conference an outstanding success.

Weak

Yet if the political level at which the conference was called was low, it had plunged lower still by the time it wound up.

The overwhelming conclusion to come from the conference was that the working class is weak; that it is itself to blame for being weak; and that what it requires is "more old fashioned trade unionism' To this end the conference endorsed a Rank and File Code of Practice containing trade union demands on blacking, picket lines and accountability, all o: which become strike committee policy within nour oi most disputes startIng.

Accolade

Speaker after speakerall, bar one, hand pickedattacked the rank and file for not fighting and stressed the need to persuade more workers to fight.

Phil Gilliat, from the Sanderson's Strike Commitall of whom as reformists accept the continuation of the repressive machinery of the capitalist state.

As a former minister under Harold Wilson, Heffer gave his tacit support to the Labour government's policy of military repression in Ireland-a stand echoed by fellow Tribunite Stan Orme, who actually took on a ministerial post in the Northern Ireland office.

Labour's most prominent "left" careerist Tony Benn also happily sat alongside Ireland ndersons mass ricket last call another Gilliat tee, was given the accolade of opening the conference. In tones of cynicism and despair he brushed aside complaints about union leaders, insisting that the lault lay in "ourselves" • "Our own failure to fill the gap left by the union officials".

Gilliat, who has led the Sanderson's struggle for two years, did not specify these torture chiefs Merlyn Rees and Roy Mason throughout the life of the Labour cabinet, and has yet to declare even verbal opposition to the role of British imperialism.

And even those few Tribunites that have spoken in support of the withdrawal of British troops have refused to fight for removal of the pro-imperialist • Callaghan-Healey But Labour's 'left' is not at reluctant to call for a change leadership in the Tory party. October: now Gilliat refuses failures. When a mass picket was called, large numbers turned up. No further mass picket has been called by Gilliat, because to do so would bring him into direct conflict with the TGWU When blacking was ordered by the bureaucracy was enthusiastically carried out by the rank and file and the employer was ready to settle. It was called off prematurely, not by rank and file workers, but by the bureaucracy. That is why the strike is still on. That is why the fight for recognition has not been won.

Distortion

The most conscious distortion came from Arthur Todd from the Dunlop Speke strike committeewho referred to the disaster that has overtaken workers Last week saw the sickening spectacle of Heffer and Walsali Tribunite David Winnick urging Whitelaw to take over the Tory leadership from Thatcher.

Whitelaw of course was also Tory torture chief in Ireland under Heath.

Last week he vigorously defended the role of the SPG murderers in the Southall riot and refused to call any form of public inquiry into the killing of Blair Peach.

Incapable

But Heffer cringingly suggested that "in the interest of the country" Whitelaw should be Tory leader. 'Provided we still have a Tory government it might not be such a disaster", he declared.

The real disaster for the workers' movement is not that this or that individual Tory spearheads their attacks on living standards, but that the Labour leadership-'left' and right alike-is incapable of leading the slightest principled fight against British imperialism.

This crisis of leadership can only be resolved through the exposure of Tribunite poseurs like Heffer and the construction of a revolutionary party to lead the struggle in defence of jobs and living standards. there as a 'Pyrrhic victory'.

Vaguely he referred to wrong policies. He managed to avoid the word occupation once in his whole contribution and then made the staggering assertion that at the end of the 'community pickets' (which he did not criticise) the committee found itself leading only 150 workers-"the real trade unionists".

The other workers then, whose jobs had been thrown away by Pemberton, Todd and the rest of the leadership, were presumably, to blame for having recognised that there was no campaign to defend their jobs left.

Other speakers, some of them much less consciously diverting from the fight, took their cue from the leadership at the conference. More organisation was the complete substitute for politics.

If the major strikes of last winter were referred to at all it was in the tones of mourning for the 'weakness' of the membership-who were in fact 1,000 times more developed than many speakers at the conference.

'Unwinnable

Most speakers referred to Garners. None mentioned that the conclusion that the Garners' strikers themselves had come to was not to blame the rank and file but to blame the union leadership and call for their replacement.

Nor was it mentioned that the SWP leadership had abandoned the strike as 'unwinnable' at the end of last year.

The resolution put to the

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Labour's so-called 'left' wing, More than 1,000

packed New Century Hall, Manchester, for the largest conference