Workers Socialist League

Socialist Press, Trotskyism Today, Woman Worker, Class Fighter and the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee, 1975–1984

Package All Out Nov 28. National Strike!

Socialist Press no. 174, 7 November 1979 · scan pp. 1–2 · about 674 words

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The Thatcher government's latest package of savage spending cuts-which will hit every working class man, woman and child in the country-has produced a predictable blast of hot air from Labour politicians, union leaders and welfare groups.

But amid all their varied sounds of protest and indignation there is no hint of a policy that can defend jobs and living standards against the Tory TUC leaders have waxed eloquent over the Tories' ludicrous" plans, their "robbing the poor" and their supposed "breach of faith""

The NUPE Executive has even noisily pledged to conduct a "militant" campaign of "non-cooperation" with the latest cuts-stopping short of all-out strike action.

But for the Tory government, such verbal protests are simply water off a duck's back.

They have never pretended that their starting point is the problems of the poor, the homeless, the old, the sick or the unemployed: rather as the party of big business, the Tories start from the gathering world recession within which the profitability of British capitalism is continuing to decline.

Driven to the wall To boost the profits of the strongest sections of capital, their weaker competitors must be driven to the wall; profitable sections of state-owned industry. must be sold off; and „taxes on profits, dividends and top salaries must be cut to a minimum.

Savage public spending cuts are an integral part of this But while the Tories, conscious of their task, go to work, the protests from Labour politicians are lacking in any such determination or conviction.

While Labour was in office Callaghan and Healey themselves started not from the reeds of the working class but from the dictates of the International •Monetary Fund and efforts to restore profitability to British industry, in the hopes of a few reforms in the future.

It is easy for them now to turn found and attack the Tories. But every worker knows that most of today's closures of schools, hospitals and nurseries are the result of Labour's spending cuts.

And Labour's right wing leaders remain firmly opposed to mass working class action to bring down the Thatcher Yet this offers the only way forward in the struggle to defend jobs and social services.

A lobby of Parliament against the cuts has been called on November 28 by Yorkshire trades councils, and endorsed by the Labour NEC. It must be made a massive indication of workers' readiness to fight.

Workers throughout the But struggles ment.

The public sector and wherever possible in private industry should fight for strike action on that day as part of the fight to transform the anti-Tory speeches of the labour leaders into practical action.

Labour MPs who declare themselves against the cuts must be called upon to fight explicitly for the restoration of all cuts. and for the protection of the public services against inflation through a sliding scale of public spending.

Such a policy flies in the face of the pro-capitalist policies of the Callaghan-Healey leadership. Those who oppose the cuts must therefore be called upon Also to campaign throughout the labour movement for the removal of Callaghan, and tor a programme of socialist policies to defend the working class.

Occupation

of course the main will not be in Parliato stopping the Tory cuts is the fight in the unions at local, area and national level for occupations and strikes against sackings, cutbacks and closures wherever they occur.

•The demand must be in each case that public sector union leaders call all out national strike action in defence of jobs and services.

other coming struggles against . the Tories could create the conditions for the general strike that is needed to bring down the Thatcher government and force to office a government responsive to the needs of the working class.

To prepare for such struggles and fight uncompromisingly at every level for the independent interests of the working class, a new, revolutionary leadership is vital.

The Workers Socialist League is fighting to construct such a leadership.

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Bring down Thatcher Such action, if linked to

← Contents of Socialist Press no. 174, 7 November 1979

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