'A political lead to anti Tory struggles

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We reprint here the text of the resolution adopted by the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement Anti-Tory Conference at Digbeth Hall, Birmingham on Saturday November 3. on an international scale.

The reaction of the new right wing Tory administration to this was to make systematic preparation for class war against the working class.

In her first weeks as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher presided over big pay rises for the army, the police, the Judges and the top civil servants. She followed this with huge tax concessions to the middle class and professional people.

Thatcher was marshalling her forces for good reason. The Tories are class conscious. They understand the capitalist economic crisis as a crisis of profitability.

They are convinced that it can only be tackled in one way -by increasing the rate of exploitation of the working class.

Major cutbacks

To achieve this they have launched an attack on every aspect of workers' living standards.

They propose major cutbacks in education; the demolition of the National Health Service and other social services and the selling of council houses.

They propose to hold down wages, break down working conditions and force in speed up by a straiaht "lame duck" policy designed to force employers to attack the workforce in order to survive.

They have removed any form of price control and let inflation rip in order to reduce the value of wages and put pressure on the home market. They. have raised the Minimum Lending Rate in order to force up the pound and put similar pressure on the export markets.

Alongside this they have decided that very large areas of manufacturing industry in Britain must be completely destroyed.

Basic engineering capacity is to be reduced, particularly in shipbuilding and steel production.

In British Leyland the Edwardes plan-far from being a "survival" plan-is part of a plan designed to run down BL in successive "slimming down" operations with the eventual destruction of up to one million jobs in BL and component manufacture.

The Tories plan asset- stripping on a grand scale and the hiving off of large parts of nationalised industry.

To facilitate the redistribution of manufacturing industry on an international scale they have now removed currency exchange controls for the first time for 42 years in order to give capitalists complete freedom to move their capital around at will.

Whilst carrying out these measures they are preparing a battery of anti-trade union legislation designed to strengthen the hand of the employers and the government when workers fight against these measures or struggle for wage increases.

They are to tighten their racialist Immigration Act and continue the imprisonment and torture of republicans in the North of Ireland.

The Tories. draw strength from the policies and actions of the Labour government before them. Many Tory policies have carried on where Callaghan and Healey left off.

This is a part of the crisis of leadership from which the working class suffer every day of their lives. The working class is strong.

They have shown it in their response to the national engineering strikes, through which they gained an important breakthrough in hours and holidays.

They have shown it in the 13 week strike of Talbot workers which was ruthlessly betrayed by the national officials.

Political question

But militancy is not enough. Leadership is a political The vast majority of trade union leaders are tied to the reformism of the Labour Party.

They refuse to challenge capitalism as a system. They try to fill the rotten tooth rather than pull it out.

This renders them incapable of defending the working class.

When Edwardes claimed that acceptance of 25,000 redundancies and the closure of 13 plants.

They are prepared to witchhunt and attack those who fight for alternative policies.

In the public services where every section of the working class from the youth to the aged are under attack the union leaders are no better.

Verbal condemnation of the cuts goes hand in hand with no hint of real leadership or real resistance. Whilst they make their speeches, services are gone, wards closed, staff run down.

Part of the living standard of the working class is taken away, mass unemployment created and women are driven back into the home with no jobs, no nursery provision, no maternity leave and having to care for the sick and the aged as state provision is removed.

At the same time an attack is launched on the fight to free abortion on demand.

Capitalism

What is needed is a leadership which starts, not from the problems of capitalism but from the requirements, the rights and the interests of the working class.

A leadership which points out that the economic crisis and inflation are not caused by the working class but by capitalism.

A leadership which is prepared to lead and has the necessary policies.

A leadership which says "open the books" and nationalise when an employer claims to be bankrupt; which says occupy when they close factories; which fights day in and day out against every job loss in the hospitals, every ward closure, every cut back in the school meals service or abolition of a nursery class; a leadership that will fight for a sliding scale of wages-1% rise in take-home wages for every 1% rise in the built. in struggle-such as councils of action--this new leadership must be prepared to call for a workers' government to resolve the crisis of capitalism by ending capitalism itselt.

Action programme

The Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement with its programme pledges itself to fight for this perspective and in this way.

We cali upon those lefts in the Labour Party who claim to be fighting for democratic reform within the Labour Party to also fight for these demandsto align themselves with those who are prepared to fight for the independent interests of the working class.

As delegates and visitors to this conference we pledge ourselves to go back into our union branches, shop stewards committees and Labour Party wards and fight for the following action programme.

*No talks with the Toriesforce them out of office.

*Remove Labour and trade union leaders who won't fight.

*No Tory laws against the unions: prepare mass strike action.

*Defend wages. Fight for cost of living clauses in ali agreements.

*Fight all cuts. Occupy with supporting strike action. Set up elected committees to examine the books of the public services. Set up workers' inquiries to examine health, social and welfare provision and establish the necessary programme of public works to meet the needs of the working class and combat unemployment.

*For a restoration of all cuts and automatic increases in public spending to match infla. tion. An end to military spend. ing and spending on police and other anti-working class bodies.

Open the books of government deparments and local author.

ities to workers' committees.

*Unite strikes and occupa