Expelled socialist challenges Benn OPEN IETTER

Scan page 5

PRESS SP Labour leader Callaghan PA But the ruse fell flat. 74 MPs petition which immediately gained thirty signatures from GÇ members, was able to organise a defence campaign from my union branch to fight for my reinstatement into the Labour Appeal hearing • After many delays, mostly caused by the intervening General Election, an appeal hearing was arranged where / vindicates our decision to go direct to the employees and obtain their considered decision in the privacy of their own homes, free to make the decision quietly and deliberately.

"Does anyone seriously imagine. that anything like the same result would have come out of a mass meeting, with stewards ready to jot down the names of those daring to defy their dictat. [!] "As Mr. James Prior weighs up whether or not to include provision for secret ballots in his proposed legislation on unions, the 80% return at Leyland should not be overlooked."

In fact of course it has not been stewards who have been jotting down names, but Edwardes-who has invited those who voted 'no' to leave the company, and no doubt intends to help them go.

Reservation

The Guardian too, celebrates ("A victory is a victory is a victory!") but with a slight reservation.

"Critics of referendums as an instrument of national policy have long argued that it is relatively easy to gain the results you want if you have control of Council meeting, and far from there being any ban on the march, Power had ruled discussion out of order.

At the subsequent Trades Council meeting Power made a statement deploring those who had taken part in the march and, when challenged on his statement to the press refused to allow it to be discussed.

Pat Lally, delegate from the ACTSS Blackwells branch angrily waved the leaflet which had been put into his workplace and demanded an explanation.

Power's response was to attempt (unconstitutionally) to throw him out of the meeting and then to close it when he refused to leave without a vote.

This" witch-hunt has an interesting sidelight on the positions of the International Spartacist Tendency.

Scab position

The issue was who would in practice defend Provisional could put my case and call witnesses in my defence. On the same day, hearings were also arranged for two other appeals by people who were refused membership of the Labour Party for the same reasons that I was expelled.

That it is a political witchhunt of socialists and not a genuince concern that the Party's constitution had been breached was richly confirmed: not one single Labour Party rule OiL. the question and a fair degree of controls of the means of communication. (Sir Michael had both.) The trick is to make those results stick."

Deeper in the gutter the cries of victory were unmoderated by any such caution.

The Express started its news story:

"The power of Leyland's once mighty militants lay shattered on the shop floor last night. The company's chairman, Sir Michael Edwardes, proved in a landslide vote that BL's shop stewards speak only for a tiny minority."

Poison

And the Mail, in an article headed Hammering for Leyland stewards' remarked:

"Sir Michael served notice on the shop stewards that he is prepared to go to the workforce over their heads again on major issues."

The victory celebrations, however, failed to make top billing in their final form.

The press had already turned its attention to the next dose of poison that it will try to disguise as medicine-£3,500 million worth of public spending cuts. Sinn Fein's right to march and support basic democratic demands for political status and anti-imperialist demands for the withdrawal of troops.

The IST brought a contingent to Oxford on the day of was i accused of breaking. Instead we had to listen to a torrent of abuse from those on the right wing of the Labour Party and trade union movement in Oxford.

Delegate

i was a delegate on the Oxford GC from my trade union branch (ACTSS 5/833) which had consistently supported me, as have several wards in the constituency.

The appeals are to come up before the NEC in the very near future, where it would seem to be an opportune time for the NEC to take a stand against witch-hunts of this nature by recommending my reinstatement, and defending the right of those who fight for socialist policies against the anti-working class policies practised by the last Labour government.

It was while fighting for a resolution which called for the removal of the : Callaghan-Healey leadership and calling for an Emergency Labour Party Conference in the event of an election last autumn that the accusations began to fly.

In one of the meetings you addressed at Brighton you said, "'I don't want to chase anyone out of the Labour Party. I want to bring them in, bring in their dedication, their aly an ther dedication.' dulle you said it was not "entryism" you feared, but "exitism" from the Labour Party.

If socialists are allowed to be kicked out of the Labour Party with the NEC's approval, then the constitutional reforms which were introduced at this year's conference will not be worth the paper they are written on.

Yours fraternally, Ted Heslin "Exitist" Prentice the march. They sold papers before and afterwards and took photographs, but refused to march. That, despite pratty footwork of 'not grean or orange' is a scab position.

BLOCK HELONG The Sinn Fein march through Oxford

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

BRITAINE CONCENTRATION