NEC retreat strengthens Callaghan LABOUR

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PRESS PARTY As the bureaucratic machinery of the Labour Party inquiry lumbers into action, it is increasingly plain that the. right wing Callaghan leadership have been able to regain the upper hand against a confused and divided left' wing.

Indeed the growing prospect of an all-out fight between left and right within the Labour Party, and warnings from the right wing that they will not shrink from splitting the Party sooner than tolerate a socialist programme democratic control by the membership, have brought a retreat by a number of NEC members who have previously voted with the 67-L2)

Key amone these is shadow Education spokesman Neil Kinnock, whose sudden promotion to the front bench by Callaghan last year can now be seen as a shrewd master-stroke.

It is now Kinnock who most ably combines sturdy defence of a succession of right wing policies in the PLP-in particular a réfusal to pledge Labour to restoring the Tories' vicious education cuts-with a brand of tub-thumping "left' rhetoric designed to gull unwary members into believing that he really wants a fight.

And it was Kinnock who last Wednesday moved to split the left vote on the Party's NEC, and secured the defeat of a move to bring Tribunite Les Huckfield onto the Party's inquiry, following the enforced "resignation" of TGWU Deputy General Secretary Alex Kitson.

The proposal, made by Eric Heffer, was defeated by 15 votes to 9. And though this still leaves a nominal left wing GAE The two most potent symbols of imperialism are probably a B52 bomber and Coca Cola.

In Zimbabwe-where even the name has been changed to protect the guilty-B52s have been conspicuous by their absence. Coke has however been working overtime.

The elections have not proved happy for British imper¡alism or for the white Rhodesian state. Some of their best advertising campaigns have proved expensive flops.

For example one golden rule when bombing churches and leaving messages from your opponents is not to blow yourself up in the process.

Forgotten

Another rule is that if you do blow yourself up you should do so in such a way as to obliterate the evidence-and incriminate your opponents.

Both these simple rules were forgotten by the security forces which allowed their crack forces to be recognised as the architects of the bombing campaign.

This has a tendency to produce the opposite effect to the one you were trying to majority on the inquiry commission as a whole, the inquiry is being run in such a way as to swamp every aspect of its work with platoons of hardened right wingers co-opted from the trade union and Labour bureaucracy and from the Parliamentary Notorious Callaghan's satisfaction at this outcome will be matched by his pleasure at the NEC decision to scrap plans to inves tigate the "entryism" into the Party of agents of "bankers, industrialists, the CIA and other enemies of the Labour movement."

Such an investigation would obviously have incriminated and embarassed dozens of prominent Labour right wingers, including of course Dennis Healey, whose connections with CIA-funded outfits are create.

The British press did not ignore this incident. Yet the leader columns, in their apparentiy • careful evaluation of whether this was a "free and fair election" were concerned only with whether Mugabe was intimidating the supporters of their puppet Muzorewa.

Muzorewa TGWU ESTOP TON At voted from notorious:

While abandoning this venture also meant abandoning the planned investigation and witch-hunt of the Militant tendency, the right wing are plainly hoping to achieve this purpose through urging Lord Underhill to publish his now notorious and ageing report and other alleged "documents".

A "nice polite" letter will also be sent to inner-party groups to invite them to publish details of their aims, organisation, finance and membership.

• In the meantime the NEC has performed yet another about-face on the long drawn-out moves to expel Socialist Press supporter Ted Heslin from Oxford City Labour Party.

Witch-hunting

its last meeting the NEC 15-8 to reject a proposal its Organisation Control of the elections, both the campaign and the voting, was firmly in the hands of the white Rhodesians and their British Tory surrogates.

"Independence"

The press build up of the 'friendly British bobbies' who stood so incongruously at the entrance to the polls did a little to divert attention from the armed soldiers inside the polls.

(The call for police volunteers saw almost 50% of the entire British police force volunteer for the job. A high proportion of those selected were from the various 'special' forces).

With all editorial signals set for "free and fair" the Coca Cola handwashing saga was eagerly broken to show a little independence and to bring a sense of suspense into the Of all the corruption, double voting and intimidation the state organised for the elections Coca Cola double voting must be the least relevant issue of the lot. It does however lend versimilitude to a bald and unconvincing narative. Confused and divided-Labour lefts' Committee to uphold the expulsion and referred the matter back for reconsideration.

The Organisation Committee then switched position-and submitted a proposal that Heslin's appeal be upheld.

But in the meantime right wingers in the Oxford CLP were launching frenzied witch-hunting appeals to the NEC, reportedly claiming that Heslin-who has always declared himself to be a Trotskyist and a supporter of Socialist Press —was actually a member of the Workers Socialist League. "

Deprived

It appears to have been on the basis of these fresh allegations-not raised in the initial expulsion-that the NEC last Wednesday voted once more to refer the case back to the organisation committee for them to think again.

Ted Heslin thus remains deprived of his rights within the Party, to which he was a delegate from his union branch.

Needless to say such harassment is reserved exclusively for socialist opponents. of the Callaghan leadership-while the most extreme right wingers are allowed to peddle their reactionary views without let or hindrance.

Labour Parties should take up the fight to defend the right of Ted Heslin and all socialists to remain within the Party and to fight for their views without fear of witchhunts, expulsions; bans or proscriptions.

Steamroller

If this fight is not pressed home in the period between: now and the. Conference in October, it seems increasingly likely that a combination of union block votes, right wing pressure and Kinnock-style opportunism will steamroller in a whole battery of measures to restrict still further the limited democracy within the Labour Party, in a desperate attempt to preserve the stranglehold of the right wing leadership over the rank and file.

Kinnock

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