[The sharp turn to the right in the…]

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The sharp turn to the right in the Tory Party represented by Margaret Thatcher's election as Tory Party leader is an important stage in the preparations the Tory Party are making to take on and defeat the working class when they return to power.

These changes are in response to the new situation created by rising unemployment, short time working plant closures, speed up and redundancies which arise out of the work crisis of the capitalist system and which are being carried out under a Labour government.

Tory MP Angus Maude, writing i the Sunday Express, put it this way "I see these events not as a revolution but as a counter-revolution -the beginning of a sustained campaign to halt and reverse the march of socialism. For this campaign I have no doubt the Tories have picked the right leader.

This is a development from the moves last autumn when a group of Tory MPs including Angus Maude and Airey Neave (Thatcher's campaign manager) began a campaign for a force of volunteers to aid the But the preparations of the Tories are first and foremost an ideological preparation, a struggle to resolve the crisis of leadership within the ruling class itself, and win around and whip up forces from the middle class against the working class.

'LAW AND ORDER'

Issues around which they are active are "law and order', the anti-abortion campaign, defence of private schools, private medicine, opposition to comprehensive education, the "Festival of Light' campaign, and similar middle class movements.

What forces the Tories to turn to whipping up these layers is the political crisis produced by the forward movement of the working class internationally reaching its sharpest point in Britain with the removal of the Heath government by the miners in February 1974.

This decisive turn to the right ends all talk of coalitions. In a speech on January 26th, Sir Keith Joseph called for a "Bill of Rights' , "to protect individuals against politicans and bureaucrats" He went on: "Once the state can take away your property, your home and your income, make you dependent on the kind of health service you receive, how your children will be educated ... your home and your income, make you dependent on them for the kind of health service you receive, how your children will be educated...... ....your access to other freedoms will be in danger too."

This is the world crisis, and the same problems are posed for capitalism internationally. In the United States the right wing emerges in a similar way, with Reagan, ex- Governor of California, at the hea Speaking last Saturday Reagan ca led for a new right wing party if the "liberal" wing of the Republican Party cannot be quickly "purged". He said Americans are "hungry once more for a sense of mission and greatness"

MISSION

Joseph speaking recently in similar vein to Reagan said "there is a huge evangelical job to be done" There is no doubt that Joseph stands firmly behind the Thatcherfront. Joseph is the chairman of the recently formed right wing grouping Centre for Policy Stidjes the vice chairman is Thatcher. In a TV speech on January 28th Joseph said Thatcher would underwrite his speech completely.

Joseph has been working for some time to provide the ideological and theoretical base for a right wing movement. In a speech to the economic research council recently he said "I began my campaign for capitalism in June" . He went on to say that the Tory party should "leave the defensive".

In order to rally round sections of the middle class, who feel their existence threatened both by big business and by the organised working class, Thatcher last Monday addressed a mass rally of small businessmen in Central Hall Westminster, bidding for the leadership of their revolt over rates and taxes.

In speaking against a call at the rally for a march on Parliament, Mr. Lesley Seeney, Director General of the 350,000 strong National Chamber of Trade, shouted above the uproar: "If we break the law now we are no better than the people we are attacking. Don't parade yourselves like a lot of trade unionists.

'MARXISTS'

This development, alongsiie tie attacks on Labour leaders as 'Marxists' - now levelled by a number of Tory spokesmen - are reminiscent of the early stages of the capitalist preparations in Chile prior to the counter revolution, which brought down the 'socialist' govern ment of Allende.

He is pressing Thatcher for the key shadow chancellor position and for the decisive voice in Tory policy making. His determination te take on the working class using mass unemployment as the main weapon is clear.

On January 10th he condemned the Labour government's Santa Keith Joseph Claus policy of bailing out ailing giants of industry "whilst subsidising the unviable, the overmanned and the undermanaged." He said his policy would "slim" the companies that were over manned; there was no substitute for restoring profitability. The temptation to reflate must be resisted. Joseph went on to put the following points of policy: 1. Company tax must be cut, last year's tax repaid and companies allowed to draw their accounts according to the real value of money, to cure "inflation-blind taxation 2. Removal of price controls. 3. Cuts in government spending and increases in indirect taxation. He called for an economy based on free enterprise with prices varying to meet market conditions, with firms disciplined by competition and bankruptcy and rewarded by profits. This has for a long: time been the position of Powell. Powell has shown that he understands this change. When asked recently if he was moving closer to the Tory Party he replied that the Tory Party was moving closer to him. Thatcher, on World In Actio: on February 3rd said only that she does not see a place for Enoch Powell in the Shadow Cabinet"for the present"

There is no doubt that the election of Thatcher is the prelide to big class struggles. Every employer is strengthened by this move to the right. In the factories the big employers feeling the new strength of leadership are hardening their attitudes and moving on to the offensive with redundancies, speed up and victimisations held over the recent period.

At the same time that the ruling class prepare for class battle the trade union leaders stoop to ever greater depths of class compromise Dennis Healey, who has said that workers must accept a substantially lower standard of living or face mass unemployment is able to back up his position by saying that Jack Jones - "The leader of one of our great trade unions was warning his members last autumn that it was no good pressing for enormous wage increases at the cost of bankrupting the firm which gave them work."

This is an exact parellel with the statement of Alan Fisher "left" leader of NUPE who said: "if all this money is paid out in large wage settlements, I very much feel that what we are going to see in the next budget is a heavy increase in taxes. "This is going to damp down thi home market and the economy, and consequently we are going to see a large increase in unemployment.

RETREAT

The same retreat is shown by the NUM leaders who have agreed to recommend a deal which will mean a cut in real wages in the pit: The deal is paraded as a 'victory' and a 'breach of the social contract, and many miners are confused by this talk, but the fact remains that the additional take-home pay produced by the deal is substantially less than an inflation rate which could well exceed 25% this year.

But the biggest betrayal is that the deal is recommended with no sliding scale of wages clause - or even the previous threshold agreement. It is now clear that any settlement, even if the lump sum exceeds the rate of inflation, can be eaten away in a few short mon ths by the current soaring prices if it is not protected by a sliding scale of wages clause to compensa in full for the rising cost of living, on figures worked out by trade union committees.

Gormley's betrayal is backed up by McGahey of the Communist Party who cynically talks of this as an 'interim deal' and of a 'threshold deal' at some time in the future, in order to obtain acceptance.

The Workers Socialist League w campaign in the pits for the rejec tion of the deal on the basis that back

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BY THE EDITOR BOARD