Coventry Labour rebels expelled

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million in 1969 to £1.62 billion in 1979.

GANG The editors of Fleet Street are queuing up to go to prison. • Ever since it became clear that the courts were going to rule that Granada television must reveal its source inside British Steel an enthusiastic 'me too' martyrdom has gripped the liberals and not so liberal editors.

The majority are in no danger of having to carry out their threat. The BSC memorandum revealed by World in Action would have been suppressed by many Fleet Street papers, which would have left them with no source to worry about.

But there is little doubt that somn editors, notably Harold Evans of the Sunday Times, would be quite prepared to go to jail rather than reveal a source.

It may be-though political expediency makes it unlikely -that an NUJ member inside Granada might actually be forced to make that choice.

What does this tell us about liberal editors? Does it mean that there is an identity of interest between these editors and the working class-which clearly has an interest in the democratic right to an 'uncontrolled' press?

That question has been worrying the editors a great deal. The echoes of Arthur Scargill and even Bill Sirs, who have put in bids for a prison cell over the right to picket, ring too close for comfort in their ears.

As a result a new field of legal humbug has opened up. The editors themselves have been striving to draw a distinction between on the one hand the right to defy' a law in the interests of bourgeois freedoms and on the other the right to challenge a law in defence of working class , freedoms-the right to strike, to picket, to For many working class militants the choice is not one of abstract debate. The Shrewsbury pickets among others have actually been in jail-and not for a few days, with the world's press calling for their release, but for years, with all liberal editors determined tnat they should stay there.

The history of the class struggle is littered with the real martyrs of the working class for whom prison, or even execution, is not a romantic boost to their circulation figures but a harsh and sometimes final reality.

Harold Evans in a television interview said that what distinguished the editors from mere law breakers was that the editors were prepared to accept the consequences of refusing to comply with the law.

Since they were prepared to go to prison they were not undermining the rule of law!

This is nonsense even in bourgeois terms. A burglar could make just as much use of the argument, by saying that if caught he or she is prepared to do time.

The Sunday Times, in an editorial presumably written by Evans, amplifies this argument.

"Is Granada by refusing to disclose, putting its foot on the shores of anarchy? It is understandable fear but there are differences : between Granada and Mr Arthur Scargill.

First the duty which the press seeks to discharge is not to its owners or its workers but to the whole public. It is not a sectional but a general duty ...

Secondly, the press practices persuasion not coercion. There is a difference between honouring a promise (albeit in the law's eyes an invalid one) and physically preventing someone from exercising his lawful right to work, which is what Mr Scargill threatens and threatens defiance of a new criminal law, fully debated...

Thirdly the press is prepared to take its medicine. Where there is an inexcusable conflict of duties, it does not call for insurrection nor challenge the basis of society; it recognises not only the power of the court but its right to impose a fine or prison sentence. There is honour in that"

The desire of the liberal editors to distinguish between their own position and that of working class victims of anti-union law is natural.

What it also demonstrates very sharply is the validity of the permanent revolution-that it is only by the working class itself taking power that even bourgeois democratic rights can be guaranteed.

It leaves only this question for Evans and his friends to answnr. What would be their position (in the event of they themselves or a Granada exec utive being jailed) to a strike by journalists throughout television and newspapers to demand his or her ielease!

To ask the question is to answer it. Evans 'does not call for insurrection' or even a strike.

His answer even from his cell to those workers would be the answer the Sunday Times has given to every group of workers taking strike action for what ever reason: Get back to work!

Over the last ten days the Coventry labour movement has experienced major developments.

The increasing pressure from the working class has brought an intensification of the conflict between the left and the right of the Labour Party, and expressed itself sharply with the expulsion of ten 'rebel' Labour councillors.

The ten were expelled by the Labour Group for voting against an increase in school meal prices -in line with Labour Party policy.

But this is not the only indicator of resistance to Tory attacks.

As industry after industry announced further lay offs and closures in the Midlands, an area-wide toolmakers' committee to defend jobs, stop closures and fight for workers' control of the industry has been set up.

It aims to launch a conference on October 15 to be hosted by none other than Tony Benn, who has recently taken up the toolmakers' cause.

Combined with depth of opposition generated over the school meals issue and the closure of. Wheatley Street Nursery, these developments reveal the angry mood of workers facing • dramatically worsening living standards under the Tory offensive.

Militants

Militants are directing their fury towards forcing the left in the Labour Party and trade unions to act in defence of services and jobs and by attempting to develop broad based organisations of resistance.

The fight must be taken up now to show that there are no partial solutions, and that the struggle to defend hard-won gains must be linked to the overthrow of the present system of inefficiency and waste.

The immediate way forward in Coventry must be to link these disparate struggles and construct a new, principled leadership in the working class. • The struggle to rinstate the rebel councillors must be linked to a fight for socialist policies and a clear programme of action against the cuts.

The fight to stop school closures, school meal price rises and redundancies can only be extended by preparing for all-out strike action.

Militants in Coventry must raise these demands upon the presently docile trade union leaders and force them to make a stand on the issues involved.

The toolmakers' committee must broaden its struggle to bring in all sections of industry and defend every job through joint union action.

*Commit the rebel councillors to a total no cuts platform!

*No redundancies! Occupy to save jobs!

*Kick out the Labour and trade union leaders who won't fight!

Benn

'Gag union discussing

land' ran a headline in Morning Star last week.

The article that followed contained an attack from the CP's newly-formed advisory committee on Ireland on the prosecutions against Hands off İreland' supporters.

The Morning Star reports its secretary, Bert Ward, as saying, that "it was important establish the principle that free speech on Ireland was an essential part of political dnbate and controversy in Britain today".

• The statements which follow contain the standard CP renunciation of violence, but link them to a call to dnfend democratic rights.

What makes the article noteworthy is that its criticisms could be more accurately pointed against the CP itself.

It was CP members at the Annual Conference of Trades Councils who madn the key speeches denying the right of admission to the disaffiliated Tameside Trades Council.

The CP has itself sumported this disaffiliation.

CP members in Oxford went so far as to distribute leaflets outside the BL Cowley plants last year calling for convenor Bobby Fryer to be voted out of office on the grounds that he had defended free speech on It reflects that there is internal opposition inside the CP to the blatant collaborationist policies which the party has consistently pushed over Some rank and file CP members signed the petition condemning Tameside's disaffiliation, and some voted against disaffiliation when it was debated on Hull Trades Council.

But it is doubtful if the statement will reflect any change in the CP's practice.

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split over gag