Mason Declares War on Labour

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attack. Mason (centre) at Labour Party Conference

"Any democracy

socialism in this Party I'll resign!"

That was effectively the message bluntly delivered to Barnsley Labour Party GMC last weekend by Roy "Butcher" Mason.

He announced that the Labour right wingers who may be unseated in the new reselection procedures would be likely to band together-alongside Liberals and members of the extreme right wing Social Democratic Alliance-to stand against official Labour candidates.

Right wing rump

But Mason is not alone. He has big support among the right wing rump that forms the majority öf the Parliamentary Only a few weeks ago he, together with seven other hardened right wingers, was reelected to the Shadow Cabinet by the PLP. Among the others who scored high in the same poll was William "Nukes" Rodgers, now the front bench spokesman for the notorious Gang of Three.

Rodgers' two fellow Gangsters are David Owen and Shirley Williams. Williams has already gone further out on a limb than even Mason.

Though still holding a seat on the Party's NEC, she has declared that she would not be willing to stand as a Labour Runaway inflation-particularly acute in printing and production costs, in travel expenses and other overheads carried by candidate, so great 1s her disagreement with the party's policies decided at last year's conference.

And Owen withdrew from the Shadow Cabinet elections, announcing that he preferred to remain in the back benches to wage a battle against any left wing policies that might emerge.

Foot's front bench team now comprises two right wingers who have openly threatened to split the party if they do not get their own way. Others would no doubt follow Mason and Rodgers in such a split.

But it is less certain who would vote for a third party composed of such riff-raff. Mason's explosion of anger at the Barnsley GMC appears to reflect his growing isolation from a party organisation that has increasingly moved to the left as workers have demanded a real fight against the Tory Barnsley CLP for instance tabled a motion at November's Lambeth cuts conference calling for a fight for General Strike action against the Thatcher government-hardly in line with Mason's reactionarv views And, after years of scandalous inaction-during Minister for Torture in the six counties of Ireland carried out the most savage military repression-Yorkshire NUM leader Arthur Scargill has apparently at last begun to throw the union's weight behind moves to remove him.

Accountability

Throughout the country, trade unionists and socialists have looked to the new reselection procedures as a means of ousting right wing MPs, making MPs accountable, and taking up a fight for socialist policies.

On this basis the party has actually gained additional mass No matter what its pretence of being a "labour" party, a hotch-potch gathering of deposed Labourite right wingers, crypto-Tories from the SDA and disillusioned Liberal Party drop-outs would be an explicitly anti-socialist, pro-capitalist party with no policies to offer workers or even the middle class voters they might seek to attract.

Mason's bluff must be called. The limb on which Williams has gone out must be sawn off. The fight for the democratisation of the Party, the removal of right wing candidates and for a programme of socialist policies must be stepped up within the Labour Party and the trade unions. fund, and participate in raising activities by your WSL branch.

And if you agree with the consistent politics and principles 0 G3 ment of the issues was lost on the platform bureaucrats.

To judge from the mood of GE form's proposal was carried.

This retreat endangers the very fabric of union organisa-