Camden councillors face left opposition

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which among other things called members may have held towaras 10-00% rate increase Apu. tions.

With David Owen stating more clearly than ever that the Gang would not accept any form of electoral college, and Shirley Williams already committed against ever running for election on a Labour platform unless certain left' policies are discarded, the split is looming.

With the Gang will go handful of extreme right wing MPs who realise they are unlikely to be reselected by their local parties, or who object to the increasing drive towards accountability within the They realise that the Party membership is pressing for more not less left wing policies-and they cannot hope to stem this tide.

It. is possible that the split will enlist the support of Frank Chapple, leader of the 420,000strong EETPU, who is already regarded as a political pariah in the labour movement.

Disaffiliate

Chapple has apparently declared that "If Shirley Williams and others leave there is nothing to stay for." He has talked of balloting the EETPU, proposing disaffiliation from the While Chapple may feel confident that he has sufficiently muzzled class consciousness to Chapple Graham Shurety looks at the campaign of Camden Labour Left Before Christmas Camden Council's Labour leadership was sent reeling by Heseltine's announcement that Camden was to receive nil grant in next year's rate support grant.

Roy Shaw, leader of the Labour Group on the council spelt out the impact of this on Camden's finances at the Camden Labour Party Conference on Saturday 10 January.

On top of last November's supplementary rate of 6p in the pound, and last year's 34% Increase in rates, rates in Camden would now have to be jacked up another 56.4%!

Moratorium

This calculation actually excludes the effect of Heseltine's moratorium on council house building and his new controls on capital expenditure.

Shaw proposed that on top of the 56.4% rate rise, 600 plus jobs should go through "voluntary" redundancy within the direct labour department and that the estates modernisation programme (which provide work for the 600) should be ended immediately.

These moves would amount to the destruction of the DLO in Camden. Shaw claimed this was needed to help. "sell" the rates package by demonstrating to the rate payer that the council were acting responsibly!

This policy of open cuts has shattered the illusion built up by Shaw and the right wing that it was possible to weather the Tory storm by the 'good housekeeping policy of repeated rate rises and "'marginal savings' to protect services.

Opposition

It has led to a growing opposition within the Labour Party, forcing rank and file members to reassess• the confrontation policy of "no rate rises; no rent rises; no cuts" advocated by Socialist Press supporters and other individual militants within the Party.

The fight for this policy has been strengthened by the setting up of the Camden Labour Lett.

This organisation has drawn together 50 Labour Party members, across the three Constituency Parties that make up Camden, to discuss the political way forward against the Tories and against those in the Labour leadership who seem hellbent on doing Heseltine's work for him.

Model resolution

It made clear its intention to become a fighting organisation at the Camden Labour Party Conference on 10 January: In the build up to the conference, the Camden Labour Left successfully moved a model resolution in five branches which among other things called on the council to "re-affirm a platform of no cuts and no redundancies" - to support Camden NALGO's decision not to sell council houses and to support the policies of the Local Government in Crisis Conference of November 1 1980.

In addition the resolution declared that:

"Conference accepts that under Tory legislation it is impossible for councils to defend working class living standards, jobs and homes, without running into local government deficit and potential penalties. Only an active local labour movement can defend councillors from these threats.

To permit such a movement Labour councillors must work together with CLPs, trade unions and council tenants' associations to organise opposition to the Tory government.

Any individual councillor who is not prepared to face this battle should resign. to replaced by those who will."

Although the motion was defeated 32-27, the narrowness of the vote (last year a similar motion only got 3 votes) and the success in getting it debated and passed in five wards establishes the Camden Labour Left as a serious force in the local The small left caucus of councillors which includes Ken Livingstone, is forced to orientate to this movement.

Significantly, four councillors voted for the CLL motion, with Livingstone declaring his unequivocal support for it.

Despite the : doubt many members may have held towards the overall strategy of the CLL they were determined to oppose the individual cuts proposed by the right wing.

Councillors Shaw, Bethat, and Mills, the leading • hawks 1n the Labour group received a drubbing in the afternoon session of the conference.

Their proposals for job cuts were overwhelmingly defeated.

The alternative put forward by left winger Fletcher to continue with the Estates Modernisation Programme to reduce the DLO workforce by natural wastage over four years, won ' the support of the conference.

This follows a similar victory at a Labour group meeting before Christnas where Shaw and Mills threatened to resign.

An emergency Labour group meeting on January 5 to rediscuss the matter failed to make a decision, as did the Labour group meeting on January 13.

Both these meetings were lobbied by workers and tenants from Camden. On January 13, the 300-strong lobby occupied the council chamber demanding to be present for the Labour group vote on the DLO.

Crisis point

Camden has now reached a crisis point. The Labour group is in a stalemate over how to respond to Heseltine's policies.

The left councillors so tar have successfully blocked major cuts, but have no overall strategy of their own to offer. If Shaw's proposals continue to be obstructed, Camden tenants can look forward to al 70-80% rate increase in April.

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