Camden: dump the

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Solidarity on march against Camden cuts backlash Socialists in Camden face the task of preventing a cover-up by the right wing majority on the Council's Labour Group.

Council leaders argue that, for the sake of "unity" in the fight against the Tories, the party has to endorse their decision of February 4 to freeze wages, use voluntary redundancy to destroy 600 jobs in the DLO within a year, and to raise rents by £3.50.

Despite the inadequacy of the strategy of the nine left"

councilors 1 who have opposed these policies, the Camden Labour Left must now go into top gear, rallying support for their stand.

The council's attack has not only provoked conflict between the Labour council and the unions; it has meant that Labour Party policy has been cynically discarded to appease the Tory auditor.

Ignored conference

The majority in the Labour Group have ignored the decisions of the Camden borough conference in January.

That conference, representing the three constituency parties reaffirmed • its support for a policy of 'no redundancies and no reductions in the services provided by Camden Council.' The conference also threw out a resolution which attempted to limit resistance to legal means only' The majority on the Labour Group must not be allowed to parade in the labour movement as the spokesmen for the Camden Labour Parties.

The social atmosphere in the London Borough of Lambeth is becoming increasingly tense.

The forces of right and left are moving closer towards decisive clashes.

The right has taken advantage of the widespread spontaneous hostility to the supplementary rate levied by Ted Knight's Labour council to foster a reactionary mass movement directed against the Labour council.

Last Tuesday saw the largest of a series of demonstrations the main slogans of which are "Knight Out!" , "Knight must fall" and other funny and not so funny versions of the same theme.

Last week's march and meeting brought about 2,000 protestors onto the streets and ended with a noisy meeting at which left Labour MP John Tilley and council leader Ted Knight struggled bravely against 600 almost unanimous hecklers and a Tory MP and Councillor were heard in respectful silence.

The meeting was called by a group calling itself the Rates Action Group which had given it massive publicity.

The group is led by local Liberals and Tories but the National Front, which has now moved its headquarters to Lambeth (Streatham) has also The three CLPs and the Local Government Committee must publicly disassociate themselves from the decision of the majority on the Labour Group.

The Labour Party in Camden must concretise this hostility to the Group's decisions by throwing its full political and organisational strength behind tenants' resistance (such as rent and rate strikes) and the unions campaign of mass pickets and guerrilla strikes.

To those who argue that this will split the Labour Party-we reply that the 18 councillors who handed power over to the Tory auditor have forfeited the right to represent the Party. They speak only for themselves.

The right wing will receive the support of the Tories at the full Council meeting on Wednesday 18 February. It is they who are the splitters.

If there is to be a unity of the left in Camden the nine councillors must grasp the nettle been involved in mobilising militant anti-Labour protest.

At the same time the local Chamber of Commerce has organised a petition against the rate rise and in favour of direct intervention against Lambeth by the Tory government.

It is hard to look anywhere in Lambeth today without seeing one of the hundreds of reactionary "No" posters which fill shop and house windows.

Most socialists and trade unionists in Lambeth-both supporters and critics of Ted Knight's policies-decided that the place to be in the face of this right wing mobilisation was at home.

They were wrong. They should have been in the meeting or on the streets defending the Labour council against the right and fighting to win some of the workers on the demonstration away from Tory and fascist influence.

The left must not leave the right the freedom to organise unmolested.

Of course the task of defending the Labour council in Lambeth is made more difficult by the policy of rate rises which is rapidly undermining the basis of mass political support for Lambeth council's stand against the Some of those who were on the streets on Tuesday might in other circumstances have been demonstrating in support of Lambeth council against the Tories-and so would many thousands more whose enthusiIM NoTNE and give a lead.

Now is the time to break out of the confines of the council chamber.

They must rally the party behind the unions and tenants' associations.

They must be prepared as a group to defy the right party whip.

And it is time for them to play an active part in building the Camden Labour Left.

There have been promising signs, this week, that the left councillors are prepared to follow such a course.

At a meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee' on Thursday 12 February left wingers Livingstone and Driscoll voted against the Labour Group's proposed absorption of the Camden Supplement into the National Pay award.

These two votes added to the Tory opposition (they want to cut wages in the borough, not just freeze them at 1980 levels) temporarily defeated the asm and committment has been dented by continual rate increases.

The fight must now be redoubled to defend the Lambeth council but at the same time to reverse its retreat from an all-out confrontation with Heseltine and Thatcher.

That is the way to stop the right having the opportunity to continue to mobilise growing demonstrations of a reactionary kind. policy.

It was only when the chief executive, Nickson, pointed out to the Tories that they had in effect voted to continue paying the supplement, and could themselves be surcharged that the Tories withdrew in confusion, abstaining on the revote hastily pushed through by The relationship between the left councillors and the Camden Labour Left was strengthened at a meeting last Thursday. A meeting convened by the Camden Labour Left was attended by leading branch officers of NUPE, NALGO and UCATT and five councillors.

At the meeting the Camden Labour Left and unions agreed to endorse a statement of intent by the left councillors to be distributed as a leaflet to the mass picket of the council meeting on Wednesday 18th.

Left councillors were also invited to speak at union mass meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday.

There is therefore a strong basis of Labour movement unity for resisting the Council's cuts.

The only threat to such unity has come from UCATT leader Vic Heath.

No meeting Heath has refused to call a mass meeting of his threatened UCATT members and is not going to support the call for a one-day strike on 4 March.

UCATT members must challenge this divisive decision.

It not only undermines the actions of NUPE and NALGO but will actually encourage workers to take voluntary redundancy as they see no prospect of their branch fighting the council.

Deputy This Conference notes:

1) The savagery of the attacks mounted by this Tory government on working people. These attacks are being made in all areas of life and are unprecedented in their intensity in the period since the war.

The gravity of the context (mass unemployment) in which Heseltine's attacks on Direct Labour Organisations, council housing stocks and all forms of local government expenditure are being made.

The special penalties Camden has already suffered, amounting to some £19.5 million for refusing to pass on these attacks to working people.

2) That given the discretionary powers taken by Heseltine to regulate the policies of local government to his and the Tories' liking, any serious policy of defending jobs, services and living standards will inevitably at some point cross into illegality and a direct clash with the 3) That since this confrontation is inevitable it should take place on ground chosen by us, the Camden labour movement, as the most politically advantageous, on which issues can be presented most clearly and on the basis of which maximum unity can be won, locally and nationally, for, the fight against the Tories.

4) That the clearest basis for unity is for the Labour Party to campaign publicly, together with the trades unions, tenants and other interested groups on a programme of no cuts in services, no rent increases, no wage cuts, no increases on the rates in 1981/2 and the maintenance, improvement and expansion of public housing.

5) That 'buying time' through rate increases will attract continued government penalties, raise the cost of living, divide our support and, in the long term, will not save jobs and services.

A further rate increase will be beyond the means of many people who may then see cuts as a means of relieving their burden, and this will conflict with council workers who want to save jobs and services.

6) That rather than dissipate the support we coud win to fight the Tories by surrendering on any of the above points and sowing division by raising rents, creating redundancies or relying on rate increases the Labour leadership should commit itself to campaign on the above This campaign would culminate in a political confrontation, involving a strike of the borough against the Tories, with a refusal to raise rents and rates and to pay interest payments to the City as funds run out.

This process would involve a fierce political and electoral struggle to retain Labour control, denying any cooperation or legitimacy to a rump of Tory councillors or Tory commissioners.

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DIRECT LAL LYEE B.