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mobilise, and the view that you you can't have a situation where come out in struggle in defence can only mobilise providing that you just have isolated individual of the social wage in their area your leading fordes 1 saint is struggles.

Herona In fact, our argument has workers coming out with them. enmethino that the historv nf heen arainst that all the time.

There's auite a movement building up in Camden against their decision to go for cuts in the face of the government's threats. How will you seek to link up to that movement and bring that struggle into the Lambeth labour movement?

TK: We have been working in various ways with the people in Camden for some time, building workers in particular.

The shop stewards movement within the Direct Labour Organisation have been trying to build a London-based fight on these questions to link up with the Camden workers. The Camden workers didn't think it was going to happen, basically, and therefore there were some difficulties in convincing them that this is how the fight will take place.

I think now that they've had the experience that we will be able to have that link both at trade union level and local councillor level, Labour Party level, and we will try to link that to the London Labour Parties and at councillor level we will work closely with the councillors that are in opposition to the right wing of the Camden council.

So in all ways we are attempting to develop. We are using the Camden experience here in our discussions, in our public meetings.

It's a continous interaction of experiences that's taking place. But I don't think there's any straightforward straight line development.

It's not possible because you've got all sorts of situations even at London level. I mean while we've got the situation of the big reaction in Camden, you've had a similar situation in Heseltine Southwark. 450 jobs have gone in Southwark. There was no such reaction. The same has applied in Islington where there've been major cuts. While there's been a development in the Labour Party it hasn't been able to draw on wider support outside.

I think it's developing and will develop over the next period and we will make a contribution to that but we intend to be here to make it.

I think that is the difference between our line and your line.

• Six or seven Clay Crosses I don't think is a very constructive contribution to any development.

IS: So you don't think there are any circumstances under which that sort of confrontation with the Tories would be feasible? If it isn't with six or seven, Knight then presumably it isn't with ten or a dozen or twenty?

TK: Well I heard Alan Thornett's speech at the Lambeth conference. I knew what the argument was that he was presenting, that you want a series of such confrontations.

I don't think that will be the way it will develop. It's hard to speculate • on circumstances. There may be a set of circumstances, a relationship of forces, but i think they need evaluating. I think the last thing we want are people plunging forward merely to say the Charge of the Light Brigade is sufficient, even applauding it at the conference. We've got enough martyrs in the labour movement not to just willingly walk comrades into that situation without a proper evaluation of the balance of forces.

I don't think what's required at the present moment are martyrs. What's required are people working consciously to anari girtiringsane fratarty the labour movement doesn't bear out.

KW: Where councillors or Labour Parties fail to get implemented rate increases sufficient to protect services against cuts, do you think they should go for direct action against their local council and try to get local trade unions to strike, as suggested by the NEC?

TK: Well the NEC has never suggested that we mobilise strikes.

KW: It's resolution on cuts actually said that the working class must be prepared to use its industrial action to defend ..

TK: Well that was the mambeth at the Special Conference. I think that what we were talking about there was the need for a national struggle in defence of services and where we would expect the TUC to throw their weight behind that And we had a situation here where our own trade unions have taken strike action in defence of services but in isolation there are limitations and regrettably we didn't see a widespread development.

I don't think anybody was anticipating major national struggle in the week of action, but 1 think we have posed the issues. The question is that in. order for that to be successful wwww ağanior wal au win tulvi The motions passed at the first Lambeth conference in my view will fragment the struggle.

The tenor of them was that when the cuts take place, you must take industrial action to defend that situation.

Their argument was that because the stages of financial degeneration in each local authority are at different stages, therefore you can't have a coordinated struggle.

Well, it's nonsense. What will happen-we've seen it in London-Wandsworth, we've seen the situation there where the Wandsworth trade unions 11. _ тттhave basically accepted it. Now they actually went out on strike for a few days, but the victory they won was that there would possibly be no enforced redundancies.

So you know there's a limitation in the isolated struggles. What was required there was the whole of the trade unions to come to their defence. At this stage that development hasn't taken place.

KW: Have you any more plans for calls for coordinated action of the sort of that week of action?

TK: No, I think our own trade unions would want to wait and see the way developments take place outside of Lambeth before they take further action of that nature. They will be waiting for Leyland workers, perhaps, to TOWU and possibly other sections of I think that 11 cep a link un there with that situation. What our workers did was to show their concern. They believe that it is possible to wage a struggle, but it has to be on a wider front than an individual boroughthat isolated to an individual borough it will be defeated.

And that is certainly not an experience that will be repeated without a much clearer evaluation of the balance of forces.

IS: The problem of talking about sections of workers like BL coming out, it seems to me TK: No, I meant there, in relation to situations where you have large concentrations of the labour force I think local government workers would be looking for support for their actions from such larger sections of organised workers.

I think they'd be looking for a closer relationship between organised forces within the movement to see whether it is possible to widen the base of that struggle.

IS: Do you think that Labour councils like Lambeth have a develop that because in lead HE ILLE obviously isn't going to come from the TUC at this stage?

TK: Well I think we have and we are, yes. But I don't think that the Labour councils alone can do so.