Wilson's Policies Continue Labour Leadership: 'lefts' Cave in

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Not one of the six cabinet ministers jockeying for the leadership of the Labour Party offers an alternative to Wilson's anti-working class policies. The 'Left' MPs who have collapsed in front of Wilson on every issue have failed even to field a candidate out of the 37 who abstained from supporting the spending cuts ten days ago.

Instead, left' support is being thrown into the campaigns for Foot (Wilson's ambassador to the TUC, basking in the glory of having inflicted the biggest ever wage cut on the British working class) or Benn (leading advocate of job-cutting, "worker-participation" in industry and the nationalist policy of import controls).

Wilson's unexpected announ cement of resignation a week ago, especially coming so soon after the Parliamentary defeat for the Labour government, threw the question of the Labour leadership back into the centre of the stage.

It posed the decisive question to the 'left' MPs. Would they take this chance to fight to defeat the right-wing and their policies -or would they yet again stand back respectfully while the right wing get down to the job of running capitalism and attacking the working class?

Workers did not have to wait long to find out there would be no fight. The very night of Wilson's resignation, Tribune Group MPs were falling over each other to praise Wilson.

"IRREPLACEABLE"

Chairman of the Tribune MPs, Arthur Latham, told us that Wilson was "irreplaceable" and Bric Heffer was happy to disans in a television interview whether he would prefer Callaghan or Jenkins! (He opted for Callaghan).

This grovelling of the 'lefts' is a complete betrayal. The issue facing the working class is not choosing whether they prefer to be bludgeoned into the ground by Jenkins and Healey or strangled by Foot's wage cuts. It is to fight to mobilise the strength of the trade union and Labour movement to drive out these traitors and instal a leadership prepared to carry out policies to defend jobs, The left', by limiting the leadership fight to the closed ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and by fielding no candidate have shown they want no part of this fight.

But even as they try to turn their backs on the problem, the lefts must confront the growing strength of the hostility to Wilson's policies amongst their own supporters in the Labour movement.

It is in the light of this growing resistance that the Workers Socialist League repeats the call for militants to fight now for a recalled Labour Party Conference to elect a new leadership.

There can be no question of simply accepting another Wilson foisted on the Labour Party by the Parliamentary clique of MPs while the membership in the constituencies and Labour voters in the unions are brushed aside.

While the 'lefts' sit on their hands and leave Wilson's policies intact, the main prop of this government's programme of uncracy, nas clearly stated its opposition to any fight for principle within the Labour Party.

Bassnett (G&MWU), Jones (T&GWU) and Scanlon (AUEW) have combined to call for "unity" - meaning in practice, unity around Wilson's policies! But certain sections of the trade union bureaucracy are becoming aware of the movement growing within the union ranks, and are calling for a recall TUC Conference.

We support this call - to bring clearly before the working class the betrayal and political bankruptcy of the TUC leadership. We demand the TUC discuss a fighting programme of action in defence of the working class:

1) No to all Social Services cuts. National strike action to defend full services and manning levels.

2) No to all redundancies. Occupy the plant, and demand the full strength of the unions be fight work-sharing pay.

3) Where employers refuse this - force them to open their books to elected Trade Union committees.

4) On this basis nationalise bankrupt firms and place them under workers' management!

5) A full programme of public works under trade union control to create new jobs and make good the cuts in health, housing, transport and education.

The Labour Party "lefts' refuse to stand and pull back from the fight for such a programme because it is one which cannot be fulfilled under capitalism.

They know all too well that the present crisis is so severe that the basic right to a job and decent living standards cannot be conceded within the capitalist economy - but they refuse to lead the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

For this reason only a principled revolutionary leadership is equipped today to lead actions in Callaghan with fascist envoy Areilza SPAIN IASQUE GENERAL STRIKE The events which followed the police massacre of workers in Vitoria on March 3rd have revealed both the tremendous strength of the Spanish workers movement and the way in which this strength can be wasted and diverted by the political line of the Communist Party and its allies.

The killings (4 in Vitoria and at least one a few days later in Basauri, a district of Bilbao) provoked an immense reaction in the 4 provinces of Euskadi (the Basque provinces).

A General strike called in the region on March 8th was supported by about four-fifths of the workers in the region, one of the most industrialised in Spain. In all the towns of Euskadi the day was marked by continuous clashes between thousands of demonstrating workers and students and the armed police.

Even more than the recent demonstrations in Barcelona, these actions in Euskadi represented a direct challenge to the authority of the fascist regime. The sight of four-fifths of the workers of a major industrial region responding to a call for a political general strike is for the regime a terrifying reminder of its mortality.

It is no doubt one of the reasons for the sharpening of tactical differences inside the Fraga and Arias government.

Spurred on by its fear, the government has now published its proposals to "legalise" political parties Their main feature is the maintenance of the illegality of any party which has the support of a significant section of the working class. The plan is to grant legality to liberal, radical, christian-democratic groups probably including the Socialist Party (PSOE). In fact all these parties already operate in a kind of semi-legality.

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