Lefts' Betray Jobs to "save Labour

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Both Left and Right wing Labour MPs are now agreed on the most basic issue workers face today. Both sides consider it more important to "Save the Labour Government" than to defend The statements made last week by Norman Atkinson and Arthur Latham, both leading members of the "Tribune' group in Parliament, highlight the way that these people are assisting the Callaghan-Healey attacks.

Atkinson said:

"All those who seek to sustain the government in office must accept the bankers' cuts in principle - not in their entirety -but in principle.

He claimed there alternative to this.

PROTECT

Like Latham, Atkinson said a Tory government would mean at least "two and a quarter million unemployed". . The logic is therefore to protect the reactionary Callaghan leadership carrying out Tory policies simply on the grounds that the return of the Tories would be worse.

Healey now talks about four years of pay control, while Callaghan openly says it will be 1980 before the situation is So the right-wing use the threat of an election which everybody knows (and which the by-election results show) Labour would lose because of abstentions and hostility caused by the Wilson -Callaghan policies.

THREAT

This threat has pulled the left" into acceptance of 1½ million unemployed, wage-cutting and the ending of free collective bargaining, along with continuous cuts in the social services.

The right-wing have shown that they themselves could not care less whether a Labour government is returned at the next election. They are only worried about the protection of British capitalism and the defence of its profits. It is this which provides them with their prestige and bureaucratic privileges.

Roy Jenkins for example is just about to take up a £40,000 a year Common Market job./ And the case of John Stonehouse - a Privy Councillor - has revealed only a little of what goes on in the Labour leadership. The Labour leaders have much more to hide. This is confirmed by the way that Eddie Milne, who is campaigning on corruption, was expelled from the Labour Party, and by the Intentats to suppress the lefts Inevitably, have defended him.

While the Labour right wing is completley tied up in its compromises, collaboration and corrupt deals with capitalism, their left" wing counterparts put consideration of their own careers in front of any commitment to principle.

This is why, when Wilson used dire threats of an election in order to pressure the 37 'left' abstainers into endorsing his economic policy during an earlier round of cuts, Callaghan can now even pull the 'left' dominated Labour NEC into acceptance of the full Social Contract by 13 votes to 7.

EXPOSURE

Benn even went so far as not to turn up to the meeting in case it meant him being exposed; if he had voted against the cuts Callaghan was threatening to remove him from his prestigious cabinet position; if he voted in favour, Benn himself, like Foot (who now says he is glad Callaghan beat him in the leadership election!) would have been exposed before the whole working class as nothing but a right-winger.

We have to say that if voting against the cuts or unemployment or the pay 'deals' means bringing down the Labour government then this should be done.

The 'lefts' refusal to fight means that any Tory government that returns as the result of an election would be handed all the anti-working class legislation of this Labour government.

Their refusal to fight assists the development of frustration in the working-class which in turn leads to demoralisation and assists the development of racist ideas.

The 'lefts" accepting only Parliamentary numbers and etiquette, show contempt for the working class who have shown, as the miners did in 1974 that they could defeat a Tory government.

A stand by any of the lefts' fighting the policies of Callaghan with alternative anti-capitalist policies and campaigning throughout the workers movement for the removal of the Callaghan-Healey leadership, would strengthen the working class and assist it to break through the barriers of their own trade union leadership - which also stands behind the slogan of "Save the Labour Government"

These left' MPs and their trade union counterparts however are doing exactly the opposite of this.

They tell workers 'we are weak' and that the alternative to 1½ million unemployed under Labour is 2¼ million unemployed under the Tories.

This simply accepts the Cont'd Back Page.

ST The ren: ewed upsurge of black prote st in South Africa raises the possibility that white racist rule is now under an attack which it cannot survive:

Fifteen years ago at Sharpville the cel blooded ma temporary La temporary retreat of the mass struggle.

Last week, however, thousands of young black students, schoolchildren and workers showed in Soweto, Mafeking, Port Elizabeth and other places throughout South Africa that they will be neither intimidated nor bribed into accepting the continuation of one of the most complete and brutal systems of repression in the world.

Six weeks ago, in June, police repression of riots against the compulsory use of the Afrikaans language in black schools lett, even on official estimates, 176 dead and over 1000 wounded.

SAVAGERY

This savagery did not quell the protest which, in the form of Trotskyism Today: 4-Page Supplement, "Death of a Fixer"

Confusion Fights Corrupti Trico Strike..

demonstrations, school absentee ism and arson has simmered ever since, not only in Soweto but also in many other towns.

The government was forced reverse its policy on the use Afrikaans.

But this concession was more . ellective than beating hooting in heading off offensive of the young blacks.

Cont'd Page 2 Col 5. Benn

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*... Terrie? 3028 Page 2 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 11th August 1976 MORONAL DEBS

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the interests of the working class.