Prentice Bites the Dus

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The political fate of Reg Prentice - extreme right wing Labour Minister for Overseas Development - is becoming increasingly clear.

On December 2nd he resigned from the -T&GWU panel of sponsored MPs. And a week later his supporters were overwhelmingly defeated in their attempt to regain control of the Newham NE Constituency Party at a reconvened Annual General Meeting.

Indeed the' considerably increased left-wing majority at the AGM showed the way the fight to oust Prentice has heightened awareness throughout the constituency, in which Labour Party membership has grown as a result of the The recalled AGM was itself the outcome of blatant moves by the Labour. Party bureaucracy to preserve Prentice and manoeuvre against the left wing majority - but Prentice has become such a despised figure in the Labour movement that even this device could not save him.

But the fact that an MP with an anti-union record like Prentice was allowed by Jones and the T&GWU leadership to remain on the Union panel of sponsored MPs until he chose to resign is an indication of the thoroughgoing rottenness within the leading ranks of both the Labour Party and the unions.

in this sense, the replacement of Prentice, which 1s the next step in Newham, must be seen as a continuation oi the challenge so tar mounted to the bureaucratic reformist leaders.

Prentice's successor must be a candidate prepared to draw on the strengths that have emerged in the antiPrentice campaign, and take up a struggle throughout the Labour Party and the trade union movement for the ousting of the Callaghan-Healey leadership.

They, together with Prentice and his reactionary allies in the Social Democratic Alliance and the 'Manifesto' Group must be driven out of the Labour Party and into the ranks of the party they really agree with - the Tories.

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sday 15th December, 19 NO HYDES C NO IFS, NO BUTS