Rights in Danger

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Tersity Labour Club. officers.

BRITAIN 6 insues...

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Forty-six Labour MPs joined hands with Tory bigots and backwoodsmen last week to give a second reading to the reactionary Benyon Abortion (Amendment) Bill, and set it on its way through Parliament.

Indicating the complete inability of the Labour and trade union leadership to carry forward even the most limited defence of women's rights, the Labour Party declared the Tory Private Member's Bill the subject of a "free vote" - on which the Party apparently had no interest.

DEVOLUTION

Yet during the same week on a topic far more peripheral to the lives and wéll-being of the working class, the diversionary Devolution Bill,_ Callaghan and his lieutenant, Foot, had been straining every muscle and cracking a three line whip in an unsuccessful effort to force through a guillotine measure as part of a manoeuvre for an electoral toehold in Of course if this right-wing Newham North East Labour Party was given the real flavour of right wing "democratic" politics last week when the forces of the state were called in to break up their Annual General As the meeting ended in chaos some of the staunchest Prentice supporters were openly calling for the removal of the right wingers from all their Labour Party The move had been engineered by an Oxford don - Paul McCormick, the man who helped found the Democratic Labour Club in Oxford as a right wing breakaway gruop from the UniThis organisation has become notorious for championing Tory infiltrators into the Labour Party. Its President is Roy Jenkins.

McCormick, who has absolutely no connection whatever with Newham, obtained the injunction for a supposed breach of rule, 36 hours before the meeting to elect But the court official, flanked by two strong arm men, was instructed to make no move until PRESS * Press, I would like. • issues, I enclose £ NAME..

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EUROPE 6 issues. 12 issues: 24 issues Callaghan administration is removed from office and a General Election forced on them, the reason will not be that it has particularly discriminated against Scottish or Welsh workers - but that it has used the full armoury of Tory policies against the entire British working class.

PRIVATE PRACTICE

One example of this has been the savaging of the Health Service and the refusal to stamp out private practice in medicine.

The result has been that already under the NHS abortionis are increasingly hard for women to obtain.

In Birmingham for instance, now only 13% of abortions are performed under the Health Service - the remainder being forced into private clinics by the unsavoury combination of money-grabbing and bigotry which distinguishes the medical profession in that area.

AMEND

The Benyon Bil, which seeks to amend the existing 1967 Act, plays up completely to this sector of the medical profession.

to BUST ten minutes after the meeting began so that right wingers could see first whether they had a majority.

Had there been a genuine grievance the matter could and should have been dealt with inside the Labour Party. But these "democrats" chose to use the machinery of the state to interfere directly with a democratically called meeting.

DESTROY

By doing so they have shown themselves willing to destroy democracy inside the Labour Party rather than accept that the 'moderates' they represent have been rejected.

The officers, who declared themselves, like Prentice, to be shocked by events, did nothing to fight them. They abandoned the meeting at the instruction of the court officials.

The meeting should be reconvened and elections take place without waiting for a group of Tory judges to rule.

The four men who signed the application for the injunction must be expelled.

Reg Prentice, who attracted these people to his aid, and whose views they aim to propagate, must be replaced.

SOCIALIST £1.15 .£4.60 REST OF THE WORLD Using the fraudulent notion of "abuses" of the Act, the Bill seeks to shorten the length of pregnancy in which abortion could be carried out from 28 to 20 weeks except in certain circumstances; it specifies that two doctors of at least five year's experience (thus excluding young doctors) should give permission for abortion to take place; and it calls for licensing of advisory services, consultancies and pregnancy testing agencies.

RESTRICT

The overall effect will be massively to restrict the availability of free safe abortion.

Of course the whole idea of "abuses" of the law is ridiculous. As long as even one woman is forced to go outside the National Health Service to seek an abortion, the NHS and its framework of operation is inadequate.

On the platform at the CP-run Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions Conference, Derek Robinson, Longbridge convener and Executive member of the Communist Party.

Only a week earlier he had said: "The worst thing that can happen to British Leyland and the country is for groups of workers to think they have got the God-given right to take sectional action in defence of their own conditions ... We can't afford the toolroom strike, or any other strike."

Seated next to him is Bob Wright, Broad Left AUEW Presidential candidate, who only shortly before had joined in a unanimous decision of the AUEW leadership to instruct the toolmakers to return TOOLROOM WORKERS .. reported to be instructing TGWU drivers a 500-strong AUBW picket line.

Despite these moves, dispute remains solid, with Leyland at the point of complete shut-down.

The scale of these events and the forces ranged against the toolworkers testify to the importance of the issue.

The toolmakers demands are far from pertect. They call, lor instance, for what amounts to corporation-level which we have consistently fought as a wrong demand.

And they fail to call for the increases they are fighting for to be protected against inflation.

To do this, as Socialist Press has consistently pointed out, it is essential to demand a cost of living clause providing automatic increases in step with the rising cost of living - assessed by trade union committees.

But the toolmen's willingness to struggle on wages gives a lead to the entire working class. We reject completely the idea that somehow the toolroom men are 'splitting' the working class.

On the contary the whole working class is ready to fight on - the splitters are the officials, imposing their policies on a hostile rank and file, separating one section from another and preventing a united fight in defence of living standards.

What must be broken is the false unity of the Social Contract - a unity of wage cutting and instead forge a unity in action to defend living standards.

But the toolmakers face one mannesmant in too tha those of But the 'left' MPs who claim to oppose this legislation have at every key point refused to take a clear stand against NHS spending cuts OI mobilise any struggle within the Labour Party for the removal of the Healey and Callaghan leadership.

WHIP

And they have even failed to come out and demand the Party whip be used to force Labour MPs to support the right to free abortion or be excluded from the PLP.

This is not a great issue of "conscience" or hypocritical morality, but a vital question of rights for all women.

Motions must be put down in union branches and CLPs demanding Labour MPs toe the line in defence of these most elementary democratic rights for women and the preservation and extension of PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report.

from Front Page. closure as a weapon to isolate them.

Toolroom workers must give a clear answer to this.

There can be no question of accepting the figures handed out by management and the press.

The company and its suppliers and creditors must be answered by the demand that they open their books to elected committees of trade unionists.

And if indeed the company is on the verge of ruin as a result of crippling interest burdens and the exorbitant profits of component firms; this confirms the case for the nationalisation of Leyland, Its suppliers and the banks as a major step towards an integrated and planned motor industry under the management of these trade union committees.

In this way management closure threats can be challenged and the common struggles of all Leyland workers brought to the fore.

In the context of this crucial struggle and the massive chailenge to wage control throughout the working class, political clarity is vital.

This is why we urge all readers to build for and attend. the Conference on Wage Control and Union Democracy called by the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement in Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham on March 27th. (Details p.4)

This conference will be in clear opposition to the LCDTU Conference which the Communist Party leadership made sure did not even discuss the 5/293 TGWU Branch resolution for support for those sections going into action against Phase Tun the NHS or make way for those who will.

In particular ASTMS members must demand that all union support is withdrawn from the union-sponsored MP Labour Minister Dr. Dickson Mabon, who flouted ASTMS policy in voting for the Tory Bill.

STUDENTS FIGHT for their replacement by a principled leadership.

This struggle will only be successful if it is based on a clear political programme.

Such a programme obviously takes as its starting pomt in the present situation the demand that colleges refuse to implement the proposed fees increases, and that they end all quota systems, whereby overseas students are permitted access to education iri limited numbers only.

And if colleges claim they cannot afford non implementation of the increases, we must demand that all their books be opened to elected committees of students and trade unionists.

In addition we must agitate for the abolition of all fees, and the granting of full education facilities to all those who wish to study -regardless of whether they possess the "qualifications" deemed necessary by LEA's and the DES.

Yet the bare right to education is meaningless if students cannot afford to keep themselves while studying: we therefore call for a sliding scale of grants and for a sliding scale of pubic expenditure rising in pace with inflation to ensure that grants and education are protected against the ravages of inflation.

Of course these demands will not be won overnight: but only a determined struggle to achieve them, using the tactic of occupation and fighting for organised working class support, will ensure that free education becomes a reality and not the myth it now WE WERE UNABLE TO report the final figure for the January fund in our last issue due to the technical difficulties we faced in producing the paper but we are pleased to say that the final total was £579 - our highest to date.

Unfortunately, the picture this month is more gloomy with only £405.90 in and only one more post to come.

There is a lot of promised money still outstanding. Can we urge all readers and supporters to take this situation seriously and send contributions immediately to:

Socialist Press Monthly Fund 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT PUBLIC MEETING "Wage Control and Union Democracy"

NUFTO Hall, Jockey's Fields Holborn 'hursday 17th March at 7.00pn Speakers Alan Thornett, Shop Steward, BLMC Chris Condon, North Islington CLP Pat Ollie, Newham N.W. CLP Gerry Bennett, GMWU, Centrai London Hotels (All speaking in a personal

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