Claims Pope's Mp

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Right wing Labour MP Michael O'Halloran has complained to the Labour Party NEC that he was "beaten up" by demonstrators, including his opponents in Islington North Labour Party.

The fracas took place when O'Halloran refused to meet 70-80 demonstrators, largely SWP supporters, lobbying the MP's "surgery" against the anti-abortion Benyon Bill.

"They have their views, and as a representative of the Catholie church, I have mine" said O'Hailoran, putting forward a novel view of the duties of Labour MPs.

Nevertheless two Labour Party councillors-also present at the Labour Party HQ-intervened to persuade him to meet the lobbyists, who then entered the "surgery"

What happened next is disputed, but it is certain that punches were thrown by one side or the other as O'Halloran attempted to leave the room.

O'Halloran, in his letter to the NEC, alleges that he was punched and kicked by Councillor Mark van der Weyer and by Keith Veness, the militant expelled from the Labour Party by O'Halloran's supporters (see SP55).

It is clear that O'Halloran intended that his complaint should be considered at the same NEC meeting as a report of an NEC sub-committee which has recommended the reinstatement of Veness to Party membership.

: Islington North secretary, Dave Davies, has also written to the NEC claiming that other Labour Party militants were present at the punch-up. Among those he names is one who was certainly elsewhere at the time.

This evidence', and that of O'Halloran, will also be considered by a sub-committee of Islington North GMC.

The political make-up of the GMC rules out the possiblity of an objective enquiry, and when O'Halloran's version has been rubber-stamped, it can be assumed that a further witch-hunt of the left

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SOCIALIST 'RESS, ednesday MaI 1971