MIKARDO HEADS OFF REAL FIGHT National Front and its
Socialist Press1978 1978-01-25Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
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In to put on a bid mask anti-fascist of activism the Labour Party leadership have produced a Labour Mikardo knows that while the Lib-Lab Coalition deal remains intact there is no chance of any of these problems being resolved.
And he knows that, along with the rest of the 'left' talkers in the Tribune Group of MPs, he has no intention of fighting to break that Coalition deal.
Ruled
So the only real answer to the fascist propagandasocialist policies to end unemployment and improve social services and housing is ruled out of court, while reformist politicians debate with the fascists on how long workers should wait for a job.
The same position reflected in the inside page article by Labour Party Chairman Joan Lestor who limply announces "New jobs i Boudr Already the Germans have their own meticulously engineered Zocial Kontract ready to outstrip the British model, which is long in the tooth and in need of revamping.
Be warned. After Das Kapital, Der Pact.
Michael Binyon, the new correspondent for the Times in the Soviet Union, returning to Moscow atter a ten year gap, made an early visit to his bank.
He had deposited 100 roubles, worth £40, in 1968 which he discovered was now worth £75, mainly due to devaluation of sterling.
Ubiquitous
Times readers were treated on the front page to a light hearted look at the savings bank.
"Some details have changed... All entries were previously made by hame: it that ubiquitous purple Soviet officialdom uses. But an abacus stood on the counter just in case.
"Millions of Russians have savings accounts. For one thing, they have to pay cash and new homes are the tools to use" , while offering no clue as to how Callaghan's Coalition cabinet of axemen could provide either.
Defender
UPW leader Tom Jackson -a diehard defender of social service cuts and wage control -also dons an anti-fascist face-only to call on the courts to take action against the National Front.
Yet Jackson's own union only a few months ago fell foul of a court injunction which placed a legal question mark over postmen's right to strike.
There can be no confusion on the fact that the courts as a part of the state machine are the tool of the capitalist class-the class which in its determination to weaken and divide the working class is now increasingly providing for everything they buy ... many things require a fistful of roubles which are better kept in a bank than under a bed.
"In a capitalist economy national savings are of crucial importance. How the Soviet economy uses all this money is not so clear".
Quite how banks are made to work in the west was dramatically underlined on page 2 of the same paper.
A report of the trial of six men at the Central Criminal court, was said to be one of the biggest conspiracy trials ever to come before the Allegations of forged bank drafts stepped straight from the pages of James Bond.
The prosecution said: "It was a fraud, the Crown say, which really knew no limit. If it had not been checked, and if it had gone on, there can be little doubt it would have undermined the banking system of virtually the whole civilised world"
It sounds as if the "entire civilised world" would do better to borrow that abacus from the deformed workers' state than to mock their banking system.
And the example of last year's events at Tamesidewhere all meetings and demonstrations on racialism were outlawed , whether called by fascists or antifascists-shows that bans and prosecutions endanger the workers' movement.
This highlights the dangers of the supplementary feature on the front page which restates the policy of last year's Labour Party Conterence.
"Marches by bully-boy groups through mixed areas must be BANNED Delegates said that the Home Secretary must have the power to make a political decision to rule out provocative marches and so stop rightwing parties forcing confrontation on the streets ..
(Our emphasis)
Jackson It would not take much imagination to foresee judges ruling that anti-fascist marches and meetings are also "provocative" , and banning them.
In practice every such ban implicitly or explicitly attacks the democratic rights of the workers' movement.
The answer to the fascists is of course the mobilsation of the real mass strength of the working class movement to drive them from the streets and break up their meetings.
This must 'be backed up wherever necessary by the formation workers' defence squads to drive fascist thugs from immigrant areas and protect labour movement meetings and activities.
The whole exercise is a cynical and fraudulent attempt to head off the necessary political and physical struggle to crush fascism and to break the Lib-Lab Coalition whose policies are handing unemployed and impoverished sections of workers on a plate to the National Nor of course does th reactionary Lib-Lab deal.
It must be broken. An those that stand in the way c such a fight must be remove along with its open defender: