Southall bid to oust racist Bidwell

Scan page 5

"The biggest blow we could strike against racialism would be to get rid of Syd Bidw rell as MP who has done sc › much to make racialism respectable"

This was the uncompromising conclusion of one of the platform speeches at a public Labour Party meeting last week in Syd Bidwell's constituency of Southall.

Unanimous

And this conclusion met with the virtually unanimous support of a meeting, largely of Southall Labour Party members, which had been called by two Southall wards.

The meeting proceeded even in the face of attempts Coventry Trades Council decided last week that William Wilson (Labour MP for Coventry SE) should be barred from the platform of their May Day meeting.

Wilson, a member of the Tribune Group was, with Bidwell and three other Labourites, a signatory of the Commons Select Committee Report on Race Relations which recommended a pass law system of controlling immigrants, and a racialist quota system for Indian immigrants.

The Trades Council had invited speakers from a South African liberation organisation and from Spain as well as local labour and ethnic minority organ. isations.

It considered that Wilson's presence would be an insult to the other speakers.

It has recommended branches to sabotage it by what one member called the "racist clique" which dominate the Southall party.

Bidwell, of course, has been for years one of the loudest of left-talking Labour MPs, even boasting when it suits him of a "Trotskyist past"

Signatory Doubtful as that may be there is no denying his racialist present as a signatory to the racist proposals of the recent Commons Select Committee on Immigration.

It is that which has been the last straw for many Labour Party members in Bidwell's constituency.

But it is by no means the first sign of capitulation to racism.

to consider whether they should support Wilson continuing as an MP.

Two other Coventry Labour MPs-Park and Robinson-have withdrawn from the meeting in sympathy with Wilson, but a fourth, Audrey Wise, already had another engagement and was therefore able to avoid a decision. More support for Wilson came from the Stalinists of the Coventry Communist Party.

Secretary Tony McNally told the Morning Star:

'We deplore the sharpness of the attack on him, To suggest he should resign, we feel, is far too drastic in the light of his other many positive l contributions"

Comrade Editor, As a member of the Labour Party and a supporter of Socialist Press I would like to briefly take up two points concerning articles in SP 95.

In a report on the Lambeth by election (published prior to the voting) you mentioned the candidates of the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Unity, etc.

The only point made, however, is the tactical observation that there is little to be gained from standing 'revolution. ary' candidates against the Labour Party at this stage of the class While agreeing with this (and I feel that this view was richly confirmed by the Lambeth result) I think that the article left out a central political question and therefore left an ambiguous impression.

Correct programme If the Socialist Workers Party and other centrist groups were capable of fighting elections on a correct programme, that would be a different kettle of fish.

But as John Plant-a Labour candidate standing on a principled programme in the Newham local elections-pointed out in SP 96, 4L -Bidwell, it was stated by several members at the meeting, remains a member of Southall's notorious colourbar Labour Club from which the Labour Party has officially dissociated itself. Bidwell and the local party leadership had scandalously set themselves against the calling of an anti-racist public meeting by the Southall It would, they said, 'damage the party' at election time and be broken up by the National Front.

No argument, it seems, was too bare or opportunist to drag up.

Alternative As an alternative they have proposed a joint meeting on race relations with the Tories and Liberals!

The fact that members of the Labour Party were prepared under this kind of assault to go ahead with their meeting (boycotted by Bidwell and the local Labour racists and compromisers) is an important step.

The • fake nature of Bidwell's 'left' talk, apparent for some time in Southall, has now become plain for all to see.

These first moves to get rid of him deserve the support of the whole labour movement.

Racist cronies

Bidwell anI his cronies can be expect a to organisations standing against Labour in Lambeth is a hotchpotch of 'revolutionary phrase.

mongering, stunt politics, reformist practice and studious avoidance of the central tasks posed by the coalitionist betrayals of the Labour leaders.

In this situation the working class does not see any serious alternative.

Labour has the advantage of being the mass party of the workers' movement. The lessons of Labour in power hold far greater importance for the working class than protest votes for ersatz 'substitutes' Surely this is a more important question to explain than the tactical 'advisability' of standing against Labour at this time?

It is a question of the programme and leadership necessary to expose and ditch traitors like Callaghan and the scoundrels on the 'left' who cover up for them.

Secondly, and more briefly, I wish to add something to the coverage of the local elections and John Plant's campaign in Newham.

Plant's fellow candidate Ray Massey is standing on the same programme-which, as Socialist Press readers will know, calls for the breaking of the Lib-Lab coalition, a fight against the Labour right wing and puts forward a nonramma of a-PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL Bid weli resist their removal by the most unscrupulous means.

That is why those Labour Party members in Southall who have shown themselves prepared to put up a principled fight should be given every possible support.

As a first move resolutions demanding the immediate removal from office of all the five MPs who signed the Select Committee report could be passed by constituency Labour Party GMC's and sent to the Southall Party John Plant-standing on a principled programme dates had played a fight against Prentice. has a consistent This is true-but record of only Plant principled struggle.

Massey's political evolution is of considerable interest, however for he began as a defender of Prentice.

Shaken by the exposure of the right-wing conspiracy-backed by sinister financial smash up the Newham labour sources-to movement, he broke with the right wing and subsequently supported resolutions for the expulsion of key right wingers from the Labour Party.

He readily signed the branch manifesto and stands pledged to the policies contained in it.

It is my view that all this provides a small but significant example of the shifts that can take place in the labour movement in the course of a hard The main question, naturally, remains the need for the labour and trade union movement to watch all leaders who pledge themselves to socialist policies and mobilise to make sure they