Members from a number of CLPs turned up to a March 29 meeting aimed at co-ordinating efforts to build labour movement support against the Tories' Nationality Bill.
Chaired by Charlotte Atkins (Battersea CLP), the theme that ran through the meeting was the need for Labour to begin taking a stand on the issue.
DIVISIVE CARL national secretary Mike Rodney pointed out that the present Nationality Bill was only the latest aspect of the Tory racist campaign.
Such bills, he suggested, create a climate of racism in which police harassment and thug attacks by the ultra-right are becoming an everyday occurrence. The New Cross firebombing was a foretaste of what was to come.
"We must remember," he went on however, "that this racist offensive is not aimed only at Blacks. It involves us all. Thatcher hopes to divide the workers' movement, to pick us off one after another.
"If we in the unions and Labour Party allow her to get away with it, it will undermine our ability to get a united response to any of her attacks on democratic rights and living standards"
PRESSURE Rodney was followed by Ian Martin Labour MP John Tilley.
of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and John Tilley, MP for Lambeth Central. Tilley pointed out that, unlike in the past, there was growing opposition to the bill from Labour's front bench.
Despite this, however, he insisted unal tne only way to deleat it was by building mass action on the streets. He went on to say that, if the bill was passed, it was only by building up more and more pressure that we could be sure that an incoming Labour government would repeal it.
DISCUSSION A wide and stimulating discussion followed on how to involve wider layers "A united, conscious, organised, vigilant kers and farmers around the world. of the labour movement in struggle. Brent councillor Bernie Grant critpaign to issues such as bad housing, unemployment and the cuts.
sweep everything into one basket," he for Black rights. Such action, he went Labour Party.
form their own committees to advise ACTION adopting a resolution calling for the to pledge to repeal any new racist aws.
Ing called on Curs to:
organisations and other anti-racist groups to speak at party meetings;
representatives to the campaign;
proposals and calling on Labour leaders to lead the fight against them.