A FIGHT has been raging for over four years in Brent Labour Party in NW London in which the racist views and policies of the local rightwing leadership of the party have become a major issue.
The struggle is now reaching fever pitch as the party members candidates for the 1982 council Such is the change in the party that the leader of the coun cil, John Lebor, has not even been nominated by his own ward.
Brent and Asians have been joining Labour Party and uniting with the left.
Ronan Brady, of Brent East CLP, spoke Brent councillors AMORY and MANUBHAI PATEL Merle is the first black women councillor in London and Manubhai is a founding member of the Asian Labour Party Alliance.
MERLE Amory joined the Labour Party in 1976, the year after she left school.
'I went to a demonstration against the National Front in Wood Green,' she says, 'and thatdecided thạt if the Labour Party was taking up issues like this it couldn't be a bad thing.
The Asian Labour Party Alliance aims racism in the labour movement and to organise equal opportunities black It has branches in Har ingey, Wandsworth Crov.
ton, Camden, sirenon. Lameel. ter tester. Birmingham, and tact ALPA 1 c/o Brent Indian con issociation, Ealing Head. Wembley, Mid dlesex.
Merle ICOICSCHEs Stonebridge, dominated by high-rise council flats and she sees housing as the major problem.
Manubhai Patel, whe; came Uganda 1961, joined because 'the first freedom to the colonial people.' He is excited Asian growth Asian zaDOlT Alliance (ALPA) 'It's catching on all over - like Asian flu!' Manubhai produces a letter the Greater London Regional Council of the Labour Party welcoming the formation of ALPA and promising to publicise it. 'One small sicp...
Next For both of them, the Nationality Bill is an attack on black people and should be got rid of by the next Labour government.
'Until we do that, says Merle, 'a lot of black people will feel cheated and the Labour Party will be treated with mistrust.
Manubhai says that. the at a local level must 'show its com mitment to the multi-racial society' He points out that 'only 4 per cent of Brent coun cil. houses go Asians who make up 20 per cent of the local population.
Merle says that racism is more evident in the trade unions than in the Labour Party because being member of a trade union doesn't necessarily require you to lave lic same pollțical consciousness as being a member of a political party.
"One long-term solution to racism in the labour movement Wold • be to have masses of black DIC involved in these bodies. As a step to this, Merle adds, 'the party has to accept the right of black organise dependently.
MERLE AMORY