MP spent several days in week the strike. On Septerber 700 people attended a rally in Town, LonGOn neal wwen the rally was eurO pean MP Richard Balfe who told the au'no one who travels in Europe as | is wide support for the H Block prisoners Party the North of Control There were other, more lett wing, members study group because Barry organised it he was able to control how It operated.
This is reflected in the orzanisduons the study Even more interesting, the study group met the Campaign for Labour Representation, the United Labour Party and the Labour Union Group. All of these contain no more than handful of individuals and are heavily influenced by the 'two nations' ideology espoused by Barry.
Neither did the study group see : Sinn Fein who have over 30 councillors in the South although it met every other political party in the South which had elected public representatives This pro-Loyalist bias is evident the report behalf of the study drawn by Barry, on which forms the basis of the NEC statement.
Socialist Challenge it over with an Irish unit! gloss.
At the NEC meeting when the statement discussed Sam McCluskie of the National Union of seamen recognised this reality and, because he is in favour of a real commitment drawal, voted againsi it The conferenc should follow that exam ple. 24 September 1981
It's the unelected few in the Stock Exchange who decide the country's economic priorities, not working people the Tories.
Party so important.
conference; The Socialist Alternative.
own alternative.
Agreement Thatcher has pulled the wool from many people's eyes. Indignation at her government has led to policies that were once hotly contested being widely adopted: unilateralism, withdrawal Ine EEL, large increases in public spending, a return to full employthe 35-hour week these are some of the issues on which very broad unity now exWe are socialists because we reject une tragic ana destructive results of a society based on profit and not social need. We want an end to a Britain which clings to falling overseas protits by playing second fiddle to keagan in tne world war stakes, which can waste £9bn every vear on weapons. and consign 3 million to the dole while our inner cities, hospitals and schools We want jobs, not bombs. That's why we agree with many of the long-term objectives in the NEC's plan: jobs for all, common ownership, economic and social edualitv. rights for women (we would add youth and biack people. collective provision for social need, an internationalist foreign policy, and democratic socialist society.
But can this be Labour's traditional methods? We don't think so.
Our plan is one not just to rebuild the economy, but mobilise the resources labour movement to meet ana defeat the resistance to change of the rich and powerful.
What can be achieved?
One of the merits of the new Labour left is that it no longer accepts mvth that resources for change don't exwe aon t nave to put up with the cuts, wage restraint, and unemployment. Do away with the profit system and you don't need attacks on workers.
costs the government 23,700 in IOSL taxes benefits to put one worker on the dole. Over £10 bn could be put in government coffers just by ending unemployment. Lost production costs the country nearly £40 bn every year.
This could pay for: a 50 per cent increase in nınımum wage of t105 a week, a l) per cent increase in nouse bullaing, a so per cent mercase health and education spending and a 50 per cent rise in industrial investment.
In order to build houses.
Socialist Challenge 24 September 1981 Mass unemployment is here to stay. Wage cuts are back. The social services are in ruins.
The real aim of Thatcher's monetarism is quite clear: a direct assault on working class strength. No economic recovery will be conThatcher is the most hated British Prime Minister of this century. She should be driven But this isn't enough. We need an alternative not just to monetarism, but to the the last Labour government. Michael Foot is wrong when he says that the search for an alternative will divert from the fight against If we can't convince working people that things will be different, our chances of defeating Thatcher will be so much the less. This is what makes the battle in the Labour But what is the alternative to be? Socialist Challenge looks at the proposals put forward by the Labour Party NEC in its statement to plain why we disagree with it, and explain our hospitals and schools we would need to produce steel, building materials. machinerv and consumer goods for the workers cuivlovcu.
The whole economy could be economic plan was used direct the process. It would end the stupidity of having 3 million workless while no-one builds houses or hospitals. socialist alternative should begin by: * rebuilding our system and health services; * making puonc transport inio a genuine social service; SOCIOL inequality: a minimum and maximum wage, index-linked social benefits t01 all in need, an end to unearned Producing for need and not profit will also mean: * work for all, with special emphasis on the right to work of women, youth and black people; * defence against through index-linked wages; *a 35-hour working throughout industry.
What has gone wrong?
This is not utopian or impossible. Labour's own researchers have shown the resources exist to do i. ine problem is una governments try to VEC's spending without taking control of production and investment. The result has been: * a balance of payments crisis because industry with demand: * industrialists lose profits and refuse to co-operate; the party's plans are sabotaged by Whitehall, the CBI, the banks and its own cabinet.
To deal with this the following new measures are needed: *control of investment production to rebuild industry; * a socialist plan to make sure that growth is co-ordinated; * a plan to stop the banks' sabotage; * a plan to stop the cabinet,selling to the IMF, Treasury CBI, table to working people.
It is in trying to deal with these our problems that Labour left hit problems. They base their strategy laeas to mose our lorwara by Tony Benn in New Socialist, and echoed in Manifesto, detailed alternative Labour leftwingers, We exproper education inflation week use the can't cope and published by Pan. latter argue that main resistance to change has the CONC multinational capital, from the and accoun- livir and lorces economy. They the idea that 'colony' of the the multinationals. answer is to on similar walls, using agreements to secure the operation of domestic capital.
by are the recently where did the IMF get its ideas the tain. In foreign and sterling crisis.
outsiat our Ransom put forward Britain is IMF and But these cuts Thus their rebuild the treasury beforehand planning Healey's.
actually facts? First ment give in. from? From the banking and The business community inside Bri1976 the IMF forced cuts on the government atter a operate were being demanded by the CBI and the for two years Joe Haines, the sterling crisis of 1975 was scuicialy that engineered by the treasury to make the governmultinationals that hold the economy to ransom are not foreign. They are maincombates The enemy lives at home. What has happened is that for over a hundred years they have chosen to abroad because they get more protit oppressing th peoples of the Third Work 'hev are not prepared to in. vest in Britain unless the working class is first smashed up Between 1974 and companies acquired £llbn worth of overseas assets. even though industry declined so much that they lost f8 bn worth of assets overall. The banks increased their overseas borrowing from f5 bn to a stag. gering £3. 3 bn. In the first three months of 1981 alone, £2.6 bn fled overseas This happens because Bri tain was, and remains, an im perialist Louilll y It enslaves will une pound as well as une gun, using sterling's internațional role to safeguard foreign investments and hold down the of the Third Banking, as a result, plays a completely disproportionate
IN Production MANUFACTURING INVCOIMEA Annual expenditure Defence budget, 1981-82 of which:
pay etc of personnel airrorce equipment Programmes Individual items One Type 22 frigate One Tornado F2 aircraft One 81mm mortar One light support weapon 8-tonne army vehicle doomed.
Our plan the hands of working people.
The first step control finance. * nationalise all the banks and finance houses; * end, once and for all, the role of sterling as a world reserve currency;
resources for investment and control oI inaustrv. it would remove nanas a weapon thev ensiave peoples look at, and Wages uvn dal tne rinancıal dealings of every -ORECAST tain. This publicly by: *giving every union the right to inspect the books, and financial dealings, of any company operating in Britain.
step to being able to control industry. the isolation of sector-by-sector planning and organise, at every level of the labour movement sajes peric es the leading to: pooling of plemented? The Strategy's idea agreements'. Spending on arms compared with social services defence research and development upkeep of Polaris submarine Trident nuclear missile system+ Sting Ray Torpedo programme One nuclear powered fleet submarine One Challenger Main battle tank *not yet sanctioned by the government tto be bought from the United States starts from the movemen need to acquire the information To and control needed to take the running of industry out of the hands of its owners and put it in tionalising would be to means:
CulalC itself socialist.
This would free tremendous you cannot bosses' the capitalists' USC plementing Third It would allow us also to dustries.
publicise informacompany in Brishould COne rand In Coa cs terocious This information is the first The next one is to end from above.
civil SCaViCg be plan has to propose countability 'planning return for Child benefit 1,689 E million 27,000 representatives of the workers these means: govern- * the commanding including and WILB nademocratic shows naple. the conclusion as has Mitterand reply the action Icale icu to meet the workers' should Hospital and community health services Medical Research Council Services for disabled Thames flood barrier Humber Bridge Lothian's rate support grant cut 900 new houses Improvements to 300 houses Stairlift for disabled person School books for 75 children for one year One meals-on-wheels van Table: Labour Research Sept 1981 bu e den ty van ng sure nesr of all the police of and their by popular organisations alternative forms of popular power cannot be created overnight. But they draw a peculiar this. They argue that immediate measures should be verv ulfuLCU. limit any organisation to that which presently exists — parliament and its committees Power up.
But when workers occupy their plants, when they organise for wages increases, when they defend themselves against the new picketing laws when they do all these things then they are laying the basis of mne energence oi mer owa organisation of power. balvil We have a great disagreement with the NEC about the methods which sould be used in fighting for their policies. We don't believe it is an adequate strategy to wait until the next Labour government is elected.
totally oppose the policies that led to the social contract and voluntary wage restraint, which were based on the idea that the working class smployers and leave politics te give fighting the parlamentary SLADOUI £ million 9,892 3,385 1,310 { million 750* 4,000 trade is impossible without tackling production and investment.
Second, it is not planned trade at all. Real planned trade would call for a state monopoly all foreign trade together series of trading agreements with the rest of the world which mutually benefits our trading partners, instead of being unilaterally imposed by Britain.
Third, it is a disguised sub. sidy to the most backward sec tions of capital: it means working people have to pay more to buy British-made products occause factory owners have failed to moder. nise production Fourth, it will antagonise the very people whose support we want to win: the workers of other countries who will see import controls as exporting unemployment to them.
The real goal of a socialist foreign policy should be to link all those who are fighting our capitalists abroad and break out of the trading patterns of an imperialist country.
We have to get out of the EEC which is a protectionist cold war creation, a barrier to device political collaboration between multinational bosses We have to abandon any commitment to military alliances directed at the Third World and the Soviet Union which micans gellilg our of NATO as well as getting rid of nuclear weabons We have to end the British WCaos army's foreign role and withdraw all troops fron abroad, and above all fron Most of all, we should cease
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Britain has gone back to the thirties. templated unless she succeeds. from office. bankrupt policies that let her in
CONFERENCE those of
£ million 12,274
5,500 E million 7,500
Suplementary pensions British Rail electrification*
{ million 1,500