TWO EVENTS happened last Wednesday which at first glance seem unconnected: Militant supporter, was endorsed Labour candidate for Bradford North, and Bruce Page was sacked as editor of the New Statesman.
Now Bruce Page knows a thing or two about parliamentary re selection. In his own constituency of islington South, he and others. such as chairperson Ann Page, played a centrol role in drumming up support for sitting MP George Cunningham. there were plans to replace Cunningham with a candidate more in tune with local party politics. Page went as far as backing Cunningham in the reselection vote despite the MP's refusal to promise to stay in the Labour Party One month later Cunningham returned the lavour by leaving the party. It was also his way of thanking Michael Foot who had just offered him a place in the shadow cabinet. Michael Foot, of course, has never felt it necessary to condemn such reselections. concentrated his fire on the left.
Peter Tatchell from endorsed, because of his support for extra endorsed this week because of modest ir regularities in the SHEEHON rumoured 10 the sounds penetrating the proceedings. Refusal to pledge to stay in the party does not appear to he an ir regularity All this only goes to show that the Bishop's Stortford truce never existed. The night want to continue the witch hunting that has gone on Labour Liaison '82 is under way Pat Wall, prospective It was no secret that Instead he has Bermondsey was not activity. And Pat Wall was not process disco agamst the lett No truce for Laurence Scott workers who are fighting union leaders Boyd and Duffy against Militant, Peter Tatchell and Tarig Ali. While the working class is under attack, talk of a truce is both dangerous and futile. We have to openly take to get rid of the Tories these comrades other with current trends.
is the attack from the issue all the statements There is struggle cannot be separazed on the turncoats within our movement.
For strikers at Laurence Scott there can be no talk of a truce while union leaders Boyd and Duffy stab them in the back. The same goes for rail workers who have to confront Sid Weighel! as well as British Rail and the Tories. For them it is one and the same struggle and no amount of talk of unity can make it otherwise What policies Labour fights on and how it achieves those policies are crucial to the fight That is why the state ment issued by the Labour Co-ordinating Com mittee on behalf of 33 prospective Labour parliamentary candidates which stated that extra parliamentary activity must form an essential part of Labour Party strategy.
. was weicome. But statements are not enough and should be building labour movement support for extra parliamentary ac tivities like the picket line at Laurence Scott.
As the Tories attacks increase with Tebbit and Heseltine, Labour leaders have to respond Ir is not enough, unfortunately, to say as Nor man Atkinson does in his article on this page that there is a need for the broad left represen ting both the industrial and political left to meet, go over the ground and acquaint each The left knows what the 'current trend' is I!
Tories and from the Labour right led by Michael Foot. Unless ang until it comes to terms with that question it can and hold all the meetings it likes. The right will walk all over us truce in the Labour Party: week's NEC showed that. That is why fighting the witch hunt and supporting workers in