cils not to use the bailiffs and benefit arrestment. Such demands can win the support of Labour Party members who may not sup›ort non-payment and non-collection but who don't want to see such draconiar measures used against people who simply can't afford to pay the poll tax. We say blame the Tories, not the poor!
It's also important that socialists inside and outside the Labour Party support defence of those people charged as a result of the police attacks on the Trafalgar Square demonstration and the Brixton Prison picket. An important way of supporting defendants is for socialists, trade unionists and anti-poll tax activists to affiliate to and acTrafalgar Square tively support Defendants' Campaign.
We must defand all thosa who oppose the Poll Tax espocially Poll Tax prisoners Only a mass movement will be able to defend the vast numbers of people who are not paying and sustain the campaign against the tax.
Such be a movement must democratic. The leadership must be accountable to the local groups and anti- poll tax unions.
While the establishment of one national federation is a step forward, the existing leadership has many failings. Not least of these is the top-heavy and bureaucratic nature of the All Britain Federation. Local groups and regional federations are not encouraged to participate. Information is not such state repression of the anti-poll ta› movement has to be resisted and the basic democratic right to demonstrate peacefully reasserted.
The rank and file of the labour movement must continue to demand that the Labour Party and TUC leadership support a national demonstration against the poll tax and argue in every workplace for the need for generalised strike action against the tax as well as action against wage arrestment. Non-payment has to be backed up by trade union action against the tax, not only to defeat the tax itself, but to put pressure on incoming Labour government iman mediately to repeal the tax and give an amnesty for all non-payers.
widely circulated. Different political viewpoints are not integrated. The movement is not built with an orientation towards the organised working class. Activity in the trade unions is very weak and no serious fight is taking place within the Labour Party against the collaboration of local councils. All this weakens the movement and limits its potential for growth.
The millions of non-payers come from Scotland, Wales and England, are young and old, black and white and from all political standpoints. No small political group can hope to lead such a variety of people
without a movement which is broad and open and strong enough to withstand political debate. No small group of people can expect to have the answers to all the different tactical and strategic questions that need to be resolved within the movement. The anti-poll tax movement would be strengthened if it was a real forum for the debates and discussions that are so vital to determine the direction of the campaign. We can only benefit if the movement recog nises the strength and creativity within the local groups and federations and puts this diversity to the fore, encouraging leadership at every level and self-organisation of ordinary people in their streets and workplaces. Only organisation at this level will be able to withstand the vicious ravages of wage and benefit arrestment and the use of bailiffs.
Because of our critique of many of the practices of the existing leadership of the All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation, Socialist Outlook supporters have been actively involved in a grouping within the movement of activists who believe that the defeat of the poll tax will depend on a rounded political strategy that places non-payment within a framework of action within the unions and broader labour movement.
The '3D' current raises the three slogans: Don't Pay, Don't Collect, Don't implement. We don't want to let the leadership of the Labour Party and trade unions off the hook. The level of non-payment which exists is testimony to the support which would be there for any local council which refused to collect the poll tax, or the local government unions if they instructed their members not to collect.
The labour movement has the power to put an end both to the tax and to the government which imposed it. Together we can axe the poll tax!
Socialist Outlook supporters call for a tax on wealth and for a system which will stand for the interests of the working class. We