By suspended councillor JUN outhought it might be safe to dare say the word 'socialism', the witchhunt is underway again.
There was a brief stand-off, whilst bureaucrats rigged the selection of Labour candidates and lost the general election.
Now the Labour Party's expensive fast-track expulsion machine (the National Con- NCC) has set dates for the first batch of purges. 13 Lambeth councillors and Vauxhall Labour Party member Steve Nally will have 'disciplinary hearings in July.
The timing of the hearings means that ( they could be the last socialists expelled during Kinnock's regime or the first victims under John Smith's leadership. To remind you of some of the facts... , In March 1991, the NEC laid charges of 'conduct prejudicial to the party and suspended 13 Coun cillors and two Party members trom activity This followed two special counch meenns. Unc Wils called to oppose using Poll Tax bathis and ine orner con demned the Gulf War. Afterwards, the Kinnockite Labour Coordinating Committee (LCC) cried 'intimidation' to Coe James Knapp: Outlook's favourite bureaucrat the party executive (NEC). launch an 'inquiry' which targeted 13 counciliors who had not only supported the council Labour group's policy against the War and Tax bailiffs, but had also voted against cuts in the past.
They are also attacked for suggesting a dialogue with Sinn Fein councillors. Nally and Fernandez are fingered for their role in the anti-Poll Tax camPane suspension ofthe council chief leader, deputy reader, whipand mayor, was effective y a coup asainst the council leadership to further the ambiWalworth Road's press office have aided an avalanche and 1C97B08Cl launched a sustained smear campaign within the Party To many, their 'guilt' is a foregone conclusion and it simply remains for the NCC to ber-stampi it. 1 tion case is a scruffy batch of some obtained illegally!) outning how roted in the last six years. Chas ges even include launching a defence campaign Desperateto win the clection, the Labour leadership wrongly believed that it could form a government by winning 're spectability in the eyes of the establishment. With Labour's general election defeat, this new realist strategy has clearly failed.
Now attempts to shift the party further to the right, in order to realign the centre of British politics, will not only re quire a severing of the party's union link, but inevitably renewal of the witch hunt to distance the party The purge has done nothing for Labour's electoral prospects in Lambeth either. Recent council by-elections have been very bad for the Party, even thoug Regional Office has excluded anyone who opposes the suspensions or who is remotely on the left from selection contests.
Lambeth Against the Witchhunt are campaigning for the worker union has defied Tucker, one of the suspended paige. red-green party'. And its paper Socialist is increasingly disorientated. would be smaller than the SWP or Miltant and have no united poitical basis. Nonetheless the Socialist Movement can become an important part of a new left regroupment.
The June Leeds conference organised by the Socialist Campaign group brought together 500 Labour Party activists determined to fight back against now realism. But the poltical and organisational outcome of the conference was very weak.
At the same time Ken Livingstone a very unknown quantiy with a weak organisational base. determination must be capita sed on now. be buit. Labour Party. across Europe Movement has to decide that it wants a new fighting unity. Movement is a forum for socialists to get together and discuss. Trade Union Committee, and its exemplary Unshackle the Unions camBut it is now clear that on its own the Socialist Movement cannot act as the kind of umbrella co-ordination which is needed. Sections of the Socialist Moment have developed a completely diversionary debate on building a The poitical basis for such a party does not exist. If it were created i Ken Livingstone MP has announced the formation of a 'Socialist Forum'. As yet however this is The moves towards reorganising the left represent the response to Labour's election defeat; however there is a limited window of opportunity for carrying through a left regroupment. The mood of resistance and The first thing is clarity on the political basis on which a new left could A new left regroupment must combine fighting all shades of the new realist right wing, with building campaigns against the key Tury attacks.
Key campaigns in the next period must include opposition to the new Tory anti-union laws and now management techniques, buiding anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigns, supporting Scottish seil-determination and fighting inside the labour movement to defend the trade union links with the Opposition to the Maastricht treaty must be a plank of left unity.
The new bosses' Europe, with its plans for economic harmonisation with the deflationary diktats of the Bundesbank, means a huge attack on workers In October the Conference of the Left organised by the Socialist Movement will offer a unique opportunity to rally forces not in the Movement and put forward the basis for a wider unity. To do this of course the Socialist This involves making a decision about what kind of organisation the Socialist Movement wants to be. For some, the legacy of Beyond the Fragments networking dies hard. According to this conception, the Socialist Debating socialism is fine. But in itself it won't frighten the right wing or