leadership to get behind our wil be wreckng your community and taking your oo next Flo Rutter, also from Trentham pit camp said Viere all political actvists now. Women have a big stake in this Lamily benefits and our quality of life is under threat. Not 31, not 10, not one closure! We are hghing foe our communities. our familes. our Socialist Campaign Group Supporters Network and the future of socialism Organising the left in the Labour Party Saturday April 17th Sheffield Hallam University, Pond St 11-5pm For further details contact: CCSN, c/o Jeremy Corbyn, Red Rose Club, 129a Seven Sisters Road. London Ny March 13, 1993 No. 39 LAST JUNE, over 400 Laour Party activists met ir eeds and took some step: towards forming a national campaign of the Labour Left - the Socialist Campaign Group Supporters Network.
Since that conference new Campaign Groups have been set up in many places, showing that life does still exist on the Labour left. On April 17th a recall conference takes place in The need for a national, democratic force of the labour left is obvious. The economy and the lores may be in crisis but the Labour leadership has They removed virtually every policy and democratic measure won by the left in the 1ast 19/Us and eary dus - and then lost the 1992 general election. Now they are floundering nostly trying to claim that they hough of fory policies first John Smith's big idea' in his recent Bournemouth speech was that Labour is the party of individual aspirations.
The best they can come up with is the new buzz word 'Clintonisation' which amounts to little more than a vain hope that the US Democrats success in winning an election might rub off on Labour, and an excuse for ditchLabour left is weaker than it has been for about 20 years, reduced to sentative on the NEC - Tony Benn - and marginal to Party debate on nearly all issues.
It has suffered mass defections to new realism over the years of defeats in the class struggie, and a high drop-out rate from those despairing of the policy changes and demoralised by the witch-hunt.
Forging a national democratic campaigning body ting most of the Labour left will not be enough to bring an instant reversal of the left's fortunes. A change in the state of the class struggle is needed to achieve this. However, this does not mean that nothing can be done in the meantime.
a reit-wing acting ogether on issues where more effective and attrac tive force, offering an alternative to the watereddown Toryism of John Smith Links must be built from the beginning with the left in the unions. A campaign around reten fers the chance to work with wider forces than the existing left.
The April 17 conference will be addressed by the Campaign Group candidates for the NEC this year, but will also discuss campaignine in the areas of anti-racism, defending public services, fighting pit closures and job losses, Maastricht racy and the New This offers an opportunity to discuss linking up party activ.