(LGLCR - personal capacity) THE "NEW model" Labour Party has benefited from a resurgence of support from lesbians and gay men. A poll cent of lesbians and gay men voted Labour at the last election.
The election of Tony Blair has seen this process continue. At this year's Pride, the Labour Party stall did a thriving trade signing up new members.
Blair is the first Labour leader to openly signal support for an equal age of consent.
This, and strong support from the front bench - with the notable exceptions of Blunkett and Taylor - suggests that Labour is LABOUR PARTY strongly committed to social equality policies.
However beneath this veneer of progressiveness, Blair's social policies are based on the same fundamentally pro-tamily" stance that traditional labourism has always had - a position it shares on all fundamentals with the Tories.
The limitations of the new Labour liberalism have been exposed during the furore over single parents.
While Labour might argue for the more "humane" treatment of lone parents, it shares with the Tories the view that Lone parents are inferior.
Blair has reiterated his view that two parents are better than one. For him this view is selfevident.
For the vast number of people for whom the world is different, regardless of whether or not their "family" position is one of choice or necessity, such a view is scarcely comforting.
'Model family'
Labour's "model family", as codified by the new leader, is based on a substantially mythi cal "golden age" when we all lived in two parent (white, heterosexual, able-bodied) households.
This view conveniently overlooks that such households are also the location of domestic violence, abuse, including sexual abuse of children, abuse of the elderly and a vast, but concealed, world of privatised dreary unhappiness.
It fails to take account of the diversity of forms of social organisation prevalent in different EQUALITY communities, and the strength against diversity that the lesbian and gay communities, for example, have been forced to develop.
It ignores evidence that it is not the number of "parents" of solely their biological relationship which determines that children are reared "properly".
The controversial issue of access to fertility treatments and to donor insemination are profoundly influenced by whether (for example lesbians and gay men are recognised as "suitable" parents.
Despite a hostile political climate, stoked up by "back to basics rhetoric and tabloid homophobia, progress is being made.
A recent court judgment confirmed custody of children to lesbians.
The TUC has promised a negotiators guide to "family which consciously includes black families, lesbian and gay relationships and adoptive families.
If the Labour Party is to give meaning to its equality policies, then it has to begin by questioning the privileged position it continues to assign to just one of the many different forins of social organisation.
By Liam Mac Uaid THE GOOD news is that the Labour leadership is still in favour of Irish unity - by consent of the Unionists of course.
The bad news is that they do not intend to do anything about So they do not intend to become "persuaders" and will rely on the Unionists eventually changing their mind.
Thus another squalid footnote is added to the history of Labour's leaders agreeing with every major policy decision taken by the Conservatives in Ireland.
So reluctant are they to take an independent position that Mo Mowlam, the Shadow Cabinet member responsible for broadcasting, was prepared to say on television that now is not the time to press for the repeal of the ludicrous, anti-democratic ban on the transmission of the voices of Sinn Fein members.
She does "not want to complicate the negotiation process for the Tories" - and has now found herself outflanked by them as the ban is ditched.
Degrading
How much more can these people degrade themselves? Even Patrick Mayhew, the Tory minister responsible for the North of Ireland, let it be known that he wanted the ban to be lifted. There are times when words are not adequate.
An element in Blair's calculations is that the next election may be a rather close-run thing and his parliamentary majority will not be as comfortable as he would hope.
Major has had occasion to rely on the support of Unionist MPs, and it is not out of the question that Blair will also find himself in some tight corners.
He appears to believe that it is better to abandon any hint of an Irish policy which may distinguish Labour and Tories now while in opposition, than be seen to make sordid compromises in In any case at least that fire old Labour tradition of bi-partisanship can be upheld.
If, like Blair, you accept that Britain has the right to a dominant role in Irish politics, then it is better to be consistently pro-imperialist. At least Kate Hoey and Democracy. Now have that merit.
Since the IRA ceasefire they have been receiving quite a bit of publicity for their demand that the British Labour Party organise in the North of Ireland. They claim to have the support of more than 50 MPs and leaders of the UCW and AEEU.
Only the fact that part of Ireland is occupied by the British state make their principal demand possible. It is thoroughly reactionary.
The North of Ireland regularly has the highest turnout in elections in the British state. Politics there may not be to evervone's taste, but people create and vote for organisations which they perceive to represent their interests.
More British interference is the last thing any part of Ireland needs and the people of the six counties have suffered enough in the last two decades. Why export the squalor of Blair's Labour Party to them? ing position for or against the