OVER two hundred Labour Party and trade union activists were at the launch of the Campaign to Defend Clause Four.
It was agreed to try to unite all those committed to keeping the clause. It will involve all those in favour of addendums and additions but be centred on retention. Stan Newens MEP Speakers suggested that giving Blair the opportunity of a face saving new statement of aims and objectives that includes the clause would only be acceptable if A CAMPAIGN is being there was a massive campaign for retention.
The officers of the campaign are to be Arthur Scargill, Alan Simpson MP and Doreen Cameron the President of NATFHE. The first committee will be on Sunday December 4 at 12 noon in the Lucas Arms, Gray's Inn Road, King's Cross open to all supporters — only delegates from labour movement bodies/broad lefts will have votes. To affiliate: send a minimum of £10 to Defend Clause IV-Defend Socialism c/o NUM, 2 Huddersfield Road, Barnsley S70 2LS. sion Labour's leaders greeting the captains of industry, wining and dining them at £300 a head at Labour Party conference.
by Dave Packer CLAUSE FOUR is not a full socialist programme. It does not propose popular control of the market - nationalisation of the banks and the main sectors of production under popular democratic control is a key part of a socialist vision of society.
Socialism is still a newidea — one that breaks from the old failed Lib-Lab class collaboration Blair is preparing for us. His proposals are a retreat to the nineteenth century.
It is not the socialists who are the dinosaurs but the backward looking Lib-Labers.
The capitalist class and their representatives in parliament together with their friends in the mass media hate Clause Four -almost as much as they despise the trade union link.
Unfortunately the new right wing offensive initiated at Labour Party conference has more chance of success than. Gaitskell's previous attack. This is ist "New Realism" have drained the labour movement of confidence.
It is tragic therefore that sections of the erstwhile left have refused to defend the clause. Their "redraft" is totally insufficient. The real problem is that the ideas of Clause Four have néver been put into practice. State ownership of the utilities and a modicum of wealth redistribution through progressive taxation would be quite acceptable to the anti-socialist right of the party as well as to a number of Liberals. Formal reference to a "socialism" devoid of all radicalism is no use to any one. It is the content not the word that matters. As they stand both the soft left and Blair options are perfectly acceptable to the capitalist class. Unlike the original, the redraft has little to do with socialism. The new campaign Defend Clause Four - Defend Socialism is right to fight for unamended retention. This should also be the task of left leaders in parliament and the unions.
Defend clause four, implement clause four, fight for a socialist alternative.
Hear Arthur
Opponents of Clause IV are dinosaurs because the long years of defeat-