LABOUR'S identity is at stake: that's how important the battle for Clause Four is.
Over 170 people packed in to the Mechanics Institute in Manchester on November 18 to hear Arthur Scargill, Alan Simpson of the Labour Party Campaign Group, MEPs Mike Hindley and Eddy Newman, and Karina Knight of Manchester Young Labour discuss how to defend the A few days earlier 250 had joined a rally on the same issue addressed by Tony Benn at the Metropolitan University.
All of the speakers argued that Blair attack is a challenge to all socialists. He is trying to remove every remnant of Labour's commitment to socialism.
This reflects the leadership's embrace of the market and a desire to wholly subordinate workers' interests to the dictates of capitalism.
It means accepting:
• private enterprise — production for profits not needs as the engine of the economy • huge inequality between rich and poor in Britain and internationally • unemployment and underemplovment as permanent features • a 'new world order 'of competition and conflict Dumping Clause Four will free Blair from all obligation to reverse the damage wrought by the Tories - accepting privatisation, the erosion of benefits, anti-union laws, the NHS internal market, the destruction of local This is the price the bosses want for their support. Blair wants us to pay it.
The success of the rally is an indication of the mood of rank and file members in Manchester and their determination to resist the changes in the constitution.
Hundreds have already signed a statement reaffirming the Clause, the trade union link and the sovereignty of conference over a future Labour government.
Arthur Scargill reminded us that the clause originated not in middle class Fabianism but in the aspirations of trade unionists.
He explained how he joined the Labour Party to end the rotten corruption of capitalism, not to tinker with it. Blair's proposals are a betrayal of that sentiment.
Clause Four envisions a much fuller democracy than the one presently on offer, Karina Knight argued - popular administration of the economy and workomic Py is sue Alan Simpson ers' control of production.
Ditching it means accepting the unaccountable power of the bosses at a time when the need for working class people to control their lives has never been greater.
The speakers insisted that there be no amendment to the Any compromise on its word-