If proof is needed that a full scale purge is under way in the Labour Party, then look no further than the town where its conference is being held, Brighton.
After a years investigation the Party's Organisation Committee last week charged 25 members of Brighton Labour Party with either membership of Militant or bringing the party into disrepute. They have also instructed the anti-witch hunt campaign 'Friends of Brighton Labour Party' to stop meeting.
Shocked
These suspensions have shocked people for two reasons. First, the number involved. Also that the list includes several on the left who have had no connection with any newspaper and whose only 'crime' has been to publicly oppose the witchunt.
Included are all the nine left borough councilors who have broken the whip over the poll tax. As part of the charges against one of them, Fiona Roberts, is the crime of signing a motion in support of Sarah Thornton that had not been authorised by the Labour Group.
Double standard
As if to rub in the double standards that operate, the chief whip has not taken any action against 2 right wing councillors who broke the whip causing a Tory victory at a planning committee.
Also suspended are a number of leading left activists such as Dave Lewney and Tony Greenstein. Nearly all of those charged have supported the 'Friends Of Brighton Labour Party'.
This was set up in order to stop mass resignations after the NEC suspension. Its success has been measured by over 500 people signing a petition against the suspension and by over 150 people attending Friends' meetings over the last year. informed of proceedings, a central part of the Friends' work has been to encourage people to give evidence to the investigation forcing Gould to visit Brighton Some of the publicity work of the Friends have been very effective.
Petra Kopp, organised an extremely sympathetic news broadcast on Channel 4 warning of divisions in Brighton affecting the parliamentary campaigns.
Left under attack
This left the image-conscious NEC none too impressed. Petra has now been suspended.
Overall, the suspensions in Brighton show that post-Walton the whole of the left is now under attack. The right wing have used the NEC to try and smash the left in Brighton. This could be the shape of things to come in many CLPs around the country.
But the underlying trends, mentioned above, shows that the 'mould' of British politics could still be broken. The move by the Liberal Democrats at Bournemouth to outflank the Labour Party as the radical alternative 'in the post-socialist epoch', has achieved some credibility, and clearly indicates their intentions.
If, in the likely event of a hung parliament, Labour engaged with them in a bourgeois and inevitably right wing coalition, (rather than attempt to form a minority government and then go for a second election) then a disaster scenario for the workers' movement could be set in motion.
A coalition could only discredit Labour and work to the advantage of the bourgeoisie in general, and the Liberal Democrats in particular. In any event, a Labour catastrophe, of either an outright defeat, or a coalition, after twelve years of Thatcherism, is unlikely to leave the present political scenario intact.
The left in the workers' movesensus and the parties based on them The task of the left at this Labour Party conference is to sound the warnings about coalipresent disclaimers, warn against the fundamental historic dangers posed to our movement by the strategy of the 'new realist' bureaucracy.
We must also project and build the Socialist Movement, which is the only national current which wants to fight the Tories, but also wants to challenge the betrayal of the new realists on the streets, in the unions, and in the Labour Party Women in the Fighting for our Sat 23rd Nov, 10-5 Wesley House, 4 Wild Court, London WCI No. 8 Sept. 28, 1991 Page 5
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