THE MOST successful Birmingham Community Conference yet was held on February 7.
Sixty five attended a lively, upbeat and confident discussion centred around "Europe, EMU and the Welfare State". Alan Simpson and Lynn Jones, from the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, Derek Robinson ard other speakers combined with ample plenary discussion to chart a way out of the despair with New Labour.
The overwhelming view, confirmed in resolutions passed; was that the specific capitalist project of EMU was the main driving force of attacks on iobs and public services.
We therefore had to mobilise against It. but on an internationalist basis. The resolutions passed committed the planning group to build support for the Cardiff demonstration.
The existence of the Community Conference was vital in helping the Euromarch through Birmingham last June, but its other main activity has been the production of a local four page bulletin, Public Service, with a print run that has recently grown to 1000. The resolution passed invited all interested to write for and distribute it on a wider basis.
The conference committed itself to defend those scapegoated for shortages - ethnic minorities, asylum seekers, the Romany Community, single mothers, the elderly and disabled. Detention centres and prisons should not be used for refugees. The 1996 Immigration and Asylum Act should be repealed.
We called on all Councillors and MPs to oppose welfare cuts by all means at their disposal. We also adopted the "Peoples Charter for Health" drawn up by the Dudley Socialist Campaign Group.
Conference noted the sectarian role of the Campaign to Defend the Welfare State and called for a united Budget lobby between it and the Welfare State Network on March 17.
An interesting feature of the conference's recent work has been a debate with the right wing who control Erdington Labour Party, in the pages of the Sutton Coalfield Observer.
What started off with an attack by a Councillor on one of our street. stalls has opened out into a long running weekly saga which seems to be generating a great deal of interest. Another letter - as agreed by the conference - was duly dispatched and printed in the Observer the following Friday.
The strength of the Community Conference has been its inclusive nature. It is centred on a campaign over welfare that all sections of the left and single issue activists can unite on. It was interesting to see a big turn out from the Communist Party of Britain for this conference, but on the other hand sad to witness the usual boycott by some groups who prefer to go it alone.
One weakness was that there was little time to consider the threat ra renewed Gulf war and the need to link the millions being spent there with the millions being cut from welfare.
However. what started as an experimental, temporary organisation four years ago seems to keep rolling along.
It now needs to turn itself into a mass campaign if its aims are to be realised.
Judging by the public reaction to our publicity and activities the mass mood is slowly moving towards such a possibility.
Socialist Outlook