1CJ2 CLYDEBANK RENTS FIGHT COLLAPSEP

In June many thousands of council house tenants in Scotland will be asked to withhold rent increases forced on the working class by the Tory government through the Housing Finance Act.

This second attempt at rebellion comes after the collapse of 30 Labour councils which once stood united with the trade union movement in their determination not to surrender to the Tory bid to destroy public housing.

But resistance will certainly be unsuccessful if the lessons of the last betrayal are not understood. The experience at Clydebank is especially important. This was the town that stood virtually alone against fines that threatened to bankrupt the council and the borough. Clydebank's crime was that it refused to implement the Act or be intimidated by Tory threats. But in the end even Clydebank gave in.

On March 6 Bailie Betty Brown announcement on behalf of the 13 rebels-the majority of the council. 'Tonight Clydebank stands alone,' she said. 'We don't to put any further burden on the trade unions. They have their own battles to fight and they have already taken honourable and resolute action to back the stand we have taken. It would be asking the whole labour movement to come out on a local situation. This would be too much when they already have so much on their plate. We are responsible people. That is why we are voting for implementation ' In an earlier council meeting Betty Brown had struck a more defiant note. At one she lashed the Labour rightwing when they first broke away and demanded the council back down. 'Having campaigned for a whole year I will never agree to work this tax. This Act is another nail in the coffin of democracy in this country,' she said.

But on the night of surrender not a voir • was raised in opposition. Counted among Betty Brown's responsible people were three Communist Party councillors and two representatives of the Scottish Nationalist Party.

What had changed since the great days when led the rent rebellion in scotland? Those who defend the policy of the Communist Party and the Labour rebels say three things.

FIRST: The Tories used the subtle and damaging tactic of refusing to choose individual councillors as their victims. Instead they confiscated through the court the money that fed all Clydebank's public services. After the first £5,000 fine, others would have followed. Soon the council would have been bankrupt and their workers laid-off.

The CP and the Labour Party argue that the people of Clydebank would not have supported bankruptcy.

SECONDLY: They say that support from the trade union movement was not forthcoming. The local leadership in Clydebank and Glasgow offered money but not strike action. This was supplemented by the collapse of big councils like Glasgow over the Act.

The rebels' argued that by reveal this state of affairs remaining defiant would have exposed a 'weakness' in the ranks of the labour movement. THIRDLY: The Communist Party in particular argued that further resistance would have split the 'unity of progressive forces' that had been achieved with the bulk of the Labour Party and the Nationalists. Therefore when it came to implementation it was all or nothing.

These arguments assume importance far beyond Clydebank. People in the labour movement, tenants and Communist Party members all over the country, used similar ideas to justify, or at least explain, a collapse of opposition to the rent Act.

Ironically the same points in essence were used by the right-wingers 1n the Labour Party when they became the first to abandon the brave bromise of resistance to the Housing Finance Act made at the 1971 Party conference. This happened at Clydebank. When he led the minority out of the rent fight, the Provost of Clydebank, Robert Fleming, said that the situation had changed radically because the vast majority of Labour councils had voted to implement the Act. He added: 'We have never had a massive turn-out from our tenants indicating yes or no or whether they are willing to fight this or back the town council.' But at this stage he was opposed vehemently by CP members.

derson told the council: stand today because I feel ten feet tall. I have never felt prouder. Clydebank has been associated with the spirit of the feeling of the people all over the country. 'I will stand up to this right to the end. There are more folk than Clydebank watching us tonight. They will judge us by what we say by what support they can have!

CP councillor Jimmy Reid said: 'Millions of people are looking for one local authority to give the lead and not be intimidated. The UCS fight did not have mass support at the beginning. Too many people look at the practicalities and cannot see the wood for the trees. Lower the flag if you will. Do that and it will have done incalculable damage to nont of Scotland against Tory policies.' CP councillor Jock Smith said: 'Somewhere, someone and somehow somebody has got to stand against the attack of Heath against the working class.' After the imposition of the £5,000 fine by an Edinburgh court in February Cll Smith was even more bitter in his attack the Labour right. He accused one councillor of 'ratting on the Clydebank people. 'After this week,' he continued, 'we will have the massive support from the Scottish working class if any action is taken against us. I never thought animals like this would represent us after the years of sacrifice by our forefathers.' Strong words. But it was the CP councillors too who eventually voted for implementation and it was Labour councillor Malcolm Turner who rubbed salt in the wound by telling the rebels that when they decided to be responsible people they were only using arguments that the eight original implementers used six weeks previously. Turner, of course, was correct. workers on single issue protests which have as their perspective some change or defeat of government policy. Yet this is the policy of the Communist Party and was the policy of its members at Ciydeask-are they prepared to see the farce played out once more, or are any lessons to be iearned from the first fight?

One conclusion must surely be drawn. The rents fight cannot be coloured with reformist