Public gallery cleared as Islington vote 'Yes'

AFTER A stormy twohour debate-near the end of which the public gallery was clearedIslington Labour council voted for the implementation of the Housing Finance Bill at midnight on Tuesday.

The vote itself was something of an empty victory for the upholders of the rule of law. Only 29 voted in favour while 15, including four Tories, voted against. There were several, uncounted, abstentions. And as the council's full complement is 69, several members were not even present for the Notable supporters the Straw, former president of the government's Bill included National Union of Students, and Ted Castle, husband of Labour MP Barbara.

Straw, who apparently is seeking Labour nomination at Tonbridge, voted for after a speech which gave everyone the impression he was against.

Throughout the debate there were continuous roars and interruptions from the gallery as the pro-implementers apologized for their actions.

Oppositionists were greeted with loud bursts of cheering and applausc. appouncil leader Gerald Southgate's speech in proposing the implementation motion well indicated the right wing's betrayal and 'If the Bill is political bankrupte he said, it is my intention to deliver protest person No. 10. (Shouts of "big deal' from the gallery.)

'Surely one member of present government could find time to listen to us.

'If we refuse to implement, will our tenants be better off.' (Yes!) "There is every sign that tenants will be better off.

If you want to keep rents down, don't throu away the subsidies.' (Bribery.) 'Non-implementation means giving up the fight. We have to go on fighting until the next General Election returns a government to kick the Bill out.' (Collaborator.)

Southgate's speech was then followed by a manoeuvre by Cllr Ray Wylie who had an alternative motion down on the agenda for non-implementation.

Outside the town hall Wylie was • reported to have told BOOKS FROM PHILIP WADE Our housing correspondent Gerard Flynn (above): Nothing to stop us taking on Tories. Ray Wylla (right): told tenants to go home, then withdrew his motion tenants he would fight implementation, but advised tenants to go home because they would lose anyway.

Those tenants inside the council then saw the councillor rise to his feet and promptly withdraw his motion to derisive cat-calls from the gallery.

'We have to face the reality of the situation,' he said. 'It would be better if the Bill was implemented by a Labour council than by a Housing Commissioner.' Tenants made it clear they couldn't see the difference.

Cllr Wylie finally abstained on It was left for Cllr Gerard Flynn to clearly put the issues at stake:

'I rise as a Labour Party member, a socialist and a member of a trade union.

'I can't for the life of me agree with implementation. This government has been taken on by the miners, the railwaymen and now the dockers. There is nothing to stop the Labour councils taking on the Tory government. Leicester tenants give councillors a rough ride SHOUTS of 'Cowards' and "Mice' from angry tenants greeted three Leicester Labour councillors as they announced the Labour-controlled council's decision to implement the 'fair rents' Bill if it became law.

Early this week the message from a meeting of tenants from the recently-formed New Parks and District Tenants' . AssociaMoscow Trials Anthc Paperback, 622Р Behind The Moscow Paperback 75p ROBERT BLACK:

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NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS 186a Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG. . 'The motion says we can soften the blow by implementing. But that's like a man who shakes hands with his friend with one hand and with the other takes money out of his pocket. I shall vote against.' (Wild cheering and applause.)

Another oppositionist, Vic Cordwell also said he was against the Bill and would against.

"This Bill is a finance Bill and does no good for anyone but the speculators. For Clir Southgate to say you can soften the blow is kidology.

'I'm against implementation on principle. At the last council elections we were voted in to run the affairs of the council.

If the Tories now think I'm going to sit in this chamber and do their dirty work they're wrong! (Wild applause.)

The deep split inside the Labour Party on the question was revealed in an amazing way when leading implementer Cllr Ernest Bayliss rose to speak.

Heavily barracked from the gallery, he began by referring to chair as Mr Mayor. Shouts of tion to the Leicester city council was: 'We will stand up and fight the "fair rent" Act tooth and nail.' Three Labour councillors outlined the council's position to the meeting. The council were 'completely opposed to the Act, they said, but if it became law they would have to work within the framework of that law'.

Shouts and boos greeted LA 13 PAPERBACKS CENTRE 28 Charlotte St London W1 resign greeted this because the mayor happens to be Mrs Patricia Bradbury.

Mrs Bradbury is against imple. mentation and that could account for her sharp retort to Bayliss:

If you call me Mr Mayor again, I'Il call you Mrs Bayliss,' she said. Right-wing Labourites demanded withdrawal by mayor and were clearly shocked at the venom of her intervention.

'We have a choice of the Labour council or the Housing Commissioner implementing the Bill. The decision on the Bill can only be taken at Westminster. The vote here is not for or against implementation,' said Mr Bayliss.

At this point, 11.20 p.m., the gallery broke into uproar, their patience finally broken by Mr Bayliss. A chief inspector appeared in the gallery and it was finally cleared of the public.

Cllr Jack Straw said he had been in favour of implementation in February.

Now the situation had changed because the government had lost its nerve in face of pronouncement. Said one tenant: "The council have got no intention at all of fighting this Bill. They are simply going to endorse the Tories.?

Leicester Labour Party has also' rejected : calls from ward parties for the council to defy the Tories' Rent Bill.

A statement from Labour group leader Alderman Edward Marston and party secretary BOOKS • PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS Vic Cordwell: Not doing Torles' dirty work attack by the labour movement.

my view those, including myself, who said there would be certain benefits by implementing miscalculated.' He asked the leader of the council to say if the government refused further representations from the council he would pledge non-implementation.

When the vote came at midnight, Straw voted in favour of implementation.

Gordon Parker said that the policy was to 'completely oppose the Bill' while it passes through parliament and if it emerges successfully-'an uncertain prospect' —to try 'to obtain the maximum possible benefits for tenants from its provisions.

The policy was to 'obey the law', but to 'curtail its most divisive and inflationary intentions'® NOW OPEN Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs Fri 9 a.m.—7.30 p.m.

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In this four part series Peter Jeffries traces the history of the British labour movement from the formation of the First International in 1860 to the Taff Vale judgement of 1901. He examines how the British working class built the unions as powerhouses of struggleand then built the Labour Party after coming under challenge in the courts. NEW labourers and transport workers swelled the ranks of the union movement and radically altered the balance of power within the Trades Union Congress. Even the older craft unions were affected by these changes. The ASE, for example, faced with severe problems as a result of growing mechanization of the industry, was forced in 1892 to widen its membership to the increasing number of semi-skilled workers. This was but a stage in its transformation into a mass union, the AEU, established in 1921.

Quite the contrary.

A tenacious struggle was waged among the TUC leaders in which the old leaders who clung desperately to their ties with the Liberal Party had to be driven out and replaced by those who fought to establish an independent Labour Party.

The crucial struggle in the initial phases centred on the question of the legal eight-hour day. The old, conservative layers of union leaders bitterly opposed the adoption of this demand by the TUC Typical of this old layer was W. Moses, leader of the in May 1889 to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution was organized around the call for the legal eight-hour day. And in precisely the same way, the unionization of the unskilled workers in England also proceed under this same slogan.

What at one stage had been a theoretical matter fought out in the 1860s among a relatively small number of people now became the principle around which hundreds of thousands were drawn into politics for the first time.

This was nowhere more the