Stephen Johns investigates in Leeds 'Red Mole' race campaign on SLI

A CAMPAIGN to whipup racial hatred against the Socialist Labour League among the black community of Chapeltown, Leeds, has been launched by the International Marxist Group, publishers of the newspaper 'Red Mole'.

The attack began in last Monday's 'Mole' with an anonymous article on the fight of the Chapeltown people to gain control of a local pre-school play centre called Studley Grange.

After extensive investigations in Leeds, involving all sections of the black community, the people who run Studley Grange and the people who control it, we can establish that the report is a complete fabrication designed only to mislead the people of Chapeltown and slander the SLL.

The report states: a) Black people were going to occupy Studley Grange last Friday. b) The warden of the centre, 'Joff' (in fact Joss) Browning had resisted repeated requests from blacks' to resign. c) Mr Browning to be a leading member of the Leeds SLL'. d) Mr Browning's attitude demonstrated the SLL's 'reactionLabour ary line' on the 'black question'.

The report, which sets an all-time low in 'Mole' reporting, impertinently demands we 'disown' Mr Browning.

Instead the Workers Press in this news article will expose this slanderous report and on Monday will publish a full investigation into the Studley Grange affair which reveals a remarkable, some might say sinister, alliance between the IMG and a leading Leeds Liberal.

THE FIRST inaccuracy is claim a)-that the black people of Chapeltown intended to occupy the Studley Grange Centre.

I spoke to Verly Harriot. Mrs Harriot is in charge of the Citizen's Advice Bureau. in Chapeltown. She is West Indian and one of the leaders of the campaign to change the executive committee which runs the centre from its present predominantly white, middle-class character to give the majority to working-class blacks.

She told me:

The prime purpose of the meeting [last Friday's meeting at Studley Grange where the occupation was to take place] was to see that our voice was heard, so that we could bring forth the issue on Studley Grange.' The leaflet issued by members of the Chapeltown Parents' and Friends' Association says that control of the centre had to be 'taken'. According to those who drafted the leafiet, occupation was neither intended nor advocated.

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As it turned out, Friday's meeting centred on an attempt to elect a new committee. No occupation took place and none was suggested, notwithstanding the 'Mole' article which ended with the words: 'We will publish details of the occupation in the next issue ON POINT b) 'Joff' Browning was 'resisting demands' from black people to resign.

Joss Browning is, and was, working his notice. He was sacked over a month ago by the Studley Grange executive committee-an overwhelmingly white, middle-class body.

He has had no 'repeated requests' from black people to resign. This again was confirmed by Mrs Harriot and several other members of the Parents' Association and another group called the Afro-West Indian Brotherhood.

Says Mrs Harriot: 'The true issue at Studley Grange did not centre on Joss's job or whether he was a good or bad warden. We came into it when we learned that he was sacked. As usual, no one told us anything.' Another immigrant girl who I spoke to at Mrs Harriot's house was even more direct. When I showed her the 'Mole' report, she said angrily:

This part about repeated requests from blacks" is just not true because we didn't know anything about Joss until he was sacked' For his own part Mr Browning says he has had no requests for his resignation from black people, though certainly there is a strong desire for a black warden.

POINT c) - This claims Mr Browning is a member of the SLL.

loss Browning is not and never has been a member of the SLL. Nor has he any intention of joining nor has any SLL member connection asked him to join. His tolas through the Workers Press, which he reads.

POINT d) - - The 'reactionary line of the SLL on the black question'.

This will be taken up on Monday when the "line' and 'friends and allies of the IMG' will also be investigated. Suffice to say, the SLL has devoted its entire efforts to building a revolutionary party among all workers.

It maintains the question racial oppression and discrimination is a class question and will not be solved until capitalism is overthrown and a workers' state established.

SLL members in Leeds do consistent sales in the Chapeltown and other areas and the paper was well known to many black and white inhabitants I spoke to. None of them, however, knew anything about the IMG or the 'Red Mole'. • There appears to have been little IMG campaigning in the area.

POINT d)-In fact this exposes the real nature of 'Mole' article. It is to slander the SLL and keep workers, black and white, away from revolutionary politics.

Yesterday a spokesman at 'Red Mole' editorial office said the accuracy of the report had not been checked. This was left to comrades in the area. • IMG member in Leeds, Rick Hatcher, said the report has been culled from 'sources' at an IMG meeting in Leeds last Wednesday when Tariq Ali spoke.

He would not say who told the IMG branch that Mr Browning was an SLL member. He said he has been aware that Mr Browning was serving his notice, but gave no reason for the report's claim that he was resisting demands for his resignation' He said the information that black people had been demanding his resignation came from 'a number of black militants in Chapeltown' Special Report from Clay Cross rents' Act.

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is right!' for over 1,300 tenants. Finance Act.

government begins with the perspéctive of destroying every basic democratic right of the working class.

More and more Clay Cross workers are seeing that there can be no compromise in such a fight. Someone will win and someone will lose. To bring the struggle to success requires the immediate mobilization of all workers in support of the council to make the Tories resign. In its place would be put a Labour government pledged to repeal the Act and carry out socialist policies.

Widest support

That is why councillors are seeking the widest possible support throughout Britain, especially from local miners who have pledged • solidarity action if any councillor is touched by the Tories or the district auditor.

As the councillors themselves point out, the real question is leadership from the top of the Labour and trade union moveDavid Skinner, one of the 1l councillors, told a public meeting on Thursday: "The national executive of the Labour Party is vetoing everything from the working class and the grass roots.

'The leadership are kicking the legs from under us, stabbing us in the back. We must get shot of these men in the parliamentary party and the NEC at the first opportunity-and that's not far away.

'It's not a question of law-and-order. What about those companies that didn't file reports under the Companies Act? And who is going to pay for Poulson's debts and all the money he spent on Tory ministers? Cale Cllr Dennis Skinner