DOWN UNDER

Tue Australian socialist bi-monthly Outlook, published in Sydney, carries in its May issue, which has just reached us, two articles of particular interest to readers of The Newsletter.

One is a survey of “The New Left in England’, by Alan Barcan, in which the writer notes that:

‘To a considerable degree the ULR-New Reasoner group represents a revolt of the intellectuals. At ULR Club meetings industrial, working-class topics (e.g. workers’ control) seem to attract a smaller attendance than more general cultural topics.’

‘The Newsletter group’—i.e., the Socialist Labour League— ‘is distinguished from the ULR-New Reasoner group in having both intellectual and industrial support.

‘Its theoretical magazine, Labour Review, is of a serious intellectual level . .. There are some points of comparison

minim Norwood Labour Carries on Fight IINULILULUILULULUIUUULUUUICEUULUUUL LLU TT HE fight is still raging over the suspended Norwood Labour Party. More than twenty members of the general management committee have been expelled, including a 16-year-old member of the youth section.

And every one of the 2,000 members has received a ‘loyalty’ form to sign before they will be admitted to any of the meetings of the new party organized by Transport House.

Only one of the ‘disloyal’ members has gone over to the other side. This is our county councillor, Ellis Hillman, who has agreed to accept the reorganization ‘under protest’.

But the purpose of the registered letters and ‘loyalty’ forms circulating around Norwood is to make sure that there will be no protest.

The main condition of participation in Transport House’s party is that the member ‘agrees to co-operate in the reorganization of the Norwood Labour Party’.

The majority of Norwood’s general management committee decided to fight against Transport House interference.

NO CONFIDENCE. We carried a vote of no confidence in the officers who had co-operated with Transport House, and elected fresh ones, whom we could trust.

Our aim is to prevent the national executive committee from expelling anyone from Norwood. And we are not prepared to settle for less. Neither now, nor after the annual conference of the Labour Party.

But our fight is not just the fight of a handful of Left-wingers against the national executive committee for the right to stay in the Labour Party.

It started from the Norwood party’s refusal to expel members of the Socialist Labour League.

It has turned into a fight for the right of socialists to campaign for their policy in the Labour movement. For the right of Marxists to be in the Labour Party and to organize—just as the Right wing organizes. , In Norwood we have to contend, not only with the Right wing, whose line is of course that we are not fit to be members of the Labour Party—but with the Communist Party as well.

UNILATERAL ACTION. The local branch says that by fighting against the reorganization we are splitting the Labour movement in the area, and that we should accept NEC discipline.

These same people accused us of splitting the Labour movement when we put forward the famous Norwood resolution on unilateral action against the H-bomb.

Maybe they think that by supporting the Right wing locally they can get some sort of ‘arrangement’ with them.

Maybe they fear the emergence of a Left-wing movement in Lambeth which will campaign for genuine socialist policies.

Because that is the most important thing we have learned from this fight: that if we are to get the support of the local members and Labour supporters we have to campaign and act on issues which affect them, as well as putting forward an alternative to ‘The Future Labour Offers YOU’.

For a Constituency Labour Party to attract and keep members, and win the support of the local trade union branches, it cannot come before the people merely at election time. It must initiate and lead political campaigns in the area all the time.

It must help tenants to fight against rent increases. It must help in trade union struggles.

It must always draw the political lessons from the campaigns it carries on.

OUR RECORD. And the reason Transport House is having so much difficulty in subduing the Norwood Labour Party is that we have a record we can point to when we are out canvassing the members.

There are well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning people who ask: ‘What will you do if the annual conference upholds the NEC?’

The answer is simple: we shall go on fighting. We have a responsibility, not only to Norwood, but to the whole of the Labour movement.

We shall go on fighting for two reasons.

First, because if the NEC succeeds in murdering a Left-wing constituency party now, it will try to do the same wherever a local party becomes critical. .

Secondly, we shall go on fighting because we do not see the Labour Party remaining the monolithic, Right-wing-dominated organization it is now. The attempt by a constituency party to advance an alternative to the Right-wing’s policy could be a useful preparation for a much more extensive fight in the uture.

BLIND OBEDIENCE. The Labour leaders are in difficulties. On the one hand they demand blind obedience to party conference decisions: on the other they prepare to disregard conference decisions should conference decide against their policy.

The balloon will certainly go up. Perhaps after the general election, perhaps over a big industrial-struggle. And when it does, we want the forces of the Left to be ready.

That is why we have not retired from the struggle, but are combating the national executive with all our energy.

We need the support of other constituency parties, in the shape of resolutions to the NEC and the mandating of conference delegates to reject the national executive’s action.

The NEC does not separate the policies of constituency parties from the latters’ refusal to expel members of the Socialist Labour League.

Nor should we.