CLAUSE FOUR COMMITTEE HOLDS

Fi By Our Political Correspondent ‘ -Some 70 delegates and observers representing trade union branches, Trades Councils and Constituency Labour Parties, attended the inaugural conference of the ‘Clause Four Campaign Committee’ in London’s -Caxton Hall last. week.

Chairman Councillor JACK LEWIS and secretary. Councillor RON SPURWAY, outlined the aims of the Committee, which are to secure at ‘forthcoming Trade Union and Labour Party Conferences, the maximum number of mandated delegates pledged to reject the addendum proposed by the Labour Party national executive to Clause Four.’

Spurway said the Committee intended ‘to campaign within the unions to ensure that the greatest possible number of. union branches affiliate to their local Labour Parties and that their delegates fight for the nationalization policies of their unions.’

A good discussion took place from the floor. Councillor MILLER, Paddington Amalgamated Engineering Union delegate, said: ‘I welcome the setting up of this Committee and I am prepared to help in any capacity.’

Industrial . sub-committees Brother GOULD, who represented the Esher Labour Party and is an AEU shop steward at London Airport, considered that ‘the Committee’s proposition of establishing industrial sub-committees so that particular campaigns could be run in each union was very good.’ An AEU and Electrical Trade Union sub-committee’ have already been set up.

The delegate from the Bromley Labour Party, R. TAYLOR, said: ‘On many issues the Trade Union leaders are even more to the Right than the Labour Party leaders, hence the need to campaign inside the unions.’ He felt that the conference should go even further and include in its aims ‘the strengthening of Clause Four by demanding the nationalization of industry under workers’ control.’

Brother BEECH, a member of LSE number three branch of the ETU, showed with a wealth of figures how the nationalized industries were being used to subsidize the private sector Party since 1945.’

No_backsliding Welcoming the decision of the AEU national committee to oppose any alteration to Clause Four, Brother SINGER, a delegate from Wembley number: three branch of the AEU, warned against backsliding and said: ‘The rank and file must . see that this decision is implemented.

Brother DENNIS GILLIGAN, who was a delegate from — Dagenham No. 5 AEU branch, and is vice-chairman of Bark-ing Young Socialists, quoted the fight of the young apprentices, the Aldermaston March and the ycuth participating in the anti-apartheid movement: ‘All these trends must be brought into the fight inside the Labour Party for socialist policies.’

The conference unanimously endorsed a resolution pledging a fight against the NEC addendum and calling for the nationalization of all basic industries.

On sale at the meeting was a threepenny pamphlet: ‘Defend Clause Four’, which outlines the reasons for nationaliza‘ tion and explains how the Committee propose to carry out their campaign.

Strong opposition This conference shows that in both the Labour Party and trade unions there is a strong rank-and-file opposition to .the policies of the Right-wing. Represented at the Caxton Hall, were 14 Labour Parties, 18 AEU branches, five ETU branches, four Trades Councils and six Young Socialist Groups. General. Secretary of ASSET (technicians’ union), HARRY KNIGHT, sent a personal message of support to the Campaign, This opposition must, however, not simply confine itself to resolutions. To be successful it must build a strong base. in both the Labour Parties and the unions and show the relationship between the fight for more nationalization with the struggle against bans and proscriptions; it is important for those associated with this Clause Four Campaign Committee to remember that. the Socialist Labour League and The Newsletter were proscribed for consistently opposing the Gaitskell wing of the party in their attempts to remove nationalization from the programme of the Labour Party.

_GAITSKELL MUST. LEAD OR GO A STATEMENT BY VICTORY FOR SOCIALISM ‘The following statement has been issued on behalf of the Executive Council of ‘Victory for Socialism’ in the nantes of Sydney Silverman, M.P. (Chairman), Ian.

Mikardo (Vice-Chairman), Miss J. Richardson (Secretary), Sydney Hyam (Press Officer) and Hugh Jenkins (Treasurer):

The abandonment of Blue Streak means the abandonment, for all practical purposes, of the policy of the independent nuclear deterrent. Since the Government’s defence policy has always been based, and according to the Government is still based, on that policy it is clear that at present the Government has no defence policy at all.

* The official defence policy of the Labour Party is in no better shape. For three years the Party has been split by the question whether Britain should retain, or not retain, independent nuclear weapons. It is now clear that this was a fictitious, unrealistic and empty dispute. Britain has never had an effective independent nuclear weapons policy, has no such policy now, and can never have one, for it is officially admitted that we depend on America for the means of delivery. The abject folly of a leadership which has sacrificed the possibility of power for delusions of independent nuclear grandeur is one of the tragedies of our time. The abandonment of Blue Streak has shown the Opposition to be as naked as the Government in the councils of the world. * Recent decisions by the Co-operative Party, USDAW and the AEU underline the fact that the Labour Movement is becoming more and more convinced of the military, economic and political bankruptcy of attempting to maintain peace by a balance of mutual terror. All the powerful arguments which have at last persuaded the Government that independent nuclear deterrents afford the country neither security nor defence are equally valid for collective nuclear deterrents which have the additional disadvantage that they are even further removed from any semblance of democratic control.

* It is urgently necessary that the Labour Party should drastically overhaul the whole of its defence thinking and the foreign policy with which it is bound up. No one really believes that either the Soviet Union and its allies or the United States and its allies have any aggressive intentions against each other. Everyone knows that China ought to be admitted to the United Nations. The NATO and Warsaw Pacts should either be scrapped or superseded by a pact of non-aggression and mutual security and the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Europe.

The United Nations Charter must be made to work. Substantial disarmament under full control and inspection must be commenced. The renunciation of nuclear weapons should be accepted without waiting for agreement about other things.

The Labour Party should today declare without equivocation for these things and make it clear that it unconditionally renounces the testing, possession and manufacture of nuclear weapons and their use from British territory.

That is, we believe, what the British Labour Movement SS a ssSSSSSSSSSSSENSINNGSS? A New Pamphlet on Clause Four From MacDonald to Gaitskell Price 3d. from 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 wants. It is, we. believe, what the country wants or will soon want. It is for the Labour ‘Party to-give the lead. If the present leadership will wholeheartedly and in good conscience give the country that leadership, they will not lack for loyal and enthusiastic support. But if for any reason they cannot or will not, they must give way and make room for those who can and will.