Benn appeals to the unions

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and which helped to put the AES creates full employ"Fourth: we must create theorist Michael Meacher a new framework within thinks that is impossible. which trade unionists can Many will wonder whether play a much bigger role at Benn's opposition to 'wage THE OUTSTANDING trade union votes will be decisive for the Labour Party deputy leader election. Last week Tony Benn released a letter sent to the General Secretarjes of trade unions for them to put before their executives.

Benn outlines the Tory attack on the unions, and then reviews 'Lessons from the past' "It is over 55 years since the first Labour Government was elected... But the balance of power - and the pattern of privilege - in our society has never been fundamentally changed. As a result many of the gains made have been halted or reversed.

"We have seen cuts in health, housing and education, and serious social unrest has emerged. Indeed, it was pressure from Capital on Labour Governments -to reduce public expenditure - which opened up a rift with the trade unions played a major part in our defeat in 1979.

"Most real power in Britain still rests outside Parliament with those who control finance and industry.

... Only the Labour Party can achieve a real social control over private capital so that the needs of society can be met. Only Labour can transform Britain, for the first time, into a true Parliamentary Demoand, where social justice anu not the pursuit of private profit is seen as the basis of our life...

He then recalls the five points of his platform for deputy leader - full employment, increased public services, women's rights and democratic rights, withdrawal from the EEC, and nuclear disarmament.

He continues: "If we are going to achieve all this we shall need to build a much stronger partnership between the party and the unions.

"First: from now on -and right through the lifetime of the next Labour government - we must work closely together in developing detailed plans, campaigning for them, and implementing them. as a team.

111D -when in office.

"Second: we must repeal all the anti-union legislation at once, and replace it with laws that would re-establish the full legal rights that the unions need to do their job by free collective bargaining.

"Third: we must renounce the policies of cuts and wage rectraint mannerading as "incomes policy' introduced under the pressure of Capital Tories in power. every level from the workshop and the company right up to annual party conference, in addition to the top level links with ministers.

"Fifth: we must ensure that all this takes place by supporting and developing all the democratic reforms which are now under consideration....

Ted so o As the letter makes clear, the real issue in the deputy leader election is not this or that policy, still less personalities' Many trade union activists will find ideas like 'social control over private capital' inadequate. (What does it mean? Planning agreements? Why not replace private capMany will ask how the ment,when leading AES restraint masquerading as incomes policy' leaves the door open for an incomes policy of the sort advocated by Meacher.

But the point is that Benn is the only candidate committed to accountability and to supporting Labour conference policies. And getting better policies through conference will mean notthing unless we win the principle of accountability.

In every union whose vote has not yet been decided, Benn's letter should be put on the agenda, and the rank and file should demand a full say in the union's vote for deputy leader.

MARTIN

tion, 'An eye for an eye' And Maginnis. himself: "My Catholic neighbours are prepared to point out to gunmen the various Protestants, various Unionists, and vulnerable Catholics who do not toe the IRA line"

• When sectarian assassinations swept Northern Ireland in the early 70s, the fingers mainly pointed not at but from the Protestant community. But the comments, which are meant to incite the Protestant community, indicate the intensity of the polarisation being generated by the struggle in the H-Blocks.

Carron's victory is a blow on behalf of the hunger strikers but at a cost of massive intensification of communal bitterness and antagonisms - and even from the point of view of Irish nationalism that is a very large negative.

For socialists in Britain there is a double responsibility: to side clearly with the nationalist revolt, against "our own' army and government; and to give all assistance we can to the building of a socialist movement in Ireland, North and South, which can develop a revolutionary struggle in the South and a joint fight by Catholic and Protestant workers.