The Secret Policeman's Ball

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Healy the fight is on against police agents and neo-Kantians wing bureaucrat. The LAST SUNDAY the 'Workers , Revolutionary Party' held a rally to commemorate the 4ist anniversary of Leon Trotsky's death.

Outside the meeting, supporters of Socialist Organisers lobbied with members of the Workers' Socialist League, protesting at the way that the WRP has turned to the capitalist courts to silence its critics in the labour movement by issuing writs against Socialist Organiser for articles criticising the WRP.

The WSL put out a leaflet arguing that the WRP's loud revolutionary' pretensions cover up for unscrupulous right-wing politics on issues like rent and rate rises and its support for the regimes in Libya and Iraq.

A couple of us went into the rally.

Mike Banda, WRP general secretary, made the opening speech. The biggest blow we can deal the Stalinists is to build the WRP, the ATUA (All Trades Union Alliance) and the Youth Training Centres"

From Vanessa Redgrave of the WRP Central Committee and David North of the US Workers' League we learned that there would be more Labour governments, left or right, that the State was planning to put us all in labour camps, that the youth who attacked the police on the recent Liverpool demonstration were highly-trained police and army provocateurs, and that the American Trotskyist movement was riddled by CIA agents.

l'd heard a lot about Gerry Healy, leader of the WRP, and so 1 was not really surprised at what happened immediately before he spoke.

Chairperson Alex Mitchell told the stewards to get everyone in from the foyer and to make sure no-one moved out.

Mitchell then spotted a member of the audience taking notes, and Healy called for him to be removed.

When Healy finally began his speech, the hall was silent. Even the baby that had been crying miraculously stopped.

Healy began by telling us that the world was the centre of the universe and everything else was subordinate to it, and went on about 'dialectical materialism' with a long spiel about Hegel being a 'materialist idealist'. At this point someone in the audience whistled. Healy took this as an 'accusation of Hegelianism' (not the way I saw it).

The final part of his speech was dedicated to the major issue of the moment (in Healy's view) - security. The state was out to destroy the organisations of the working class and its revolutionary party. Security was a life and death struggle.

By this time I was getting quite worried. The number of 'heavies' around where we were sitting had increased and they were going up to the platform conferring with Mitchell.

At the end of Healy's speech we were approached and asked to come outside to explain why we had been taking notes.

We managed to bluff our way out of that. But we didn't stay for a second go.