LCC must turn to ASS

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NO TO ELLOL policies, it's his that worry me"

It reflects the same elitist revulsion from mass politics -specifically working class politics. Free speech is only for the men on the platform with the microphones, the rest of us had better just shut up and bloody listen.

That same elitist conception is repeated in Vladimir

Gerry B'

He talks of a new mood in the Party, which is quite evident, but he sees it entirely from the perspective of internal organisation. Yes, there is a new mood and it's one that is not particulariy advantageous to what we're trying to do. Enormous pressures are being extended, but the question is how do we react to them? either to the problems of the labour movement or the country in general.

The right wing's calls for "unity" are a ploy, a manoeuvre they can afford to make because they hold the strings of power.

How hollow it is can be seen from the cries both from the right (Manifesto, etc) and the ex-left for purges of leftists, and for overturning properly constitutional de-selections of MPs.

If unity were their overriding aim would they really be so keen to launch the Party into another round of bitter strife? "Unity on our terms" is their battle-cry.

Pressures

I don't think it's a coincidence that the witch-hunt calls have come at precisely the time when most of the left is drawing back from the fight-both CLPD and (as Vladimir Derer points out) LCC, NOLS and Clause The right feels strengthened by their conferençe victories, but even more so by the disarray and timidity of the left.

But if the "low profile" won't solve our internal problems, it certainly can't answer the problems faced by the working class confronted by the most shattering assaults of the Tories.

The problem with the "Let's unite behind the leadership we've got" argument is that that leadership is part of the problem.

The objective pressures which create the felt need for unity at all costs are precisely that this system is in a crisis that allows of no half-way solutions.

Weak-kneed

The SDP or a Labour Party led by SDP politics -which is what a "low profile" from the Left would actually result in-cannot resolve it.

The Tory government of similar continuing the attacks until the working class is definitively smashed could resolve it one-disastrous-way.

Or a government based on active working class control (the "extra parliamentary" "circuses and jamborees" which Vladimir Derer so despises, taken to a higher level) can resolve it in the interests of the mass of the exploited and oppressed.

To make that -second option a possibility means extending the process set in motion during the Deputy Leadership: campaign. This means the widening of participation to the mass of Labour Party and trade union members; following through the fight for democracy in the unions; linking the democracy struggle with the policies needed to offer a real alternative to the Tories and with the actual class struggles taking place against the Tories; and extending the fight for accountability to h Aeselvines antideinst both Heseltine': cratic, anti-working class plans and the weak-kneed refusal by Labour councils to fight him.

The "effectiveness of extra-Parliamentary action" is not a "fantasy" • It is precisely extra-Parliamentary action or the lack of it, which has created the climate of . demoralisation which Vladimir Derer feels so keenly.

Paralysis

It is only such action in halting the Tories' onslaught and reinstilling confidence into the working class which will create a more amenable climate for the changes so dear to Vladimir Derer's heart.

He seems to have fallen into the trap of taking up a mirror-image of the attitude of groups like the SWP who see the fight for Labour Party democracy as totally irrelevant to the class Only a clear understanding of the relation between the two will carry us forward. Vladimir Derer's road is the road of crippling paralysis. THE switch-over from "constitutional issues" to building van extra-parliamentary base marked the 1981 AGM of the Labour Coordinating Committee held in Glasgow last Sunday and attended by about 80 members.

The decision whether to fight for the deputy leadership has been left until the Spring, dependent in part on the "conduct of the Labour Party's right wing on the NEC and the Shadow Cabinet".

The main strategy motion passed recognised an urgent need to reformulate the alternative economic strategy, to make it more specific and more radical than the resolutions passed at this year's Labour Party conference.

There was no denying that sharpening up the alternative economic strategy and popularising it is necessary.

Constitutional reform would still be a priority, but as Audrey Wise put it: "We can't let ourselves be seen as fixated" on one issue.

One constitutional issue raised in the Executive motion calling for moves to parity of CLP and trade union votes at Labour Party conference was amended to call for moves to "adequately reflect political and financial contributions to the party" while an amendment from Socialist Organiser supporter John Bloxam deleting the parity sugges tion was defeated.

On advancing trade union democracy, the AGM went for a vaguer amendment to the resolution put by Stephen Corbishley, and Jon Lansman accepted an amendment to his resolution on maintaining a Rank and File Mobilising Campaigntype body which left both issues less precise to say the least.

The AGM was notable for the lack of discussion on the class struggle that is taking place.

The debate on the cuts showed this when the delegates argued for a position