[THOUSANDS of workers in the Yorkshire NUM. South…]

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THOUSANDS of workers in the Yorkshire NUM. South Yorkshire will stage The initiative has been a one-day strike next Mon- taken by the South Yorkday in a day of action ag- shire Association of Trades ainst Tory policies of cuts Councils, and supported by This week a mass meet- (Rotherham, Barnsley, ing of 1,400 transport Doncaster and Sheffield). against to support the trast to a background of strike call, thus paralysing total surrender to the Tory the bus service in the area. offensive by TUC chiefs ate the strikes into an indefinite stoppage.

They must follow the initiatives made in London towards establishing joint ASLEF/NUR strike committees which will consolidate the ASLEF strikers and encourage NUR members to reject last year's sell-out.

Continuous picketing must begin at docks, container bases, coal depots and steelworks, invoking the much-vaunted triple alliance' in a direct appeal to miners and steel unions to defend ASLEF against BR's attack, and implementing the official union policy for joint triple alliance committees at local rank and file level. and closures.

workers voted with none This comes on top of strike decisions already taken by over 8,000 workers in steel and engineering, and on construction sites.

Stoppages are also expected in public. works departments, hospitals and other council jobs.

But the strike has been opposed by the ISTC, whose members in the steel industry face a new wave of Tory attacks. And there has been no strike call by all four Labour councils It comes in welcome conand most local union officials, who have sat limply back and watched the decimation of jobs and of public services.

Of course a 24 hour stoppage in simply one area cannot be expected by itself to halt Thatcher's steamroller of destruction, the mass support won for the resistance in South Yorkshire shows that the major weakness of the workers' movement is not in the rank and file but in the spinelessness of its leadership.

Until a stand is taken against the Tories in the publ ic and private sectors, the tide of closures, redundancies and cuts will continue to erode the morale of trade unionists.

The South Yorkshire stand must be publicised along with a renewed struggle for policies of strike action and occupations to prevent further cuts and closures and build mass action to defeat the hated Thatcher government.

INSIDE: Four page pull-out on the fight for trade union democracy

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Socialist Organiser no. 69 January 21, 1981 Page 2 Hattersley (left) and Solidarity leaders lack mass support The Lahour Party under Callaghan lakes to the preets in extra-parliamentary action' Notember 1979 Among the rahble-rousers Hattersler, Shirler Williams and David Nigel Williamson reviews The Battle for the Labour Party' by David and Maurice Kogan (Fontana £1.75).

THIS BOOK short, horrible.

The Kogans' style is neatly in the accompanying publicity blurb, which claims "it exposes how small groups of dedicated left activists, by putting tactics before policies, have transformed the structure of the Labour Now publicity handouts drawn up by hacks in publ ishers' press offices do not always reflect the tone of the book they are ostensibly describing. But in this case no such excuses can be made.

David Kogan, a member of CLPD, was given privileged access to the thinking and workings of the Left. Large numbers of leading left-wingers, including Ken Livingstone, Chris Mullin, Vladimir Derer, and Jon Lansman, were happy to be interviewed in the belief that the book would attempt to present a balanced and fair view of the Left.

Minutes of Rank and File Mobilising Committee meetings and other documents were made available to Kogan.

This access to inside information is then used in the book to claim that "drawing on explicit interview material and unpubl ished documents" it "depicts a dedicated, singleminded group of people whose eight year quest for Party democracy might lead to the ultimate destruction of the Labour Party"

'Outside'

Many of those who assisted David Kogan in his research for this book must now be bitterly disillusioned.

It is not so much that the book is factually inaccurate. The problem is rather one of presentation, interpretation, and what is left unsaid.

The most glaring example is one which permeates the shole book. Those who fought for the constitutional reforms are constantly eferred to as the 'Outside Left'. But outside what? Nowhere does the book make clear that the arguments for mandatory reselection and the electoral college are actually accepted by the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members and the Party's annual conference.

That this is now the case is not due to dedicated left activists putting tactics before policies'. It is due to sinning the arguments, and in the hackneyed phrase; the hearts and minds of Labour and : trade union activists.

The bones of this Outside Left' allegation appear to lie in the involvement of Militant and SCLV. Perhaps more than any other members of the Outside Left' the book claims, '[John] Bloxam and [Rachel! Lever Lof SCLV and SO] substantiate the charge that the constitutional Outside Left in general, and Benn's election campaign in particular, have had no scruples about joining hands with groups and individuals well outside Labour Party traditions in their views and methods...

'There is no doubt that Benn's election campaign recruited to its aid those who openly and consistently reject Parliament as the means by which socialism should be secured'.

That is; of course, a gross distortion, and sounds just like something Michael Foot might have said about Peter Tatchell. Noone on the Left believes that socialism can be secured by Parliament alone. But nor can there be many on the Left who would reject Parliament as an essential part of the transition to socialism in the conditions obtaining in 20th century Britain' Manipulators The fact is that CLPD. the Benn campaign, London Labour Briefing, or whatever, will work together with all Labour Party members who share the same short term aims and objectives on specific issues. There can be no tests of whether all place quite" the same emphasis op the role of Parliament before such alliances are formed.

And : What the kogans regard as well outside Labour Party traditions' must be purely their own subjective definition.

Again, the attempt to dress up every action of the Left as motivated by the finest tactical and strategic considerations deliberately fosters the idea that the Left by manipulations rather than by mass support.

I will, if I may, cite an example which directly involves myself. The book suggests that a letter 'on a fairly neutral subject' in the Guardian, signed by me as Treasurer of the Benn campeigne omitte, explait the erate ploy to media" and provide a 'quick and free way to publicise an address for donations to the campaign.

In fact the letter was a Owen ACY' detailed and necessary refutation of some of the ludicrous stories John Silkin was circulating at the time about the funding of the campaign. The fact that it did produce £300 in donations from Guardian readers was a pleasant surprise to myself, Tony Benn, and everyone else involved in the campaign.

The importance of the incident was not that it illustrated our tactical flair, but that it showed the level of support from ordinary people who do not necessarily read Socialist Organiser, Labour Weekly, or other left publications from which Labour Party activists would obtain the address.

No doubt virtually everyone else mentioned in the book can cite similar examples of misrepresentation of their own roles, all with one end in view - to suggest that small groups of dedicated left activists have taken over' the Labour Party by 'skilful and astute strategies' rather than mass support through the arguments.

Mechanistic

Likewise the failure of the Campaign for Labour Victory and the Labour Solidarity campaign to make any real headway is attributed to their lack of expertise in organising model resolutions and other tactical ploys, rather than their basic lack of support among the rank and file in the constituencies and the unions and their ideological bankruptcy.

It is, in short, a totally mechanistic view of politics in which the arguments are relegated to a secondary role and the soul of the Party is up for grabs to whoever is most adroit at manipulating the machine.

On top of the detailed examination of CLPD and the constitutional reforms, the RFMC and the Benn campaign, there is then grafted a chapter on The Triumph of the Outside Left in London' . Apart from Foot again objecting to the Kogans' terminology, it is not clear how this relates to the rest of the book.

some attempt to present the Labour GLC as a dummy. run for a Bennite left Labour government is made, and no opportunity is wasted to air the by now familiar conspiracy theory of the authors. But the real reason why the GLC figures so prominently in the book is simply that David Kogan worked at County Hall during this period.

Hence the whole chapter on that particular struggle in London, but only passing references to significant earlier events and movements, such as Socialist Charter and the formation of the AES and Labour's Programme 1973, and no mention at all of the No campaign over the Common Market, which was an eye-opener for the Left and taught it many valuable lessons.

Boredom

There is a book to be written about the Labour Party in the 1970s. But we shall have to look elsewhere for it.

Perhaps that excellent journalist Chris Mullin, whose lively contributions must be the only thing currently keeping the turgid Tribune from suffocating itself in total boredom, will write the definitive work. This is certainly not it.

"THE majority of gay women and men seek housing as single people. Single people, however, face serious probl ems finding a decent place to live at a reasonable price.

"Although one in four adults is single, there has been no serious attempt to tackle their housing needs.

Housing policies are geared towards the needs of married people: a bias which stems from assumptions about marriage and the family.

"Whether they admit it or not, Governments, Councils, Banks, Building Societies, Employers and Landlords encourage the view that being 'single' is a brief stage between a stable home and a stable marriage.

"Consequently, the long term needs of unmarried and childless people (including gay people) are ignored"

The above is the opening paragraph of a pamphlet by the Gays and Housing Group* • a gay pressure group, and puts into context the demands gay people are making in the development of a socialist housing policy.

Streets

Debates on housing cannot be divorced from a consideration of the ideology behind present policies, in particular the bolstering of the nuclear family, the dominance of the idea of the (male) head of household and the privatisation and consumerism in living arrangements.

No place here for the single person of 30 who wants a council house with a garden, or the two lesbian mothers who want to live together with their children, or the group of gay teenagers wanting to live communally.

Single people generally are at the raw end of the housing crisis - squeezed out of the public sector by allocation policies and the private by high rents and unabtainable mortgages.

The evidence that gay people feel this acutely can be gauged from a survey of accommodation calls to London Gay Switchboard** Of the 4000 calls, almost 3000 were from Londoners (not new arrivals), and 1000 of the callers were threatened with homelessnees immediately with about 200 actually on the streets.

Almost 150 people were being thrown out of home by their parents. Altogether, one in every five callers said that being gay was connected to their housing crisis. The gay press is full of accounts of discrimination and victimisation by landlords, building societies, local authorities, and even families.

Overboard The importance of "a room of one's own' for every young person is recognised; if not always easily achieved: For those young people trying to establish a gay identity in an often hostile world it can be 2PY essential.

Living at home may be cheap - but hell. Local authorities fail to recognise any legitimate housing need by young people, and then go overboard to cater for couples - usually of the heterosexual, married kind.

Natural?

And then when old age is reached the only recognised way of life is to be packaged into a single-bedroomed flat with no thought for relationships already established or to be developed.

Some specific issues to do with gay people's housing needs can be tackled now.

The recent Labour Party discussion document, The Rights of Gay Men and Women'*** highlights some of the major areas by advocating greater access to public housing by single people alone or in groups, Jomt tenancies and the right ot succession for gay partners as well as proposing legislation to outlaw discrimination by landlords and building societies.

This is an important step forward and certainly should be in Labour Party manifestos nationally and locally. But equal rights in housing are not enough.

A socialist housing strategy is not only one where a decent house is everybody's right and not a commodity. It is also one designed to meet people's housing needs as they themselves express them and not, as at present, one where allocation, design and finance is grounded on maintaining the nuclear family as the natural and predominant mode of living.

Everyone?

Gay people do not need special housing provision -a reorientation of housing policy is needed.

This type of critique by gay people of Labour Party housing priorities is an important contribution towards the construction of socialist alternatives which will be of benefit not only to gay women and men, but to everyone. * Gays and Housing group a campaigning organisation. 274 Upper Street, London ** London Gay Switchboard 24 hour accommodation service, 01-837 7324. *** The Rights of Gay Women and Men', discussion document. The Labour Party, price 40p.

Contact: Labour Campaign for Gay Rights, c/o 6la Bloom St, Manchester M1 3LY.

Articles in this column are written by individual supporters of LCGR and do not necessarily reflect LCGR policy.

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Socialist Organiser no. 69 January 31, 1981 Fere. Jia y o socialisi

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