Building the left wing in the Labour Party YS

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hv l inda Moulsdale and Sam Jones i DEMONSTRATE IN LONDON BRITAIN OUT OF IRELA F DETERMINATION FOR THE IRISH

OVER the last year, youth have taken to the streets to show their anger and frustration at the Tory government. The huge CND march and the summer

riots opened up the minds of many thousands of young people to new ideas.

This growing movement should have reflected at this year's YS Annual Conference held in snowy Bridlington. It wasn't.

Last year, mainly due to the efforts of the opposition in the YS, the conference voted to affiliate to .CND. Yet delegates • still came out with the argu•ment that CND is a middle class campaign, but we'll do a raid on it and recruit the best to Militant. One delegate complained that there was a Tory on a CND march he attended who complained about him shouting socialist slogans. He didn't like marching with Tories. This of course ignores the fact that by marching and chanting, we can force the Tories out of the campaign and win the youth to a socialist perspective.

Speeches Speeches concentrated on the inadequacies. of the CND leadership and particular bad experiences LPYS members had had at the odd meeting. Instead of going all out to build CND, and win the respect and support of its thousands of young followers, the YS majority are only prepared to point out that socialism is the only way to stop war.

Conference also refused to support an excellent resolution from Weymouth YS outlining what YS members could do to build CND and calling for the YS to take up the call for Britain to get out of NATO.

To the thousands of youth arrested and beaten up by the police, the message was 'hang on, the police are only doing their job, don't fight them, ask them to join Militant, after all they are only workers in uniform?

Bob Towers from Huyton YS pointed out that the attitude youth take to the police is based on what they receive at the hands of police truncheons and that instead vi accepting the bosses' police we can perfectly well police ourselves in our communities and through the trade unions.

As the opposition at LPYS conference, Class i Fighter supporters made a 200 attended the Class Fighter fringe meeting Amanda Barnes: called for solidarity with FMLN's fight against the El Salvador military and US imperialism big impact. Yet time and again we were blocked from the bureaucratic platform, with National Committee recommendations against everything which wasn't a Militant resolution. Not only that but every NC member summing up on the 'debate' could take as much time as they liked. Much of the conference was wasted in this manner and several delegates came to the Class Fighter bookstall to complain and ask the National Left Wing Youth Movement to organise a campaign for democracy in the LPYS.

Even though the British Fleet was steaming down to the Falklands during the conference the Militant supporters refused to take an emergency resolution from Coventry NE YS calling on the YS to organise a national demonstration against any war. As Class I by Linda Moulsdale and Eric Lucas: called for the LPYS to build a mass CND and to fight for withdrawal from NATO Fighter supporters pointed out, if the LPYS doesn't organise such a march, who will?

The NC produced a statement condemning the war and the jingoistic posturing of the Labour leadership, but included a demand for blacking by the trade unions of Argentinian goods — a strange thing for socialists to call for. There is enough anti-Argentinian feeling being whipped up in the Tory press and by the Labour leadership without the YS adding its tuppence worth.

The Chair refused to take any Class Fighter speakers in this debate.

On Ireland, Chris Brind from Welwyn and Hatfield YS and Andrew MacDonald from Aylesbury YS showed that it was the duty of British socialists to support the Republicans in their fight against the British Dave Curtis: won 20 votes in the election for LPYS representative on the Labour Party NEC Army. To condemn them as criminals as some speakers did, was to give conditional support to the British state.

This point was emphasised at the Labour Committee on Ireland meeting where Patrick Murphy from Stockport South YS spoke.

Starkly

The pettiness of the YS leadership's opposition to all Class Fighter resolutions was most starkly shown in the session on fighting racism and fascism. Judith Bonner from Coventry North East YS argued for a resolution stemming from the experiences of the YS and Asian youth in Coventry who are YS members arguing for support for self defence.

Yet the National Committee argued against it on the basis that there was a phrase in it saying 'purge all racists from the unions' Judith Bonner: explained how Coventry N.E. YS had organised for anti-racist defence squads of delegates - about 280 - despite the claim that there are 10,000 members in 480 branches. (The print run for Socialist Youth, the LPYS paper, is only 6,000 according to Andy Bevan, the Labour Party Youth officer).

200 at THE National Left Wing Youth Movement was a noticeable force at the conference this year.

At the Class Fighter meeting, 200 people turned up to listen to the speakers and discuss with us.

From the platform Mick Liggins outlined what our policies are. He said, 'We want to see a mass LPYS. We will know when we have got a mass LPYS when we see LPYS slogans written all over the walls on housing estates rather than NF and BM that we see now. To achieve that we need to show youth that the LPYS will take up their fight, and take it up to win, not to make propaganda.

Judith Bonner spoke on Class Fighter. She outlined the weakness of the official YS paper Socialist Youth, and urged people to write for Class Fighter, and of course sell it.

Alan Thornett, a deputy convenor British Leyland's Assembly Plant in Cowley, spoke on the Tebbit Bill, warning of the dangers treating the proposed legislation with complacency. He spoke about the real effects that the B1l would have on the trade union movement and outlined the sort of campaign needed and being built for by supporters of Socialist JOBS New pamphlet 15p plus postage from BM Box 5277, London WC1N 3XX From i the floor there was a lively discussion. The supporters of Militant present were asked if they would like to make a contribution, but none of them did, except to ask a question about our call for a workers' government.

During the meeting a contact list went round which many people signed, requesting Class Fighter speakers for their YS Branch.

Every day of the conference we printed news bullétins to explain Class Fighter's views on important issues and to advertise fringe meetings.

The NLWYM bookstall sold over £100 worth of literature and 350 copies of our pamphlet "Nothing to lose, a world to gain" were sold Throughout the conference many people came over to our bookstall and had discussions with us and we gained a lot of support. Thanks to the conference we are now much better known in the YS and we are stronger as a result.

The job now is to go back to YS branches and show that we can build the YS better than the Militant Su DOlLer: our

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