[-Winat is the Last month Chris Mullin took…]

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-Winat is the Last month Chris Mullin took over as editor of Tribune. Within three weeks Michael Foot had denounced him for "infantile leftism ... giving aid to Thatcher and Galtieri" and Neil Kinnock had lambasted the "self-righteousness" of the new Tribune. What is it all about? Socialist Organiser spoke to Chris Mullin. LONDON LABOUR BRIEFING is organising a working conference of Labour councillors and Labour supporting activists. Councillors need to break out of Council Chamber politics and link up with "extra-parliamentary forces" - the trade unions, the women's movement, tenants and ethnic minority groups, etc. The aim is to set up an "Association of Socialist Councillors in London" ON the front page of April's London Labour Briefing, . over 100 Labour candidates pledged to stick to their manifesto commitments and refuse to make attacks "no matter what the pressures and threats"

The conference at County Hall on 19 June, will be the first opportunity since the elections for those councillors who signed the pledge to meet together to discuss how those policies can begin to be put into practice.

The results of the local elections have been mixed but at least in some areas, such as Hackney and Islington we are very strong indeed and the conference will be geared to making the best use of strong positions we have gained.

At best, until now, Labour councillors have been allowed to become very isolated both from one another and from the labour movement itself.

No organisation on the left has existed to cater specifically for the needs of councillors who have no intention of administering the state in the traditional right wing way.

Avoid

There is only one way we can avoid becoming instruments of the capitalist state on a local level and that is by representing inside the council chamber those extraparliamentary forces - the trade unions, ethnic minordents organisations - which alone can provide the forces for a real fight.

For this reason the conference is not being restricted to councillors: all Labour-supporting activists are welcome to attend. It is hoped to set up as a result of the conference an AssociCredentials from: Jim Lewisham councillor Ann Bliss explains the June 19 conference.

ation of Socialist Councillors in London to provide London-wide means through which the pressures and demands of activists can be brought to bear on our councillors and through which the councillors in turn can organise across borough boundaries and call on the help of the movement as required.

It is to provide this link up between external and internal council resources that the Association of Socialist Councillors London is being set up. We should put demands on others only to the extent that we ourselves are prepared to carry them out.

By acting in a coordinated way through the Association of Socialist Councillors, hopefully we will be supporting each other and giving each other the strength we will need to really put into practice the politics which for the past few years we have been advocating that others commit themselves to.

Personally I would like to emphasise the importance of forms of activity not normally regarded as within the province of council chamber politics.

I mean the levels of struggle which the Briefing Streetlife supplement has begun to reflect. This means becoming strong and organised not only in our workplace but also in the homes and streets where we live. For example, the fight against sexist violence, racial harassment and other forms of crime will be an important theme in the conference and alternatives to reliance on the police will be suggested.

MAY 28 1982 MEN

fair deal at work Roy Mattersley Yes. Up to hasn't been these groups, However, ethnic minorities a te acc masters paze tro by GAVIN luntil this week a Labour Front Bench spokesman on agriculture:

What changes do you hope to make in Tribune?

Some of them will be noticeable from the first few issues. The editorial line has changed.

My view is that we in the labour movement have two principal tasks. We have to sell to the public at large the idea that we have a credible alternative to the way the world now turns round. And we have to find elected representatives prepared to implement that alternative. • I think that by far the most difficult of those two tasks is to find elected representatives prepared to implement the programme of the Labour Party.

The left wing press divides roughly into two categories _ the sort of paper you might buy at a newsagent, and the sort you might buy at a meeting or demonstration. Tribune has been very much in the first category. Do you see it moving into the second?

Yes. I think it will be quite a long process, but we want to build up a network of sellers.

Do you want to see Tribune groups set up?

now the paper very keen on but 1 am keen. there are

Foot and the VOL 46 tO 22 Falklands Neil Kinnock

Labour will go into the next gets +t5 The parit "u. certain difficulties. A number of organisations that are not interested in Tribune wish to hi-jack the name for their own purposes. That's not something I'm keen to encourage.

But I think all we would ask of a Tribune group is that they actually sell the paper.

In the '50s, it is said, Tribune was a paper of the rank and file left activists in the unions as well as in the Labour Party. Do you see Tribune campaigning in the Yes. In the last couple of years we've begun to see the end of non-political trade unionism - the idea that trade unionism is just about wages and conditions of work, and that any input they have into the Labour Party will be done by a few general secretaries.

I'm glad to see that in many of the great unions, particularly those with right wing leaderships, Broad Lefts are now getting off the ground - and that at just about all trade union conferences now they have fringe meetings, an entirely new and exciting concept there though •long well known to those of us who go to Labour Party conference.

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