No expulsions! Members would not forgive then

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branches, affiliated trade union branches, Hall, London SE1. Credentials for delegates from payable to Hackney North and Stoke Newington

Hornsey, Wood Green, Chipping Barnet, Peckham, John Golding, key figure of stone age right wing, favours purge SATURDAY'S 'CLPS against the Witch-hunt' Conference, initiated by Hackney North CLP, can be crucial in organising to stop the purge in its tracks.

Time is short. By Saturday the initial target list and the starting date of the purge should be known. In fact, if the right wing can organise their take-over of the NEC's committees quickly enough on Wednesday, the expulsions might well have started JOHN HARRIS by the Conference.

With a week to go, 59 CLPs have indicated either support or sponsorship for the Conference, together with a similar number of other Party organisations. 20 MPs, including Tony Benn, are also giving their support.

The Steering Committee is calling for the Conference to resist any attempts to expel socialists because of the Register.

The focus has rightly been on resisting expulsions rather than on registration, although this is still a very important issue. No one can now doubt that the Register is a blatantly rigged device to provide a cover for a purge of the left. For groups to register now can only help the right, giving the register legitimacy and making it easier for them to try to chop Militant.

The fight for an effective boycott must still be organised, concentrating on a 'no' vote in the CLPD's consultative ballot on whether they should register now.

But the argument that a wholesale purge we must accept the register because it 18 a Conterence decision has divided sections of the left which are nonetheless pledged to oppose the witch-hunt and resist expulsions. And the purge will stand or fall on whether the right can carry through expulsions -if they can't, then the Register will be of little importance.

Saturday's conference will be judged by how effectively it can organise the solid and widespread opposition to expulsions, and lay the basis for effective resistance. The Steering Committee for the Conference will be putting forward proposals on how to organise the campaign and on establishing a delegate-based National Council to organise from the Conference.

An organisation is needed which is based on and directly accountable to those Party organisations who will have to fight the witch-hunt - especially the CLPs - an organisation, in short, that can deliver action.

The October 30 Conference and an organisation based on it will be complementary to the Militantdominated Labour Steering Committee against the Witch-hunt', and proposals to dissolve the Conference into the Militant campaign should be rejected. The Steering Committee will be proposing instead that the two campaigns should work as closely together as posssible, including for the Regional Conferences organised for November 27 by the 'Labour Steering Committee' A united response must also extend to those MPs and other Party members and affiliated organisations who want to fight. It must regard work in the trade unions as a priority, and establish close links with union Broad Lefts.

These and other proposals will be presented by the Steering Committee for the October 30th Conference. We urge all delegates to support them. THE WITCH hunt is the right wing's response to the fact that they have lost the arguments over policy in the Party - over the Common Market, over unilateralism, but, most of all, over mandatory reselection and Party democracy in general.

They've never been too concerned about conference policy, but mandatory reselection -while it hasn't bitten hard yet -does create a way for the rank and file to bring MPs to book. If they constantly fail to deliver the goods -and that, of course, has been the case so far and looks like being the case next time - the rank and file can take them to task.

Some of the support for the witch-hunt comes from MPs who feel threatened, in some cases by Militant caucuses. The truth is, though, that Militant has little influence over policymaking in the Party.

Perhaps they've been singled out because they're an easier target. But once expulsions begin, it won't just be the Militant supporters who are victims: right-wingers will be given the green light to finger individuals who obstruct them whether they're associated with a left tendency or not.

My reaction is a gut reaction: this is our Party and I'm not going to be involved in kicking people out of Lavuur Parties.

The October 30 conference was initiated by Hackney North CLP. Andrew Hornung, who roved the original proposal for the conference, spoke to Keith Lichman, vice-chair of the CLP and secretary of the conference steering committee.

it who have fought for working class interests for years and who want to build a socialist society.

The leaders of our Party nationally responded to the SDP's founding by inviting Williams and the others to stay in the Labour Party even though they had been hard at work organising against it. Now these same leaders respond to those that really are fighting to build the Labour Party as a socialist party by trying to kick them out.

•Perhaps they think that if the Left is smashed, they might be able to effect a coalition with the SDP and merge with it later.

What about the aims of the conference?

The idea is to link up those who are opposed to the witch-hunt. After all, five sixths of the CLPs voted against the register at Party conference. From the conference, we will set up a national council to coordinate the campaign. We will try to get regional Labour Parties to oppose the witchhunt and build up to getting these anti-democratic measures overturned at the next Labour Party conference. This will mean a lot of work in both the CLPs and the trade unions.

The cornerstone of this campaign is the CLPs. The crucial question is, what will the NEC do when CLPs refuse to expel people.

I like to think that the majority of Party members would never forgive a leadership that in an election year disaffiliated between 60 and 100 CLPs. They've done it before, of course, in the 'twenties.

What is your reaction to Militant's proposal that the conference elect two delegates to the steering committee set up from the Militant-sponsored rally last month, and then disband? I'm happy to see an exchange of delegates, but this campaign won't end... not so long as there are CLPs who want to fight the witch-hunt and want a campaign to express that fight.

I'm in favour of working closely with the Militant rally's steering committee, but it is difficult to see the democratic mechanism for influencing that committee, while we are a strictly democratic body accountable to the organisations from which the delegates come.

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John Bloxam outlines the plans for fighting

women's sections, YSs, etc. South Labour Parties.