[(...) Peter Mclntyre has been an active and…]

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(...) Peter Mclntyre has been an active and respectei member of Oxford and District Trades Union Council for seven years. When O&DTUC first discussed the 286 arrests of 2nd September, Council fully accepted the truth of Bro. McIntyre's statement on his part in the affair: 'Two months ago he began research for articles on Ox¡ford's homeless. Information on a certain landlord came to ' light. Iwo senior officers visited the Oxford Mail editor who agreed not to publish any stories until a police inquiry in progress was complete. Bro. Melntyre gave police no information when he saw them as requested.

'He was informed that landlords, not claimants, were the target. In no way had he collaborated with the police' (from minutes of 0&DTUC; 3rd September, 1982).

The WRP bring forward no new or separate evidence — its case is based entirely on the misleading implications of headlines from the Oxford Mail. It is clear that Newsline and the WRP did not not even contact or take evidence from the Oxford and District TUC; from any member of the NUJ Chapel at the Oxford Mail;, any member of the Oxford Unemployed and Claimants Union; any trade unionist in the Oxford DHSS, or any other organisation of individuals with experience of homelessness in Oxford!

In short, no attempt was made to find out the true (...) Finally, we note that handing out these leaflets [with the 'fantastic and vicious attacks' on Peter Mcintyre for alleged 'foul collaboration with the police'l has been the only way in which the WRP has been involved locally in the campaign that has built up after Operation Major.

286 people have been arrested in one day in Oxford; claimants have been persecuted by the police, the courts and the DHSS (while the landlords concerned remain at liberty); yet the WRP's only contribution has been to publish slanders which can have been motivated only by the narrowest and crudest political sectarianism.

This total diversion is in shabby contrast to the strong loca, Positive response from unionists, who have united in the Claimants' Defence Committee to campaign for the release of all those arrested and imprisoned, and to publicise the terrible facts about homelessness and social security in Oxford. This campaign deserves the support of claimants, trade unionists and socialists throughout the country.

If the WRP seriously wishes to help claimants in Oxford, then we suggest that the WRP make a , contribution to the CDC, at least equivalent to the cost of producing and distributing its slanderous leaflet in Oxford.

Further information about the CDC can be obtained by writing to: Claimants' Defence Committee, c/o 44b Princes St, Oxford.

° Abridged text of statement issued by Trades Courcil meeting of Nov. S 1982. Now Newsline is protesting that the Trades Council and the NUJ have no right to pass judgment. Sean Matgamna reports.

THE Newsline, the paper published by the WRP, carried on November 11 a reply to a statement by Oxford Trades Council condemning Newsline's campaign of vituperation and slander against Socialist Organiser supporter Peter McIntyre.

Newsline has repeatedly branded Peter Mcintyre as a police nark, accusing him of helping to set up the savage police action in Oxford in which homeless people were arrested, interrogated, and tried for alleged social security 'fraud'.

McIntyre has made a formal complaint in the NUJ against Newsline editor Paul Jennings and writer Alex Mitchell. The Trades Council statement vigorously defends McIntyre against the lies of NewsHow does Newsline reply? It whines. The people who have taken legal action to drag Socialist Organiser into the High Court for libel insist that it is unprincipled for Peter McIntyre to appeal to Oxford Trades Council or the NUJ. "Our case against Mr McIntyre is political"

Actually the "case' , totally rejected by labour movement activists 'on the ground' in Oxford, is a pack of lies. McIntyre's complaint is not that Newsline made hard-hitting critical comments against him, but that it called him a police nark. To brand someone as a police nark is not political debate. And McIntyre's action is not calculated to bankrupt and silence Newsline.

Stream

For Newsline and its publishers, the WRP, who for many years have systematically poured out a stream of lies, truth or lies will serve equally well to achieve a purpose - in this case to discredit Peter McIntyre and Socialist The Stalinist, or Goebbelsian, approach is more or less stated by Newsline: "Our attitude to Mr McIntyre is conditioned by the fact that Newsline is the daily newspaper of the WRP and he is not any run-of-the-mill reporter" He is "a leading supporter of SO"

The facts of the case, and Peter McIntyre's account of Listen to these High Court heroes complaining against being hauled by Socialist Organiser before the tribunals of the labour movement.

'We believe that it is monstrous that the rules and procedures of the NUJ should be abused by a group of revisionists for political and factional purposes" . But it is fair game for the WRP, which claims to be part of the labour movement, to take the same revisionists through the ruinously expensive lawcourts in the hope of bankrupting us. That's dialectics and 'Bolshevik intransigence' , my dear.

' 'The union is not a political party, and nor is the Oxford and District Trades Council. Trade unions should be trade unions and trades councils should be trades councils: their aims are clearly set out in their constitutions, to further the interests of trade unionism. Mr McIntyre and so appear to believe that they can be used to settle differences between political Those who use Ms Redgrave's money to bring the courts in as arbiter between the is for Socialist Organ:

iser' to reply directly to the Newsline and to make a full statement, if it can, on the role he [McIntyre] played... [This] group cannot browbeat us with Trades Council resolutions, nor trade union rule books, to try to have Newsline staff... expelled [from the NUJJ" So what would they do if Peter McIntyre sued them for libel?

They declare 'total opposition' to the recent NUJ expulsion of an editorial writer on the Sun for calling serious journalists 'traitors' during the Falklands war - though the writer has been expelled not for'his opinions, but for trying to create an atmosphere of witch-hunting war hysteria that would have made it impossible for other journalists to express their views.

And they promise us: "Our campaign of exposures against [McIntyre's] brand of revisionism will continue". With the old methods, no doubt. They don't tell us why it is worth while discussing politics with a 'police nark' At the start of its campaign, Newsline itself launched the demand for the NUJ and Oxford Irades Council to investigate the affair. But to look to the WRP for consistency, logic, principles, or even a vestigial sense of shame, is to go to the goat's house for wool. Its members are conditioned not to reason in terms of principles or logic, but to keep in step emotionally with 'the revolutionary party' and its ayatollah.

They'll be whining that we took them before Oxford Trades Council and the NUJ - all the way to the High Court, where early next year they'll do their best to have us bankrupted.