Youth pledge to fight witch hunt NO FUTURE

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... and no faith in Labour's official leaders THE Labour Party Young Socialists is the official youth wing of the labour movement. It is led by the Militant tendency. They base the organisation mainly on propagandising their "bold socialist programme' which is nearer to the reformist leaders in the labour movement than to revolutionary politics.

Class Fighter supporters in the YS intend to change this situation by transforming the YS into a revolutionary youth movement, by turning it out to the struggles of young workers, black youth, young women, gay youth and the growing nuclear disarmament movement.

That was the clear message from the Class Fighter supporters conference in Leicester last week.

Representatives from all over the country brought their experiences and knowledge to the conference and collectively set out our policies and plans for the next ycar.

We heard how Class Fighter supporters had made their mark as the main left oppesition in the Ys, through our very successful interventions in YS national events such as the conference, the Summer Camp and the October 16 demonstration.

On the witch-hunts, we made it clear that we would fight to the end for the right to put our polities across freely in our movement."If the right wing tried to estrict the YS through sus ending the national com mittee or stopping our conference, we would fight o dely them and carry oi vith the conference. We wel comed the setting up of Labour against the Witchhunt and pledged to take a full part in it.

Many speakers expressed their anger at the way our leaders on the YS National Committee had been handling that fight. We felt that the National Committee should start now to fight the threat to the left wing, not through the bosses' courts but through a campaign involving the whole left in the party. We are all under threat.

The workshop on building the YS heard a comrade from Huddersfield explain how his YS had been built through campaigning for support for the health workers and for the rights of youth, whilst at the same time organising successful social events like discos and weekend camps.

Women A: large workshop on women's liberation highlighted the oppression of young women.

it discussed the problems of girls' experience in education and how to reach out to paigns such as women's right to a job and the importance of Women's Fightback in organising • working class women.

The •conference also decided to have •. a school on women.

The Gay Youth workshop put resolutions to the conference opposing state repression of gay men and lesbians. It called on Class Fighter 'to step up its campaigning work both inside the YS and out, and to fight for gay rights among our own supporters.

Trade unions

On trade unions and YOPs, the workshops held very good discussions. We called for democratic and accountable trade union youth sections with advertised conferences. We found in the discussion that youth sections existed in the TGWU, COHSE and the AUEW, and pledged to become involved and to raise political issues such as the right of all young trainees to strike and full pay.

We also recognised that trade unions should have the right to go into schools to give trade union education and decided to launch a campaign on this issue.

Two ot those arrested in the now famous Oxford dole swoop told the conference how they were held for ten hours by the police while the corrupt landlords got their stories straight. really win. They won't be very safe in their seats then."

A Turkish comrade pointed out that all over the world the bosses and the Stalinist leaders work together, while the working class is split. This is why international solidarity is so important.

We took a fraternal speaker from Revolution Youth, Ruth Haswell. She said a great deal about Revo's view of the world situation, but unfortunately little on relations between our groups, except to outline the very far reaching' differences. She did make a call for joint work and discussions which we will be taking up.

There were many other discussions throughout the weekend: not all of them can fit in this article. Socialist Organiser welcomes articles arising from the conference discussions.

Overall the conference was a big step forward. Many new faces found the conference very motivating and educational, and took supporters cards.

The task now is to take. our national success as a model and to apply them to the local work by building up massive, working class-based LPYS branches.

The first test of this will be the regional conferences coming up very soon.

The steering committee elected by the conference must ensure that these tasks are carried out over the next yeaL.

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Socialist Organiser no. 110 November 25 1982 Page 3 witch hunt

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left in the Lab- our Party Young Social- ists. Jim Simons reports