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on Palestine? autious SOLDARIOS Walesa Last Saturday 50 members, including most of the campaign's activists, walked out of the Labour Committee on Palestine conference. At least 97 people previously unknown to the campaign had turned up claiming to be members. In short the conference had been taken over. Many of the 97 were prominent members of the Workers' Revolutionary Party.

Andrew Hornung and Tony Greenstein, the for or she CP, explain secretary and why they believe the LCP has been wrecked and why they and the others who walked out have set up a new Labour Movement Campaign on Palestine.

"THE LABOUR movement's support for the right of the Palestinian people took a major step forward . at the weekend" announced last Monday's Newsline, reporting the Labour Committee on Palestine conference the Saturday before.

But why was the paper of the Workers' Revolutionary Party so coy? In their modesty they have failed to mention the determining role they played at the conference.

Why didn't they say that about a members hundred of their mend Ders and supporters - including leader members such as Corin Redgrave, Sheila Torrance, and Claire Dixon - marched into the conference claiming they were LCP members?

The matter can't have escaped the WRP's notice: after all, former Newsline editor Alex Mitchell was there, and Newsline staff writers Rudder and Feldman also marched in as LCP members.

How could a labour movement committee, based primarily though not exclusively on Labour Party members and orienting much of its activity towards the Labour Party, be taken over with the help of people who are not Party members -and who, indeed, called foi the bringing down of the last Labour government and now call not for a Labour government but for a "Workers Revolutionary" governmeat.

Members

And how could they become members of the campaign without the secretary knowing?

All these people were admitted on the say-so of Ted Knight, the man maliciously Knight attacked by the press as Red Ted' - who was the treasurer of the LCP and is the leader of the Labour group on Lambeth council.

According to Knight, all these people were listed as paid-up members in his private membership list!

Break in Where were they listed? In Knight's big red notebook.

The notebook, containing about a hundred names, first made its appearance at the very end of the LCP steering committee held a few hours before the conference.

Knight casually reported that he would not be able to give a treasurer's report because the relevant documents were missing following a break-in at his office Lambeth Town Hall.

When he claimed that his notebook contained: the names of members who were. not on the secretary's list, we challenged the legitimacy of Knight's list. Why had these people paid their money directly to Knight and not gone through the secretary - whose address was the only public address for the LCP?

Unflappable

These people, claimed the unflappable Knight,. knew he was an officer of the LCP and many had come to the offices of 'Labour Herald', of which he is an editor. He had 'not been able to give them to the secretary, he said, because he had not been able to reach him.

Asked whether he had a șingle letter written to the Herald or to him asking for membership, Knight said no. Was there a single receipt stub or carbon for the money paid in for membership. No. Or a single membership slip filled in? No.

Who were these people who were going to try to get into the conference under cover of Knight? Answer: the WRP's members and supporters.

In the time that the secietary was on the door, there filed in 97 people" who claimed to be LCP members but did not appear on the secretary's list of members or even on the list of contacts - which includes all those who had ever written to the campaign or signed an attendance sheet at any of its public meetings. claimed to be Labour Party members. And one of those three was a former Newsline journalist.

Those were were asked to whom they had sent their membership applications said they didn't know. Some, like Claire Dixon, a former secretary of the WRP's youth movement, claimed their money had been collected by their union branch.

Packed

It «was soon blatantly clear that - however it was arranged - the meeting was packed with WRP support, and Knight was the only person giving this action legitimacy.

«Naturally Knight rejected any suggestion that the LCP steering committee should meet in emergency session and consider the matter. Instead - displaying a flair for farce that revealed a new side to his character - he put to the Conference (including the people whose status was in question) the issue of recognising these people as members or not.

All that was not in questthemselves against the Gdansk agreements."

Walesa has said he needs a month to recover from internment and to orientaie himself. Talk of discuss: ions between him and General Jaruzelski has been countered by an official government statement that no. such discussions will take place.

Meanwhile repression continues. Solidarnosc leader Wladyslaw Frasyniuk is on trial in Wroclaw. The Psychology Faculty at Warsaw university has been shut because of student protests.

Anna Walentynowicz, former Gdansk shipyard crane driver and a militant leader of Solidarnosc, has been thrown into a psychiatric hospital for going on hunger strike. Several other Solfdarnosc leaders in internment are on hunger strike. ion was the outcome of the vote - and any other vote at the Conference.

Under these circumstances, neither of us - the two founders of the LCP - was prepared to stand for the Committee. To do so would have given legitimacy: to a conference which was a carve-up, a campaign based on a packed meeting.

The only decision of the conference worth reporting at this stage, because if is a reflection of the forces that determined its direction, was the decision for the campaign not to establish branches for a whole Year. We might just as well have allowed Labour Friends of Israel to come along and propose the LCP be wound up.

The LCP had made a little, but significant, progress in the short time since its birth six months ago. It has organised pickets and public meetings.

Speakers from the LCP have gone to many labour and student movement meetings, gaining several affiliations for the campaign. The emergency resolution promoted by the LCP was succSOLIDARNOSC lives! Demonstration on the first anniversary of martial law. Sunday December 12: assemble 1pm at Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, London, essful at the last Labou Party conference. It declare support for the Palestinian: goal and for recognition o the PLO, and called on th Labour Party, to institute a inquiry into Israeli war crim es in Lebanon.

To wieck the LCP's wor now, to cover its successe and its future with the tair of the WRP, and to chok off its promising develo] ment by behind the-scene skulduggery, is to deal a bi blow to the Palestinian caus and to the development of truly internationalist curren within the Labour Party.

Why did the WRP do it From all indications its pur pose was to impress its allie in the Arab world. The WR has close links - which i sets great store by - wit the Libyan government.

Why did. Ted Knight d it? Knight appears on th WRP's platform at meeting such as the recent '13tł anniversary rally for New: line. Labour Herald is print ed by the WRP press. Wha makes this relationshi strange is - to emphasise th point - the fact that th WRP and. Newsline apparently opposed to th election of à new Labou government.

Those - like ourselves -who are convinced as to th methods used by Knight t achieve his ends will OoT tinue in our attempt to buil an open labour movemen campaign pledged to fightin for the rights of the Palestir ian people and agains Zionism. About fifty people, th bulk of the non WRP suf porters, left the conferenc and met to establish a ner campaign which ran contir ue the LCP's work.

This campaign, the Lat our Movement Campaign fo Palestine, which operat with a provisional steerin committee elected fror those who walked out of th conference. The campaig can be contacted by writin to the secretary, 28 Carlto Mansions, Holmleigh Roac London N16.

LIVE!

and march/ to Jubilee Gard ens. Called by the Polish Solidarity Campaign. Contact: 69 Edinburgh Rd, London E13, or phone 567 4427 or 960 7250.

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