CND plans 'canvass

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Women in struggle (YCND National Committee 1300 people, delegates and individuals, attended the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament conference in Sheffield on November 26-27-28.

It was a critical conference for CND. Cruise missiles are coming to Britain next year, and unless CND can mobilise its support as the biggest mass campaign in Britain effectively, it faces a serious setback if not collapse.

The current leadership of CND fails to bring political debate into the open and increasingly shies away from mass action. Conference, by a small majority, supported the leadership's planned 'Peace Canvass 83' as the central campaign against Cruise and Trident.

The idea of Peace Canvass 83 is to show that CND represents the 'people's will' over Cruise and Trident. 'Instead of asking people to come to us, we are going to them"

From January to June next yeai, much of CND's financial and physical resources are to be put into a doorstep canvass to monitor public opinion against Cruise and Trident. But discovering the exact proportion of the population opposed to this horror is not likely to stop it.

Conference voted for non-violent direct action and civil disobedience as the major tactics in the antiCruise, anti-Trident campaign. The problem with this is that it could focus the campaign on courageous, but symbolic, actions by small groups, instead of turning it out to the power of the labour movement, which can actually force nuclear disarmament.

On a more positive note, it was agreed to hold a trade union rally against Cruise and Trident on October 22 1983, and to urge trade unionists to strike on that day to join the rally.

CND links with the labour movement were one of the most important debates. A composite resulution was passed, calling for CND to make more links with the trade union movement by setting up workplace CND branches and by campaigning at all levels of the labour movement fur support - including where necessary industrial action - to achieve CND's aims.

Debate

The biggest debate of the conference was on a resolution for 'NATO out of Britain, Britain out of NATO' as a major campaigning slogan for the next year. This was passed despite strong opposition from the leadership.

Conference was run in a fairly bureaucratic manner. For example, none of the resolutions on Youth CND were taken. These included one from YCND National Committee calling for YCND to have greater autonomy and representation within CND.