[AT THE Monday (March 7) meeting of the…]

Socialist Organiser no. 123, 10 March 1983 · scan p. 2 · about 202 words

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AT THE Monday (March 7) meeting of the council Labour group in Tower Hamlets (East London), seven councillors were expelled from the Labour group.

The immediate background was that we had voted down the rate in the last council meeting because we had not been able to debate the police precept (the money the council has to pay over to finance the police).

All but one of the seven were newly elected last May, and we have been a new element within the Labour group.

The seven have consistently advocated Party policy, inclu ling the following points:

* Establishment of' housing committee, * Refusal to accept a contract for a telephone exchango from Plessey, because of their connections with South Africa, * Establishment of an ethnic minorities committee, * Refusal to cooperate with the London Docklands Development Corporation. (Council leader Paul Beasley sits on the LDDC board alongside John O'Grady and Bob Mellish).

* Establishment of police committee, * A freeze on rents.

At the Labour group meeting on Monday there was no prior notice of the motion to expel the seven, and an investigation by the regional Labour Party into the corstitutionality of it is expecred.

GRAHAM ALLEN SUSAN CARLYLE