LPYS conference Leading the eft against Militant

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In this year of the witch-hunt, ists conference opened with a campaign for the general elec The conference rejected any ideas of a Labour/ Alliance coalition, and called for the LPYS to start campaigning now to win youth, not just to vote Labour, but to join the LPYS and the trade unions. It called for half a million leaflets to publicise the Labour campaign document commitment to £25 a week for all students over 16; for an appeal to Further Education college student unions to organise meetings around this commitment; and for CLPs to have an LPYS speaker on' every election platform.

Unanimously, the LPYS replied to the witch-hunters by declaring that the socialist youth would be the best fighters against the Tories. As speaker after speaker pointed out from the platform, many of those who have denounced the LPYS in the past as 'alien to the Labour Party' are now themselves in the SDP!

The conference also unanimously resolved to throw the LPYS's full weight behind campaigning for industrial struggles. There was strong support for speakers from the Halewood, Cowley, and Grosvenor House disputes. An emergency resolution on the 1500 redundancies announced at Cammell Lairds was ruled out for proceUND HER HANGING ONDONE Of Wose EEVOLUTLONAA the Labour Party You: debate on a 'Youth fo ion.

'Black the YTS', said Class Fighter fused for the 8th year running even to discuss gay rights.

They made it clear that troops out (though formal LPYS policy) much the official LPYS dragged would be no part of LPYS cam- its feet, Class Fighter would be paigning, backing a resolution which dismissed capitalist reuni- months - organising YSs for fication of Ireland equally with partition, and looked exclusively to working class unity in North- and with black youth, organising ern Ireland on the basis of eco- in the youth cheap labour nomic struggle. schemes, and fighting to create All this did not go without a real revolutionary LPYS. opposition. As well as the Gay LPYS meeting - the highlight of the weekend for many (see inset) - there were almost equally packed fringe meetings the question of gay rights. for SLV, for Youth CND, and for the Labour Committee on Ireland.

Inside the conference, there were resolutions pushed by Class Fighter supporters challenging the Militant line on Ireland, on women, on YTS, on the armed forces, on the Middle campaign.

East, and many other issues.

The Fleet Street press has picked up a couple of phrases from the Ireland debate - but without explaining the resolution that was being moved by working class gays. Richard Emmett from Accrington LPYS. It argued for: 'Solidarity with Irish Republicans fighting for a united Irish Republic - especially with Irish socialists fighting for a workers' republic; troops out of Ireland now; self-determination for the Irish people as a whole, with all legitimate minority rights for the Protestants"

Militant's whole static, parliasocial events. mentarist view of the struggle for socialism - first win a maj- Contact: Gay WOMEN FOR PEACE NOT BE Militant opposed the May 24 action call

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