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Report from LCGR conference The conference, whose theme was the fight in the labour movement for lesbian and gay rights, was sponsored by local MP Tony Benn and Pam Tatiow, prospective parliamentary candidate for Bristol West.

Opening the conference, Brian Underwood, secretary of the Bristol Trades Union Council and a member of the regional council of the TUC, set the tone of the meeting by affirming that: "Gay rights is a political, and not merely a personal, issue". He supported the aims of the campaign and informed the conference of the positive policies on gay rights that the local TUC had adopted.

Pam Tatlow said it was important that people in the Labour Party who were not gay knew where we stood so that their support could be more effective. She also expressed disappointment at Campaign 83's lack of a detailed commitment to gay rights.

The day's activity included workshops at which a range of topical issues were discussed, such as: developing the campaign in the trade union movement; putting more effective pressure on Labour councils to support gay rights; the threat posed to lesbians and gay men by the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, the oppression of blacks, lesbians and gay men, and how we can begin to work with the black movement; and the linking of our campaign with the politics of our personal lives.

The rest of the day was devotea to developing policy priorities, one of the most important of which is the intention of LCGR to link up with feminists in the Labour Party more directly. It is hoped a meeting will be arranged with Women's Fightback to discuss how the issues that affect lesbians can be fully taken up in the labour movement.

LCGR will also work closely with gay groups in the trade unions and our allies in the trade union movement to draw up a strategy for getting the movement as a whole to treat gay rights as a serious issue.

The conference reacted with total dissatisfaction at the lack of any serious commitment to gay rights in the Labour Party's recThe Newham 8 - Asian youths aged between 15 and 21 - face charges of conspiracy as well as threatening behaviour and actual bodily harm.

They were • arrested on September 24 1982 after an incident with plain-clothes police officers. In the previous week there had been three major racist attacks on Asian schoolchildren at Little Ilford School, in Newham, and an incident where 60 or 70 white youth with iron bars and sticks went on the rampage in East Ham and Manor Park.

Send invitations for speakers, or resolutions of support, to Newham 8 Defence Campaign, c/o PO Box 273, London E7 9JN. ently issued Campaign Document. We determined to work with our uspporters to campaign all the more vigorously for a clear commitment by the party to absolute equality with heterosexuals for lesbians and gay men.

The conference was also disappointed at the failure of the recently formed Socialists for a Labour Victory • to place gay rights on its election agenda or to invite LCGR to its foundation Heterosexual socialists have no difficulty in opposing the Labour Party conference decision on the register - saying that no conference should have the authority to "deny the rights of minorities within the party. Why then was there a reluctance to say that the conference has no right to pass policies which fail to remove discrimination against one of the country's largest minorities?

At the very least, SLV should state its commitment to campaigning for equality in the law.

This was a landmark conference for the Gay Young Socialists, as it was the first at which they had been present as an organised, autonomous entity. They arrived fresh from their organisational victories at the recent Labour Party Young Socialists conference at Bridlington.

This annual event has been, in recent years, dominated by supporters of Militant, whose official policy refuses to recognise any significance in sexual politics.

Undeterred, GYS members stickered delegates with gay liberation badges, and distributed leatlets throughout the three-day event. Significantly, their highly visible presence encouraged Class Fighter and Revolution Youth supporters to raise the issue of gay rights on the conference floor.

GYS member Brian West summed up the progress they had made, saying: 'In past years we have kicked and spat upon by delegates: This year we only had to suffer verbal abuse and threats of violence"

Given the current political climate, it is even more important for our allies to actively support us, and not to allow sexual polities to be once again swept under the carpet.

IV 8!

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