Demonstrate against Reagan

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REAGAN is visiting Britain and Ireland in June. On June 7-9 he will join other heads of state for an economic summit of OECD. In attendance besides Thatcher will be Mitterrand, Trudeau, Kohl, Nakasone, Craxi and, representing the EEC, Thorn.

Activists in the labour movement and the disarmament movement should organise for a massive event in June. The NUS already supports action. Now we need to win support and sponsorship from the rest of the trade union and labour movement.

The visit comes just before the Euro-elections. We should try and turn the demonstration into part of a Europe-wide mobilisation against the warmongering of Reagan, Thatcher and the rest of NATO. nuclear bases and peace camps is planned, along the lines of the old Aldermaston marches.

The right managed to block proposals for joint work with the Labour Party Young Socialists - but only by a tiny margin.

Yet the left had the edge in the policy debates. We won support for a resolution which stated: "Whilst defending our character as a single-issue campaign, Youth CND thinks that CND should oppose the military intervention of Britain and the US in Grenada, Central America and the Middle East and explain that these interventions are creating wars that bring the danger of a nuclear holocaust nearer."

The new YCND national committee has three recognised right wingers and three left wingers sharing the six " directly-elected places.

This is bad but it was avoidable. Almost certainly the left could have got four people elected had we had a unified left slate. But Revolution Youth Socialist Action youth CND would not agree on such a slate, preferring to let an extra right-winger in.

All in all, the result of the conference was a draw.

The key political arguments - those about real wars going on now, about trade union and labour movement action and about making links with issues like unemployment — were all won by the left.

But the election results, and the way the conference was organised shows that the right wing Still have considerable influence. Leading right wingers were to be heard behind the scenes saying things like «We control the campaign, so we can let them pass whatever they want. It's us that have got to carry it out."

That's a pretty fair comment on the situation now in YCND.

So the fate of YCND will depend on the ability of local groups to go out and build the campaign along the lines of the policy passed at Conference, and on the ability of the NC to act as a real fighting leadership and not a bureaucratic brake.

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CLEAR PON CE