[sort of unity! Golding rides again union membership…]

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sort of unity! Golding rides again union membership.

in the situation, a revival of militancy.

shown Labour ahead of the Tories.

coming class battles. THE 1984 Greater London Labour Party Conference was a qualified success for the left to the extent that the rightward shift in the Party was largely unnoticeable.

With abolition of the GLC and the introduction of rate-capping imminent, the main debate centred on the attacks on local government.

This provided some fine speeches from those whose record A Militant supporter, Charlie Hughes, was refused permission to renew his Labour Party membership by his branch, Meir Park, in January. Now the entire Branch has been suspended by Stoke South Constituency Party.

Earlier this year, Charlie Hughes and two other Militant supporters were turned down as potential council candidates by an interviewing panel of the Stoke District Labour Party, as candidate for the Panel for the 1984 local elections. The interviewing Panel was dominated by the right wing and their decision was clearly politically motivated.

It turned out that the interviewing panel had been incorrectly constituted and the three comrades were asked to come and be interviewed again. This time only Charlie Hughes was turned down - reportedly for insufficient knowledge of how the Council works.

In the same constituency, Stoke South, there has been a callfor an investigation into Socialist Organiser.

The main, organiser behind the right wing counter-attack in the whole area is John Golding, is rather less impressive in the council, giving an air of holiday speechifying to the conference.

Nevertheless. reasonably strong composite motions on the GLC and rate-capping were passed and an emergency resolution declaring verbal support for Liverpool also went through with little opposition.

A resolution from Brent East calling for the Greater London Labour Party to make adequate By Alistair Scott MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme. One of Golding's major aims has been to save Stoke North MP John Forrester from a fate worse than reselection - i.e. deselection and being thrown out of his position as Constituency secretary.

After last year's boundary changes, Forrester's 2-1 majority in the old Constituency Party was turned into a 50-50 split. Forrester and Golding set about seeing what affiliated organisations they could join, and how many of their supporters they could get delegated from these bodies.

But they have suffered fiascos. The first came at the AGM of the North Staffs Fabian Society a few weeks ago.

Without mentioning it to the local secretary, comrades Golding, Forrester, their wives and quite a few friends had spent £15 becoming national members of the Fabian Society. However, when they all turned up they were told that they could only vote and stand for office if provisions for the establishment of workplace branches was passed but will require a lot of following up to ensure it is implemented.

On Ireland, an attempt by N. London AUEW to scrap the policy of support for immediate withdrawal of British troops was defeated.

The card votes on the Ireland motions indicated signifithey became local members.

Ine next fiasco came at the AGM of the Socialist Education Association. Comrades Forrester, Golding, etc., had all become members. But again they failed to get their supporters elected as delegates to Stoke North Constituency.

The SEA changed its rules last year to say that only those who have been members for 12 months can stand as delegates. The right did not have a single person who qualified.

The right is now organising to challenge the 12 months membership requirement.

There are a number of lessons that the soft left in Stoke should learn from the right's counter-attack. First, it is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the right want unity in the Party or that Kinnock's election has ushered in such a period of unity.

Second, the soft left's approach is one based upon a vision of the Party moving inexorably leftward. Only a few months ago they were saying that the witch-hunt was a dead issue.

The right wing rejects that fatalism and organises. So should the left. cant trade union backing a united Ireland.

The composite motion on the health service was very poor. Although it correctly condemned those Labour Party members who voted for cuts on District Health Authorities, it had very few positive proposals for campaigning against health cuts, not mentioning industrial action or occupations, policies which were nevertheless referred to frequently by speakers from the floor.

Composite resolutions calling for the setting up of Black Sections were passed.

A very strong gay resolution was passed, which commits the London Labour Party to set up a working party to report to the next annual conference, to affiliate to the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights, The motion on YTS, setting out basic demands to fight for, was passed overwhelmingly, even though many of the unions voting in favour do not themselves have such a policy towards YTS.

The Left retained control of the Executive, with Arthur Latham beating off the soft left challenge spearheaded by Joan Lestor for chair. John Spellar was kicked off the trade union section, to the obvious delight of the delegates.

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