Libel' case: we fight on!
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-08-06Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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SEVERAL newspapers last Tuesday, 28th July, carried the news that Vanessa Redgrave of the WRP had won an apology after suing for libel on an article in Socialist Organiser.
What wasn't made clear in many reports was that the apology came from the printers — and not from Socialist Organiser.
Socialist Organiser has not apologised, does not intend to apologise - and is strengthened in its resolve not to apologise by the way the WRP's paper Newsline has featured the printers' apology.
Morning Litho Printers got involved in the affair only through their commercial relations now ended with Socialist Organiser. Faced with the wealth of the WRP and the difficulties of the bourgeois legal system, Morning Litho - a small company which prints primarily for the labour movement - understand. ably wished to cut their losses.
So they apologised. Now a full-page feature appealing for £10,000 for the WRP-initiated *Youth Training Centres' and based on the printers' apology, seems to be becoming a regular daily fixture in 'Newsline' When the libel writ was first clapped on us, some comrades advised us to escape with a formal apology: a few lines of small print, and forget about it.
But the printers' experience shows that the least apology would be an opportunity for a major selfpromotion by the WRP.
If we believe our comments were just - and we do - then to concede that for the sake of evading the uphill and expensive legal fight would be terrible cowardice.
We are fighting for the right of free debate within the labour movement, against the use of the courts to suppress comment. In that fight we need financial and moral support. Send contributions to Labour Movement Press Defence Fund, c/o 214 Sickert Court, London N1 2SY.