Benn's reply

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THEIR LOOT! THE . Thatcher government is wrecking and ruining Britain, spreading mass unemployment and poverty, putting down the welfare state and subjugating millions of workers to a regime of Tory barbarism.

The vandals in power are also pillaging and asset-stripping Britain. Loot is the point of it all.

Enclosures

The plan to sell off the profitable sectors of British Leyland are now public knowledge. The selling off of North Sea oil and gas is the most scandalous piece of naked capitalist robbery of public assets since the encl osure of the common lands two centuries ago.

Should the speculators and profiteers be allowed to keep the loot if Labour wins the election? Tony Benn, in the Commons, spoke for Labour conference policy when he told them a Labour government would renationalise without compensation.

Anything less means accepting in advance that the Tories can do what they want and get away with it.

Yet Benn has been publ icly upbraided by Michael Foot, who has refused to endorse him for the Shadow Cabinet, and condemned by many leftists, even by many who supported him for deputy leader.

Foot and Co have no intention of carrying vur Labour Party policy. Others fear that Benn is losing them votes.

Healey Vocal in the attacks on Benn are supporters of Denis Healey, who openly and with impunity uses his position to denounce Labour policy for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and says he will not serve in a government committed to that policy.

In fact Bern's speech has focused on the central issue facing the labour movement now. Is the next Labour government going to be like the last one, or is it going to carry out party policies? Do we have a real alternative to the Tories?

Foot says, 'Labour Party business as before'. Very large chunks of the left seem to be saying the same thing.

Yet if we say that we are saying that the labour movement is politically bankrupt. Only real socialist policies will even begin to solve Britain's problems.

This shows how far we nave yet to go to ensure that the next Labour government is a government that will be accountable to and will serve the working class. Benn has clearly decided to fight on for a real change, and not to be seduced back into the Labour Establishment.

This opens up a new stage in the fight for democracy and accountability -and for new party policies, real socialist policies in place of the tinkering with capitalism of the Alternative Economic Strategy.

Benn will not be elected to the Shadow Cabinet. Trade union branches, Labour Parties and YSs should send him telegrammes of support and encouragement instead, and condemn the Shadow Cabinet's attempts to hi-jack party policy.

When the Tory Government first decided on a policy of privatisation, both the TUC and the Labour Party agreed at their Conferences that, to deter would-be purchasers, 8 future Labour Government would reacquire the assets without compene tion.

This decision was affirmed last year in following words:

•We will take North S Oil into public ownersh and we will restore public ownership, with compensation, the assets our public sector industr sold off by the Tories"

These words appeared •Peace, Jobs and Fr dom' , accepted by Wembley conference May 31st last year by o five million votes to thousand.

This Conference pol has never been amended rescinded, and it rema the latest statement Conference policy.

When the Governm announced the sale North Sea assets, the Sh ow Cabinet, on Octo 20th, and, later, the N on October 28th, issue statement which I supp ed, and still support, cause it reiterated our bi position.

That statement was presented to us, at eil meeting, as constituting amendment to Confere decisions or as being compatible with them.

Nor could it have cha ed Party policy.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 19 November 1981 Page 2 lyl ag of Novemb

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JOHN HARRIS Be