Let the labour movement judge!

Scan page 14

COMING UP Women's Fightback AGM. October 23 County Hall, London. Open to all women, but only members and delegates from affiliated groups can rote. For conference details send s.a.e. to 41 Ellington St, N7; to join WF too send £3 (or £5 to include ON THE Thursday of Labour Party conference, the Workers Revolutionary Party paper Newsline publ ished a defensive statement, their first comment for about 18 months on their libel case against Socialist Organiser.

Seemingly it was aimed at the conference. Newsline's recent slander campaign against "Peter 'Socialist Organiser' McIntyre" too was probably aimed to poison the Labour Left against SO. With Ken Livingstone speaking at their rallies - he speaks also for the Morning Star -the Healy sect clearly thinks it has now got some chance to influence the Labour Left.

In fact the 'statement by the WRP' is a pack of evasions and lies.

They deny that they are trying to suppress SO. A tiny, but miraculously wellfunded, organisation sets its millionaire member New issue of Women's Fightback - 16 pages and articles on the NHS dispute, the jobs campaign, WF summer space, sexism in education loith Williams, Labour women's conference, etc.

Ze for iF.

noor "7 regular mailings and the paper). Vanessa Redgrave to haul SO (which is not financed by miracles or 'angels') ruinously through the courts, but of course this is not an attempt to use their wealth to ruin us!

In fact neither Ms Redgrave nor Youth Training were mentioned in the first article which brought the libel writ.

They lie that a single apology would settle the matter. Our former printers rushed to apologise, and were squeezed for damages, costs, etc. It would cost SO a great deal of money to apologise - as well as costing us our self-respect as an honest working class newspaper committed to 'telling it as it is'.

They quote the comments I made in January 1981 on the WRP as selfevidently outrageous. This is aimed at those who do not know the reputation of the WRP. The things I wrote are widely believed on the Left. It is a matter of fact that though all the other organisations on the British Left are hemmed around by factional hostilities and often venom, no other organisation but the WRP has a reputation for the practices I referred to.

They say that allegations of violence set them up for state action against them. This is the way that the Ayatollah Healy, obsessed with 'agents' and 'spies' ', justities using the bourgeois state against a labour movement newspaper to his deluded hardcore followers.

It is of course nonsense. Action against individuals like Gerry Healy for some of the things I alleged could only be taken by the people allegedly concerned. And their expensive solicitors will by now have helped Mr Healy and his friends to glean some idea of the list of former members we will take into open court to testify publicly in support of my allegations.

Lying

The statement accuses me of lying in Socialist Organiser last May when I said there was no reply to an offer John Bloxam and myself made of informal talks. I made it in a letter to Gerry Healy. There was no reply to my proposal: there mas a solicitor's letter asking what terms we proposed by way of compliance with their demands for a retraction and a grovelling apology.

They object to my statement that they spout gobbledygook. This is part of their comment in an editorial (September 30) on Militant:

•The trouble with the 'Militant' group so far as the right wing goes today is Healy: not gooblydegook? not that the assurances of their loyalty are unacceptable, but they cannot be trusted to keep their ranks free from well-placed spies in the event of a revolutionary situation. The heart of the witch-hunt against 'Militant' comes from 'Smiley's People' or MI5. That is why Foot has jumped to answer the call.

Of course no one suggests that this is done through a direct approach from the 'Circus' to the 'well-dressed Michael' but Westminster politics there is no shortage of suitable go-betweens. Because it is really the MI5 which supervises the private lives of the 'mouth and trousers men' who live in these cloistered circles".

Make sense of it if you can (it is intended to seal off Newsline readers from Militant, of course); or of the circular to WRP activists printed in Newsline of Uctober 4:

•We should seek through the use of Volume 14 [of Lenin's works] to analyse the dangerous eff. ects of idealism as activity that leads to stagnation and frustration in the area"

Contrast

The hysteries of the WRP won't notice the contrast between Socialist Organiser supporter Peter Intyre's handling of their recent campaign accusing him of being a police nark and their own response to my comments about them in January 1981.

Peter McIntyre has complained through the National Union of Journalists and is confident that the union will condemn the Newsline. The Newsline goes to court, relying on the power of Ms Redgrave's money to give it a massively unfair advantage over Socialist Organiser. They have consistently refused our offer of a jointly agreed labour movement inquiry into the points in dispute between us. It is still on offer, as is also the proposal informal talks.

Draw

Newsline readers who last week read the foul and baseless slanders against Peter McIntyre, and this week read the self-righteous justification of Mr Healy and Co. for bringing the bourgeois state into the affairs of the labour movement (they claim to be part of the labour movement), should draw the obvious conclusions about the WRP and its methods.

They are trying to bankrupt Socialist Organiser. They won't succeed. The address of the Labour Movement Press Defence Fund is 214 Sickert Court, London N1 2SY.

Scan page 15

Organiser, Thursday 7 October 1982 Page

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by Sean Matgamna

WOMENS FIGHTBACK FIGHTING LOW PAY