SO delegates' decisions

Scan page 13

reports from th e Socialist Organiser delegate meeting in Coven try on January THE TWO major debates at the Socialist Organiser delegate meeting last Saturday, 15th, were on the planned Scotland-London People's March for Jobs and council budgets for 1983-4.

A motion from Dave Ayrton of Sheffield SO to give full support to the March, form local support committees now, and fight for a class line and democratic organisation of the March, was carried - with a big majority, but after a lively debate.

Clive Power from Stockport said that a march would be "a waste of time" though if it went ahead we should support it. Mick Jarmaine from Leicester argued that it would be a diversion, dominated by the Communist Party. Local committees would be controlled by Trades Councils, 'the same bodies which are putting in the boot against Several comrades argued in response that we had to take up the struggle as it really was, not as we might choose it to be; and Dave Ayrton referred to his own experience on the previous People's March. 'I didn't like the Stalinists - they tried to kick me off about three times. But you can't deny that the March had a tremendous effect on the consciousness of the working class" introduced a discussion on' the lines of my article in SO115. West Midlands county councillor Dave Spencer reported that in his Labour group he was advocating cuts - in the police budget. SO should think more about demands to be put to central government on council finance, he said.

Stressed Other comrades stressed the importance of trade union mobilisation for a fight against cuts and rate rises, but Rob Johnstone from Nottingham said that Labour councillors had to be prepared to take a stance of confrontation first, to give a lead to that mobilisation.

Another major discussion covered SO finance and fund-raising in detail. Also:

• We decided to campaign for sympathetic readers to help SO by paying fl for their weekly paper, • John Bloxam reported that Vanessa Redgrave of the WRP has taken out even more libel writs against SO writers, on the grounds that they had alleged that the WRP was trying to bankrupt SO.

• We asked the SO groups to discuss, in preparation for the next delegate meeting, whether we should campaign for CLPs to have a bigger share of the vote at Labour Party conference; and the use of 'bad language' in the paper • We heard reports from local groups on increasing work in CND, especially YCND. .

• Nottingham SOA called for a regular anti-racist page in the paper.