Issues at stake at AGM A guide by Don't split over the register!

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openly support CLPs that Conference sovereignty can t Most other organisations whether CUPD , should on the left, including the campaign for a weaker Labour Coordinating version of the Register, but Committee, have already one which still attaches expressed such solidarity. special In fact, the relevant resolu- conditions to the right of tion (10a) - calling on rank and file Party memCLPs to refuse to expel and bers to organise. This is the expressing support for this Manchester Withington - is identical to the one or 'fall-back' position.

Resistance by CLPs is against it. First, it contranot new. Hornsey has been dicts unconditional support doing it for the last year, for the right of Party memagainst both the NEC and bers to organise for their (later) a conference deci- views... and concedes an sion. They were right, and important part of the rightthe CLPD has supported wing argument that there them. is a 'problem'.

It should, do the same Second, there is no with those CLPs that refuse evidence that it would get The main issue is ited Register.

for densomacy RESOLUTION 29 from me date a narrower range of deals, as I see it, with views than the Party as a It calls for all members This seems to me beside to respect the decisions of the point. Using threats is the AGM, and for those no more justifiable in a who have threatened to narrowly defined group split if the AGM goes than in a broad one. against them to withdraw In any movement, small No-one can or does con- and argue in a conference test the right of members to implies the duty to respect argue strongly against par- its decisions. movement if they find the "individuals always retain majority views intolerable. the right to argue individBut if Michael Foot and ual views" . I hope this will Denis Healey, in the run-up be carried together with the to a Labour Party confer- previous resolutions on the ence, said that they would agenda, on personal statesplit to form a new party if ments in CLPD, so that it is certain decisions went clear that the issue in those Campaign THE Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is probably the most important rank and file organisation in the history of the Labour has won important victories over mandatory reselection and the election of the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party by an electoral college! The CLPD has overcome the disunity of the Left by uniting the activists in the party around a set of democratic demands, in the knowledge that victories on policy at conference could not ensure the automatic impleemtnation of these policies by a Labour Government.

Its modus operandi has been to unite the progressive forces in the constituency parties with left trade unionists in order to win majorities at conference, thus destroying the sectionalism of the Left which has previously isolated the constituency activists.

The radicalisation of the Labour Party, which the CLPD has played a major part in encouraging, has been far more deep-seated in the past decade than at any time in the Party's history. For the first time in living memory, the right wing trade union barons who formed the praetorian guard for the PLP leadership were pushed onto the defensive.

This historic role is now threatened by internal difficulties which will come to a head on January 29 at the CLPD Annual General Meeting. Small sections of the executive, amounting to no more than a handful of people, are threatening to split the organisation. They have a slate of candidates who have all pledged themselves to split the organisation if they lose certain key votes. Such blackmailing tactics are not helpful, and they should reconsider their position.

•There is no point in 'splitting' the organisation work?

ility of socialists working in the Tory party, based on a learned dissertation which demonstrates that the Tories are not a monolith?

ERAS THE French labour movement is full of radical fire and revolutionary traditions, while the German movement outdoes even Britain in stodgy conservatism. Right?.

Not quite. France's fiery left-wing leaders are looking not so left at all after a few months in office, and under the pressure of two million unemployed and being forced into opposition the SPD is beginning to show a more radical face.

SPD left-wingers have become more and more vocal against the plans for CLPD and Registration. over the Register. I am firmly against the concept of the Register, but there is no point in splitting an important organisation when the NEC has in effect abandoned the principle of the Register and has now moved on to a more thoroughgoing witch-hunt.

Nor can there be any justification for allowing non elected members of CLPD to vote at executive meetings, as happens at present. We must also end the personal abuse which has been contained in the recent CLPD mailings to members.

The Campaign has crucial objectives in the Labour Party which must be fought for. These include making mandatory reselection a reality; winning a progressive leadership for the Party as a whole; democratisation of the PLP; introducing positive discrimination for women; and changing, by consent, the relationship of the trade union block vote to that of the CLPs at conference.

In the light of these objectives, and our need to win the battle for the soul of the Labour Party, a split in CLPD would be damaging to the whole left. We must learn to work together or die.

Pershing and Cruise missiles, and the party leadership has begun cautiously to criticise the NATO arms drive. But last week as the SPD conference met in Dortmund it was embarrassed by a speech from France's Socialist Party president, Francois Mitterrand, in Bonn.

Mitterrand strongly supported the NATO line in what, according to the Financial Times, "sounded uncomfortably like an election campaign speech on behalf of Helmut Kohl, the Christian Democrat Chancellor" Register is still a weapon party" as the supporter's card puts it. It has not meant the 'right' of a conference vote to override basic democratic rights of individual members and the CLPs.

The CLPD should not register.

Resistance by CLPs.

There is no dispute that CLPD should oppose expulsions. The question is whether CLPD as the main democracy campaign in the Labour Party is prepared to refuse to expel socialists passed at the LCC AGM. to expel socialists now.

The Register.

in CLPD democracy in CLPD. whole.

the threats.

ticular policies, or to leave a against them - and if they 'ENCE JOBS constitutional There are two arguments more support than full opposition to the discredor large, the right to vote My resolution says, resolutions is not free speech.

The resolutions object to the frequent personal statements' from CLPD officers in campaign mailings over the last year, statements which have included denunciations, wild allegations (sometimes subsequently withdrawn), and personal smears against other comrades in the campaign..

Such methods are not freedom of speech, but a preliminary version of the abuse of official positions now represented by the threat to split.

MARTIN

At Party Conference last year outright opposition got more support than the fall-back position, despite the latter having a lot of publicity when it was originally excluded from the agenda.

Labour Party Conference Voting.

This is a major debate inside CLPD, as in other organisations.

Last year the proposal that CLPD should campaign for CLPs to have an increased proportion of conference votes was narrowly defeated, after strong arguments from trade union delegates. The same happened the year Comrades objected both to the details (tying votes explicitly and directly to financial contributions) and to the whole aproach. The problem of the block vote is not going to be solved by rejigging voting proportions, but by accountability in the unions.

With Alex Kitson coming out in favour of a bigger share for CLPs, the extent to which it can be portrayed as 'anti-union' is reduced. But I personally (other SO comrades disagree) can't see that the basic objections have changed in any other respect.

Regional Key Persons.

Despite a lot of talk, no more is involved here than changing a system which allows the EC to coopt new voting members without limit. The proposal for regional representatives to be elected seems to me a better one than the one for them to be co-opted but non-voting. Regional supporters' meetings should be preferred to postal ballots. Trade Union Democracy the Party, and the Trade Union Democracy Conference jointly called last April by London Labour Briefing and Socialist Organiser was a start at overcoming it.

But CLPD has been built over 10 years as a campaign focused specifically on Labour - Party democracy ssues. The problem wit these resolution is that they call for the CLPD to become a vehicle for trade union democracy campaigns.

There is no principle which says that a trade union democracy campaign must be organised through an existing Labour Party organisation, rather than in parallel to it. Socialist Organiser has argued that if we want to organise an effective fight in the unions, and not a destructive fight in CLPD, then it is the latter approach which should be supported.For this reason the resolutions should be rejected.

Three weeks after CLPD AGM there is a trade union conference organised by the Broad Left Organising Committee, with the issue of the Block Vote as the main subject of discussion. This is where these ideas should be being pushed. Executive Committee elections.

For the fist time in CLPD's histury, elections to most of the EC positions will be contested. In itself, this is no bad development in a Campaign that has always argued strongly in the Party for the benefits of contested elections.

But one group is supporting a statement which ends with an open call for a split if they lose, while the other group emphasises the need to retain a broad-based and united CLPD, accepting of democracy inside it and the sovereignty of AGM decisions. It also generally supports policies that would keep CLPD in the forefront of the fight for democracy and democratic rights in the Party.

Many of this group are being nominated by Joan Maynard, Jo Richardson, Tony Benn, Bernard Dix and Bermondsey CLP. SO urges comrades to vote for them.

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FREEDON nean accepting the witch-hunt