Kangaroo Court Convicts Militant

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'DREW WIARD (REPORT) HANDS LAST week's NEC also discussed the forthcoming boundary changes, which will affect over 550 Parliamentary seats.

The right wing and the leadership appeared interest ed in two things - not to tel anybody who had forked out the £70,000 for the lost court cases against the changes, and, more importantly, to prevent as many CLPs as possible exercising their right to hold full selection conferences, as allowed for by a 1981 Conference decision.

With a general election so near, it is unlikely that many CLPs would have exercised the right. But some would have, and that clearly threat. enedright wingers and careerists in the Party.

The NEC used an obscure and entirely inappropriate constitutional provision to override this general right, and have instead issued a detailed set of guidelines for six different categories of new Constituency Labour Parties.

The NEC expects there to be selection contests in 70 to 100 CLPs, but the great majority of these will simply be between already selected candidates.

Full selection conferences will only be permitted in ten to 20 cases - areas where either there are no selected candidates, or the already selected candidate(s) only cover a minority of the voter: in a new seat.

As with the 'shortlist of one' , this is a manoeuvre to obstruct or prevent the rank and file using the mechanism of mandatory reselection to get real representatives of labour into Parliament.

John Bloxam that it would, "be a 'show trial' put on in a bureaucratic attempt to legitimise a pre-determined decision to expel five socialists from the Party"

Elementary rights were consistently denied to the five members of the Militant editorial board. They were found guilty and then the charges were developed according to what the right wing thought they could get away with.

The fig-leaf of the register was rapidly dropped in favour of a wholesale proscription of Militant, in defiance of Conference decisions. NEC members could only ask questions of the accused at the final kangaroo court. Mortimer bluntly refused to circulate material from Tony Benn, breaking a long-established practice on the NEC.

•And the five accused were never allowed to see any of the 'evidence' against them, although Mortimer had spoken at last year's Labour Party conference of "a great mass of evidence.. available in a huge trunk in Walworth Road"

Audrey Wise exposed what was in this 'huge trunk' in last week's Tribune.. gossip, hearsay and lies cobbled together by the right wing's network of official spies and narks. It would make most police states blush. And now they say they might publish those parts of the evidence that aren't 'libellous' _ i.e. lies!

The right of the rank and file and socialist groups to organise in the Party is in any case a principle that has to be defended. But last Wednesday's "trial' was a kangaroo court, in which a 19-9 majority for the right wing substituted for any evidence or argument.

The first proposal was to stop the witch-hunt, and tor the NEC to tinish at lunchtime and go and help in Bermondsey - defeated 9 to 19. Then Eric Heffer proposed the expulsion be put off until Party officers had met the Militant EB to see if it was possible to persuade them to make changes - defeated 9 to 19. Then Golding moved that they should be expelled 'forthwith' - carried 19 to 9.

During the meeting one of the trade union bureaucrats was heard to say that they had been 'dilly-dallying around too long'. John Golding said they couldn't afford to be 'frightened of the CLPs'. And Alex Kitson voted throughout like Foot and Kinnock, saying that he was there not to represent TGWU policy "but those who had elected him.

It is unlikely that this solid witch-hunting block will change when it comes to voting on the two resolutions deferred to the next meeting of the NEC. Jo Richardson's resolution says there should be no more expulsions of supporters or readers of Militant; Dennis Howell has put down a resolution barring also agree to defer the case of Hornsey again.

But on Tuesday' night Norwood, which has one of the best records of fighting witch-hunts in the Party, turned and ran before the battle was even begun.

An EC motion reaffirming opposition to expulsions and the register and declaring the intention of Norwood Labour Party to campaign to overturn the decision to expel was carried by a large majority but an amendment calling on Norwood to refuse to recognise the expulsions was lost by 29-21 votes.

Last October Ted Knight argued against Militant when they proposed …a policy of compliance with expulsions. But at Norwood GMC the tables were turned. Militant EB member Clare Doyle; invited to address the GMC; expressed the hope that the GMC would refuse to recognise the expulsions.

Ted Knight, however, argued that Mortimer's letter should be "'noted' i.e. the expelled comrades should 'have their names removed from membership lists. He opposed what he described as a gesture' in favour of an ongoing political fight against the right wing.

The previous day, before the GMC decision, Ted Knight had undercut Islington Central and Hammersmith North by declaring, as he sat beside them at the LAW press conference, that he would argue for Norwood not to defy the NEC.

An essential ingredient solidarity they received from other labour movement organisations. It is urgent that a campaign is mounted now, including:

• Resolutions to trade union and regional Labour Party conferences condemning the expulsions, supporting the CLPs' resistance, and calling for immediate reinstatement.

• Messages of support to those CLPs resisting, with copies to LAW, to Mortimer, and to the NEC.

• Getting CLPs land MPs, councillors, trade unionists, etc.) who did not sing the first LAW advertisement to sign the second one, due out at Easter.

The NEC's decision to try to expel the five members of the Militant EB will now put to a test all the fine speeches over the last six months about refusing to expel socialists from the Party. If the right wing succeed with the five, the fight will certainly not be over, but it will be a major defeat.

The right wing will have won an important round. They will have the wind in their sails.

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in Hornsey's stand, as also in Bermondsey's, was the