Time to break the carte

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THE right wing, the soft left and the union barons lost us the election. Must we now let them shanghai the leadership of the Party?

They had the leadership stakes fixed from day one. Now they reckon it's all sewn up. That everything is cut and dried. That the rank and file of the Party and the unions have been carved out of the game. That discussion on their electoral fiasco has been stifled.

We won the right to participate in the election of the Party two years ago. Now they think they can organise a PLP-union Why should the rank and file accept that it has to be either Hattersley or Kinnock? Or Kinnock and Hattersley? Because the wielders of the Big Vote have spoken? Spoken brutally out of turn, before anyone else had a chance to speak and in order to stop the The big problem with the labour movement is that these characters have had too much to say and too much control for too long. The rank and file of the Party and of the unions must insist on What serious claim can Neil Kinnock have to lead the Labour Party? The claim of a career-conscious left trimmer who showed what he was made of when the left was on the offensive to win the Deputy Leadership for Tony Benn. He sabotaged our campaign.

The claim of a man who joined the purgers and witch burners when they divided the Party on the eve of the election: he voted to The claim of a man who was Michael Foot's personal deputy and heir apparent in the disastrous election campaign.

The claims of a specialist in soothing blather and phrase making, a maker of verbal bridges between incompatible political positions at a time when the movement desperately needs seriousness, frankness, And Hattersley? The one thing in Hattersley's favour is that he stayed with the labour movement when his pink Tory friends ran away to form the SDP. He is as politically bankrupt as Labour's discredited old right wing is — and you can't get more bankrupt than If a Kinnock-Hattersley leadership is the "dream ticket", lots of people have undernourished imaginations as well as insensitive stomachs. In fact, it is the Cartel Ticket of the muscle-bound if not moribund monopolist power-brokers of the labour movement.

Tribune has called it by its right name: it is the 'nightmare ticket'. Their dream; the nightmare of those who want to reshape the Labour Party into a Party capable of defending the working class and fighting Eric Heffer's candidacy offers the left a chance to try to break Even if we should fail, for now, to defeat the cartel, a vigorous campaign for and by Heffer would prepare the rank and file for the battles of the future when the nightmare side of the "dream ticket"

Heffer is a man of the serious left though Socialist Organiser would have differences with him. In the mid-seventies he resigned from the Wilson government on what was for him a matter of principle. He is the one candidate for leader to oppose and condemn The serious left must now organise around Heffer's campaign.

We need a new version of the Rank and File Mobilising Committee - the left coalition which spearheaded Benn's deputy leadership campaign. What we did then we can do again. A new series of mass rallies up and down the country would do wonders for the morale of the Eric Heffer should make up his mind now to take the fight to the Tony Benn should come out clearly for Heffer and help organise We must take the fight into the unions, most of whose leaders do not plan to consult the rank and file on the issue. The barons have to be challenged there if the labour movement is ever to change for the •fighting in the Labour movement for lesbiar leader bosses cartel to stop us exercising it.

Don't let them get away with it!

Party speaking.

having their say. expel the Editorial Board of Militant.

and an honest attempt to sort its ideas out.

that even in Margaret Thatcher's Britain.

Shore is a right-winger who once gained some credibility with sections of the anti-Common Market left because he is a narrowminded English nationalist. The good news is that he now seems to have lost it. for socialism. The worst thing that can happen right now would be for the Labour Party rank and file, depressed by the election defeat, to let the union barons and the PLP. foist this nightmare ticket on us without a fight.

open the cartel and to rally the Party.

comes to the fore, as it will.

the plans of the witch burners.

movement and the left.

rank and file and to campaign.

the campaign.

better Michael Meacher must be supported for deputy leader. But for the lett to focus now on the mere deputy leadership would be ridiculously unambitious!