Soft left

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and wait for a "left" majority on the Labour Group.

Secondly, Labour Group decisions must be obeyed now because when the left wins contro,, Group discipline can be used against the Right.

There are a number of things wrong with this. For one thing there certainly is not going to be a "left" majority in the Labour Group for some considerable time. At most two right-wingers could be replaced this year, and then there is a two-year wait for the next round of selections.

Meanwhile real political life and the immediate struggle against the Tories must go on.

Secondly, as recent events have demonstrated, the term "left" is an extremely vague and inadequate term. It is not at all unlikely that some of today's "lefts" will be tomorrow's Right. This is all the more likely the less things are seen in terms of leading a socialist struggle here and now over issues like rents, and the more they are seen in terms of winning Labour Group majorities in the future.

This last point is the main weakness of the soft left. Their ONE might have expected something better from members of the local North Staffs Labour Briefing. Indeed at the December meeting of Briefing there was general support for thie idea of a special meeting to discuss the Briefing intervention in the NHS campaign.

At the meeting SO supporters proposed moving discussion on the NHS to point 1. After all, that was what the meeting was cupposed to have been called At this point, Councillor Terry Doughty, who must have joined Briefing by some mistake, given his open cringing support for the right wing on the Labour Group, said he didn't know why it was on the agenda at all! After all, he said, Briefing was there to produce a magazine, not organise campaigns. He obviously hadn't read the constitution.

It soon became obvious tnat the soft-left majority had aucused since the December meeting and decided against Briefing having an intervention.

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SUPPORT for NATO has always made the unilateralism of most of the prominent Labour Party unilateralists somewhat incoherent. Yet most of them do The public repudiation of NATO by Jo Richardson MP, the Labour front-bench spokesperson on women's rights, is therefore an important event. It will help clarify the minds of many Labour Party members who are uneasy about Labour's commitment to It will help build support in the party for Labour to adopt the demand: Britain out of NATO.

It underlines the need for CND to campaign boldly for this demand, as its December conference decided, rather than downplaying it, supposedly in order to The article appeared in the February issue of the Labour Briefing national supplement, available from Workers at this small Birmingham engineering plant were locked out after they gave notice of industri action to improve a 5.5% pay offer. They were then furious to discover that their boss, Mr M. Webb, had give himself a 48% rise in 1982, when they received 4.5%. PHOTO AND STORY: John Harris. support NATO.

NATO. appeal to the 'middle ground'.

23 Leghorn Road, London NW10. THE LABOUR Party's position on NATO is quite clear. Annual Conference has so far rejected calls for withdrawal from the organisation.

As a Party member, and a member of the National Executive, I accept that decision, but I am entitled as an individual to put My objection is a different and a less technical one, and it is an objection which extends not only to NATO but also to the Warsaw Pact.

Firstly, I do not believe that the Soviet Union is intending to invade Britain - or any other Western country. Their build-up of nuclear weapons is as indefensible as that of the Western natRomania is virtually out of the Warsaw Pact. Poland could hardly be considered a reliable ally. Hungary has been distancing itself for some time from Soviet policy. And Czechoslovakia's adherence to the Soviet Union is threatened by underground opposition.

There is dissension even in the German Democratic Republic, long held to be closest to Kremlin policy.

On the Western side, American reliance on NATO and on Europe is threatened by the growth of the peace movements. Although Cruise and Pershing II missiles are now being installed, the US was shocked at the intensity of opposition within a number of NATO countries to the installation of the missiles, and that opposition is growing.

Even the West German government - hitherto always a compliant partner - has not been keen to play along too readily.

There is an unwillingness throughout European NATO countries to increase their contributions to the Alliance; and there are growing policy differences between the USA and her European allies - on the Soviet pipeline, on Central America, on Lebanon, and on relations with the Third World.

All this could lead to a considerable erosion of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

I want Britain to have a non-nuclear, non-NATO defence policy: Regional military pacts 1r'8% Socialist Organiser, 26 January Page