Council defies the Tories

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Thousands marched to support Liverpool City Council last November 19. Now a local labour movement conference is planned for February 27, with a recall conference on March 26. three days before the council fixes its budget for 1984-5.

Soviet leaders honour Andropov's life Man of peace dies LIVERPOOL City Council is in a position to inspire all those in the labour movement who want to take on the Tories by deeds rather than by words. By the end of March we can expect a situation where the question of an illegal budget will be placed prominently on the Council agenda., By standing firm in the defence of the city's services, the Labour group will be taking a stand where Council after Council has previously failed the test.

The last few years have seen Labour Councils ranging from Lothian to the London Boroughs avoiding battle with Thatcher's Government. These Councils have mouthed defiance as a prelude to inglorious retreat to the safe terrain of cutting kindly or bashing the ratepayers.

The next few months will show whether Liverpool is prepared boldly to go where few Councils have gone before.

If the 51 Labour Councillors are not to be left fighting alone, support must be built throughout the City.

A motion from the District Labour Party to the Local Government Conterence February calls on the NEC to begin to prepare a national campaign to defend the Councils.

But for too many of our would-be leaders Liverpool is an unfortunate embarrassment. After all, it's one thing for our parliamentarians to object to next year's rate-capping legislation, but quite another for Labour Councillors to defend our services in the real world, outside the hallowed debating chambers of Westminster.

Either support for Liverpool will be won in the grass-roots of the movement nationally, or else we will be left with the accustomed platitudes and resolution mongering.

Within the City the leadership of the District Labour Party must establish a campaign which involves whole layers of society who have up to now been largely passed over.

The November demonstration and the 300 party members who attended the meeting on 11 January indicate the poteritial for a mass campaign in defence of the Council.

It is not enough to treat these supporters like a stage army to be wheeled on for a regular dose of rhetoric and then told to await further instructions.

Certain members of the executive committee of the District Labour Party have made public proclamations about the need for a local General Strike. Undoubtedly, discussions are being carried out to this end with union officials.

If this plan is to be brought to a meaningful conclusion, the involvement of the rank and file trade unionists is a crucial prerequisite.

There is also a range of possible actions as yet undiscussed. Perhaps the most obvious example is the question of a rent and/or rates strike.

Before any such activities become possible a broad, campaigning body must be built. The Labour and Trade Union Campaign Group, based on the executives of the party, the Trades Council and friendly union officials, is not the answer to this need.

We need a movement capable of drawing together not merely Party and union members, but also members of tenants' associations, community groups, voked much discussion on the left with his analysis of the deeline of the Labour Party what to do about it.

- He opened a public debate in London last week between the Communist Party magazine Marxism Today and the Labour C'oordinating C'ommittee on thé subject of. 'Labour's Lost Millions' The basis of Hobsbawm's argument is the new, radical right Tory Party is so bad that all forces opposed to it need to be united to defeat it. The clear implication is for a coalition between Labour änd the SDP. And part of the necessary strategy to secure such an alliance is to prevent the Labour Party from becoming again what Hobsbawm called 'a party political Lebanon' that is, to stop the infighting in the Labour Party.

Robin. Cook and Harriet Harman from the LCC both argued against the idea of coalition with the SDP. Cook argued that it was only by fierce political warfare with the SDP that Labour ethnic organisations, single issue pressure groups, the women's movement, unemployed organisations and many other people who can be persuaded to defend the Council services.

If this movement is not built, our Councillors will be left as generals without an army. This must not be allowed to happen.

Some Mecca a --•The District Party is committed to calling a broad delegate conference to mobilise support for the Council. This conference must be called as quickly as possible, and used not as a rally to rubber stamp a wordy resolution but as a launching pad for an ongoing, democratically-constituted campaigning body.

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