at the next election.
On top of a scurrilous press campaign, 180 Labour MPs - including 13 Cabinet ministers and some meme bers of the so-called "left-wing" Tribune group - have called on the Constituency Labour Party to drop the sacking moves. These contemptible hypocrites, who applaud Wilson's draconian wage-cutting measures which threaten to wreck the labour movement, claim that dropping Prentice would prove 'extremely damag= ing to the labour movement As if sacking a man who has joined with Heath on pro-Common Market platforms, called for coalition government, implemented and extended Tory education cuts, and slandered the jailed Shrewsbury pickets and the Clay Cross Councillors, could do anything but strengthen the labour movement.
Corruption
The Labour MPs attacking the Newham party members are the same people who were silent when Alderman Andrew Cunningham, a member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee and a full time official with the General & Municipal Workers Union, was being jailed for his part in the Poulson corruption case. Nor did they lift a finger to defend Eddie Milne, then Labour MP for Blyth, when he was sacked by his constituency party for demanding an enquiry into corruption throughout the North East Labour Party. But then Milne was a left' fighting for democracy in the workers' movement, not making a fast buck out of building fiddles.
While the right in the Labour ParDaily Daily Mail exclusive on the battle for a Minister's seat ty is on the offensive, spearheaded by the Social Democratic Alliance and backed by every section of the capitalist press, the 'lefts' WHOSE clude East London MPs lan Mikardo and Jo Richardson - have said nothing in support of the members of Newham North East Labour Party who are trying to establish a basic working class principle that their elected representatives should be responsible to and recallable by them. Nor have they campaigned to defend Arthur Scargill, who stands to be censured for a breach of. parlja mentary privilege for demanding that Labour MPs who wish to be sponsored by the miners should tolMail FURY OVER MPS* PAY low miners' policy, i.e. for challenging the right of MPs to do just what they like once they reach Westminster.
These incidents are not isolated. At a time of growing economic and political crisis the demand by the rank and file of the working class organisations that their leaders represent their interests and be accountable to them will increase. Such moves; while not turning these organisations into weapons to achieve socialism, could seriously undermine their usefulness to the capitalist class as a means by which to contain the class struggle. This is why the Prentice case and Scargill's comments have aroused such fear and such a hysterical reaction in capitalist circles.
Dissolved
Along with the supporters of the Social Democratic Alliance, they would dearly like to see a return to the days when the National Executive would simply have closed down a Constituency Labour Party if a vote of no confidence was passed in a MP. When the General Management Committee of the Liverpool Exchange CLP passed a vote of no confidence in Bessie Braddock, the GMC was promptly dissolved and a more amenable one found. No doubt this is the sort of democracy the Social Democratic Alliance and the capitalist class support. But the 'lefts' have totally failed to challenge this by publicly supporting the Newham North East Labour Party and Arthur Scargill's comments.
Mass action
The moves to ditch Prentice deserve the support of all socialists, inside and outside the Labour Party But the only effective way of dealing with the right wing leadership of the Labour Party is to organise mass united action against Wilson's capitalist policies and, as a first step, against the Healey austerity measures. It is only by fighting for an alternative workers' plan to beat the crisis that the Wilsons, the Prentices, and their equivalents in the trade unions will be ousted for good from the