It takes a lot to upstage the racism of the rank and file of the Tory Party. This week Enoch Powell managed te do it. Ulster Unionist MP renewed his campaign for the repatriation of black people in Croydon on Monday. He put a price on their head - £1,000.
Powell's prophecy of increased violence around race issues is a selffulfilling one. On the repatriation policy, he stands shoulder to shoulder with the fascists of the National Front and National Party.
Powell's grandiose demagogy seems to elevate him above the petty policy differences of the right-wing Labour leadership and the Tory Party. He gives a justification to the violence which leaves young Asians dying of stab wounds in the streets of Southall and burns a 76-yéar-old Indian woman to death in Leamington.
Powell feeds on the failure of the leaders of the trade unions and Labour Party to fight against unemployment, cuts and falling living standards. But he does not have solutions himself. Last week in Lancashire, when asked what he would do cool unemployment, Powell showed what sort of a friend he is to 'ordinary' people. "Nothing', he replied.
Powell needs his scapegoats like any other bankrupt bourgeois politician. But he chooses black people, not the unions, as the main target. Repatriation of blacks is his solution. £1,000 is the price. Compulsory repatriation is the implication.
Violence will be the result of Powell's blood money offer. That is why black people will be on guard all over Britain after Powell's speech. The labour movement should immediately implement the decision of the Labour Conference at Blackpool to support black self-defence.
The shout that should drown out Powell's rantings should be to repeal all immigration laws. Down with racist agitation!
So Dr Johannes Witteveen. inet is raised his hands in a victory salute. He did so as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government, at his party's conference in Blackpool and he demanded acclaim.
Two years ago he had said that he was going to 'squeeze the rich until their pips squeak'. This time he wanted his fellow 'socialists' to applaud his negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.
Yet these negotiations will mean there will be further cuts in government expend- place. iture amounting to something in the region of 25 billion-a cut of at least eight per Labour They mean more Powell's Blood Money hospitals closing, more unemployment, more overcrowded schools.
Such was the nature of Denis Healey's triumph-a triumph which was accompanied by the issuing of dire warnings of rioting in the streets and dictatorship if his policies were not followed.
That in itself was rather sick, for as Healey was speaking The Economist - a magazine for the more sophisticated Torles-was reassuring its readers that the IMF should give Britain better government than successive Labour and Tory politicians have done'.
meet your new International Monetary Fund, whose cabcomposed of 20 international bankers appointed by the richest countries in the world. And meet your new prime minister, one Dr. Johannes Witteveen, head of the IMF and former director of a number of multinational companies.
Dr. Witteveen is also a leading light in an obcure religious sect dedicated to mysticism and meditation'. But you don't need much meditation to know what is going to happen now that the IMF are in You will merely have to open your eyes to see the slum houses, young school leavers on the streets, and not the rich, but the poor being squeezed.
That is why you should remember 17 November, when a 'day of action' sponsored by a number of trade unions will take This day of action gives opportunity to show what the average voter thinks of the IMF and Healey's cuts. Organise now, strike then.