LABOUR PARTY General Secretary Hayward summed up the decision of last Wednesday's National Executive Committee to appoint Andy Bevan as full-time Youth Officer with a warning. He regarded Bevan as a poacher we propose to make gamekeeper. But the message was clear: the witch-hunt is not To drive home the point, he recounted an alleged conversation he'd had with Bevan at the Labour Party Conference. He told Andy: "If vou accept the Oueen's Shilling, you have to obey the instructions of the Queen. If she says "march", you march; if she says "jump", you jump'. The 'queen" in this case, Hayward said, was the NEC and party conference.
Meanwhile, a few hundred yards down the road from the NEC meeting at Transport House, Mrs were prepanng Healey's blatant betrayal of the last Party General Secretary, supposedly bound by Conference decision. had nothing to say about the task of "jumping' to build 'active resistance' to ne min- bugger measures Hayward, Wilson, and other members of the right-wing block •nal aerenas ment's Tory policies may attack in the name of that it is they who are really the violators and attackers of democracy.
On the one hand, the witch-hunt is designed to act as a smoke-screen for the impact of the Government's policies. They are trying to place at the door of the whole left the responsibility Tpr ine collapse or Labour s electoral support.
On the other hand, the Government and the we-rained nine betrayal, know full-well that Labour at the next election will spark off a process of reflection and debate in the ranks of the labour movement. They are frightened that this will lead to an organised opposition, and they have decided to try to remove the tar lett as a potential focus for that opposition.
GREAT DANGER This is why the same NEC meeting also took a proposal to resurrect the infamous Underhill report put on ice a year ago, which argues that intrators consulture une scar caneer lace the Labour Party. But by a vote of 13 to 12 they decided to postpone discussion on this Ron LUSCO 101 • me overn ANDY BEVAN question for one mont root and shirley willams will oe spcaking in pouncs the defeat of cerence Sandelson. voted with the Tories in favour of Common *left MP for Bedwelty.
He will be speaking Williams, also in Sandelson's defence.
This is also why Cabinet members Michael Hayes & Harlington early in the new year in constituency's MP.
He was one of the 69 MPs who Market entry. He refused to support the member or tne rignt-wing Maniesto group or MPs, and led the campaign to defend Reg Ron Hayward was not available for com- since the 1930s. ment as to which poacher needed dealing with But Neil Kinnock, was quick to jump when called upon, and right into the thick of it.
alongside Foot and movement kinnock has realsee mattis munte mort cosy to bed down together with loyal suppor- them. ters of the Government line like Neville in Parliament than to take one's left rhetoric seriously, voting against the cuts in the House of Commons and mobilising active resistance INSPIRATION Other "lefts' aren't so honest. Benn waxes forth about how Marxism has been a great source of inspiration within the Labour Party vicious anti-working class Government policies The witch-hunt will continue. But it will not be thrown back through soft-talking by Benn or anyone else. It will only be dereated Dy actively organising throughout the labour extension of Party democracy and against the Government's policies, and against the real poachers who support • •
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Shrewsbury building workers, was a founder amongst this motley crew.