2 November March against apartheid FREE MANDELA! Cherry Groce, shot by the police THE OUTRAGEOUS shooting of an innocent wman in the back, and Brixton's revolt against it, refutes everyone who claimed that Handsworth was a product of 'criminality' and the answer was 'law and order'. Handsworth Brixton are the result of Thatcher's Britain: the result of &6 On platform after platform I have referred to the problems endured by the ethnic minorities. But it wasn't until our strike when I witnessed at first hand the full fury of an organised state machine that I truly identified with the problem of black people in the heart of our major cities in Britain... Arthur Scargill racism, social deprivation, and repressive and racist policing.
There is only one course to guarantee Labour's victory: to align itself with all those who have the courage to stand up to Thatcher: black people, miners, councils facing Greenham women.
them - not, like Hattersley and Kinnock, to lead hounding them. Defend the 400 arrested in Handsworth, the 250 in Brixton, the miners jailed and sacked for fighting back.
doubted gains Kinnock have made, the Labour Party conference has registered three steps forward on which its future must be built.
First, the prospect as we press of a vote to back the NUM's demands to conference. ly, the similar prospect of support for surcharged councillors. And, as significant as both of these, the advances made by the black section. The black trebled its vote. It brought to its support the NUM, NUR - against Knapp's opposition surcharge, the kind of alliance And the first step is to defend the pack in after the debate:
That is why, despite the unPauls, Hattersley by go to Second- labour movement.
section nearly NUPE, the and other unions. This is on which they Labour's real future will rest. As Marc Wadsworth, vice-chair of the national black sections told us WE IN THE black sections warned that Handsworth was signal of the fire next time - in Southall, Bradford, Toxteth, St Brixton, and all of Briwinsventer cities ed is a tragedy wehave been proved right. cannot solve the criminal neglect of black people in the inner cities police repression, brutality, and containment. Black youth are involved in a class struggle and must be defended by the whole In the black section debate we almost trebled our vote. We made significant headway in CLPs where we got almost a half, compared to less than a third last year. The NUM stayed with us, and we gained support from NUPE after tions consulted their black members — who said a resounding 'yes' to black sections. The NUR and ACT, who supported once more, also voted for black sections. All these unions should act as an example to the rest of the labour movement.
They are not telling us how to win our struggle, they are supporting us because black people are making the demand for the right to self-organise. We've seen, in Brixton and Handsworth, what happens when black youth fail to be given a real voice in British politics.
Hattersley has sent waverers on the left a clear message. He has replaced John Goulding on the national executive as their chief witch-hunter of progressive issues in the movement. The left must now make a clear choice: support Hattersley, or support black secthe struggle for socialism.
Socialist Action 4 October 1985