the British working class which are impelling forward women and black people, are however today accompanied by the decline and rotting of British imperialism. Black people, coming large part countries which have seen at first hand the havoc wreaked by British colonial exploitation, never did think that their interests might be best served by backing. up and supporting geransm. I is clear mrom lne poncy adopted by successive Women's Conferences on Ireland, nuclear weapons, on the Malvinas War, that women too are in the vanguard of understanding that their not lie in bolstering British imperialism, and its policies.
But unfortunately the overwhelming majority of the forces of the labour movement still collude and combine with the British ruling class in supporfing its aggressive abroad. superexploitation of women and black people at home. Labour's consciousness has been that the more protits that British capital can make abroad, then the higher workers wages can be at home. And if it is best for profits for women to be kept home, or on lower wages, wilcre unev snouo de diso. of women and black people was powerfully reinforced by British imperialism. Until after World War Il the labour movement could largely get away with that policy. The working class itself was largely white, male.
veniently at home minding the kids, they are in the unions and in the labour Black people somewhere else, on the other side of the world, but here, in the trade unions and in the labour movement. And British imperialism is not delivering the goods callyway.
The Labour Party and the labour movement as they were established • the turn of the century, both politically and organisationally, are totally out of date and out of line with the needs of reality. The self-serving 'I'm all right Jack' policy of a British white male abour movement. which was built into the very foundation of the movement has got to go. This is what LWAC. and the Black Section are about.
LWAC and the Black Section will find that their allies are among every other section of the working class that has an interest in overthrowing this backward, chauvinistic, pro-imperialist policy of the movements of in Ireland.
British imwith them.
among the miners. parently contradictory interests do imperialist policy the Scargill discovered Women Against then that's the black communities, Oppression ing class internationally.
people at its stands with lese But the the black section.
this lesson. "aristocracy of labour', lines at when you there to help you fight back entire labour movement.
ana olner labour movement whole character of the movement.
Women and black people, for example, have interests in common with those fighting to win the labour movement to fight against British imperialism's role There will be allies among these sections of the working class that are getting pushed to the bottom of the heap by Thatcher's policies — and the collusion of the labour movement leadership miners, That's why women black people find that they have allies This appears apwith the fact that the NUM, as a union, is both exceedingly white and exceedingly male. ward But the attempt by Thatcher to smash level. up the mining communities by closing pits, and the spectacle of the inactivity of the maiority of the trade union and Labour Party leaders faced with that, drove the NUM into a collision cours not just with the ruling class, but with whole status quo in the that the real allies of the miners were the women in Pit Closures across the country, black people and , and the workmovement that has women and black vanguard, which fighting against British imperialism, would give a thousand times more support to the NUM than it received from Willis and Kinnock. This is the reason why the NUM supports the demands of LWAC and The NUM is simply the first to learn Even sections of the on the picket have found that are being forced to your knees it's women, black people, and the most oppressed and exploited, who are - and this despite the fact the policies of the print unions on both women and black people have been among the worst in the In fact it is the prospect of just such an alliance developing between women sections of the that is putting the leaders of the TUC and the Labour rarty into a lalner about what to do Because what if at stake in that is not just that space is made for a few women at the top, but involves a change in the labour move. ment that would leave the existing bureaucracy behind. The key goal and project of the Kinnock leadership is precisely to prevent such an alliance developing and driving its way through the labour movement.
The combined force of women and black people would be bad enough for the present • set up. add in the the Irish people, populations of Liverpool and Lambeth and everyone else in struggle and what is beginning to come together is an unstoppable combination which could lead the entire labour movement foronio a qualitatively The tactics of the party leadership in dealing with this are straightforward ane honored the first instance there is the classic combination of the carrot and the big stick -is so clearly the content of the NUPE resolution to women's conference that it is almost shocking. The carrot is the promise of some vague constitational reform to give women's more say in the election of the NEC, the big stick is that women won't control the women's conference anymore due to the introduction of the trade union bloc vote which will be created outside of women in the unions having any mechanism to control how it is used.
The other time-honoured tactic is 'divide and rule' or more precisely buying off a small minority in order to derail the struggle of the rest. It is this which is involved in the proposal of the LCC to field Joan Ruddock in the constituency section of the NEC elections.
Joan Ruddock is in effect female nominee of the party leadership — chosen because her politics are acceptable, and because she has shown herself useful already in the leadership of CND. From her position in the peace movement helped engineer takeover of CND by the coalitionist politics of Marxism Today alliances already in place in the leadership of CND! The mass movement against the missiles was successfully steered behind the 'non-nuclear defence' programme as an alternative to campaigning for unilateral nuclear disarmament against cruise and Trident. Joan Ruddock fully supported that move. women at Greenham Common were the least popular people in the leadership of CND as they provided a focus for continuing the mass campaigning when CND itself was calling no actions against cruise and Trident.
Where Joan Ruddock stands on the black section, or the struggle of the women in the mining communities, on Ireland and many other questions is not clear. But these issues are of vital importance to women, because fighting for the liberation of the whole of our sex, not the election of one or two women to positions of prominence in a man's world.
In order to achieve the liberation and emancipation of the whole of the sex it will be necessary reconstruct the whole of society on different lines • A few more female faces in that is fundamentally changed, and who are opposing the changes that are necessary to it, is not a policy that can enthuse and mobilise the great majority of women or meet their needs. To accomplish the liberation of women requires the achievement of virtually democratic and social demand, precise. ly because we are more than 50 per cent of humanity. liberated if. their black sisters are op pressed due to the colour of their skin? Or while Irish British soldiers on • while the women of the mining communities have their different livelihoods destroyed?
once, but the women who we fight to have representing us are those. women who will help, not hinder, the process which towards achieving these goals. But this is not what Joan Ruddock represents, and therefore she cannot be a representative of women in the party. * However it has to be stated bluntly that the failure of Benn, Skinner, Hef. fer and the Campaign Group to take at all seriously the question of women and black candidates for the NEC is a blow for the left and for women. tempt to pull women behind support for Joan Ruddock, and the project of getting one of Benn, off the NEC, would be little more than a laughable joke if the Campaign Group's slate women and black people. There are obvious black and women candidates for the left to support. The failure of the Campaign Group weaken the left. As it is a certain pro. the portion of women will undoubtedly be won to supporting Joan Ruddock on a confused basis - despite her being the party leadership's latest nominee to'try to defeat the left the For if Kinnock's manoeuvres can succeed in dividing women in the way he wishes, then not only will the alliance of • forces that can transform the labour movement not come into being, but this will mean that LWAC's demands cannot be won. union bureaucracies that placed him in the leadership of the party, will never agree to, or be persuaded to, implement The LAC's demands. They will either be forced against their will to concede these demands, or they will succeed in controlling the women's organisation and nullifying it politically. It is the second which is their goal.
party leadership might possibly allow the women's conference to elect the women's section of the NEC is women no longer we are rather like the way imperialism has ‹ dealt with the demand of 'colonial' countries for national freedom they steal the wealth; then install British-owned companies to run the plantations to tories; then help finance a massive army to police the country; then hand over control to a clique of paid lackeys; and then they call dependence'.
every other governing society is How can be women women are fighting their streets? Or baaos, per cent All these aims cannot be achieved at capitalist.
few individuals, The atSkinner or Heffer properly represented will undoubtedly This would be a setback for women.
people bureaucracy.
excluded.
Kinnock, and the trade fighting The only circumstance in which the if controlled the would be alternative - first the and the tac with the 'national The United States of America provides a model on how to try to do this with women. Women are told they are very liberated in the States, there are female faces everywhere - at the UN cities, running oil com panies. But women's real position in starkly indicated by the number of women in Congress. Out of 534 members there are only 23 women, that is 4.3 per cent. The only major countries with a worse figure are BarChile, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Turkey and the Phillipines. Bri tain is only marginally ahead with 4.7 women parliament Women, as a sex, remain fully oppress ed in the United States. A few female faces are used to disguise a society which remains thoroughly sexist and And it is the advance of women as a sex, not the advance of a that both feminism and socialism are about.
There are two courses open for the labour movement and for women. One is the road of Neil Kinnock's model Labour Party' This will be a party which is actually the same as it has always been, with the same policies of collusion with British imperialism One where women, black people and youth are subordinated to the trade union bureaucracy, and where the most militant sections of the working class are controlled and policed by the righ wing. The 'new' thing about it will br that a small number of women, and black people, will be chosen on grounds of their loyalty to the leadership - and to the trade union bureaucracy that put it there. They will be given prominence in the party, to help change its image. The 'model' thing about it will be that opposition is either expelled, as with the left papers, or crushed, as with the proposals to introduce mechanisms of control into the women's organisation and the YS. A few women and black will invited into But women and black peopie, as a whole, will continue to be The alternative road is that towards a total refounding of the Labour Party and the labour movement. Women, Will black people, those British imperialism, the miners, and other progressive sections of the working class have to recreate the labour movement to meet today's needs. And this time on the basis of women organising themselves electing their own representatives, and having a real say at every level of the movement - the same for black people. And this movement must exist to fight British imperialism and the British ruling class rather than being a mechanism for col laboration with it. Without that women cannot gain their demands. The two COUSCO for the movement can be summed up as for women's liberation, black liberation, anti-imperialism, democracy and militant class struggle on the one hand, only consistent alternative course being the maintenance of the status quo — albeit with a few cosmetic Kinnockite adjustments
Socialist Action 16 May 1986
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changes since World War Il are putting an end to all this. Women are not con-