1987 WILL BE an election year. The eyes of millions and millions of workers will be fixed Thatcher in that election and the victory of a Labour government.
But that brings precisely to the fore how to is the relation of the election to the fight that has • Weaked entits and in short shat should be the strategy of the labour movement. Because an election only makes sense within the strategy of the labour movement, it cannot be a What Labour's strategy should be is vividly brought home in the figures which we print on our front page this week. They show that Thatcher's entire strategy has been to create two nations - not simply the two nations of labour and capital that have always existed, but two nations Thatcher has sought every means to divide revenue fed consumer boom, creating 'core' and 'peripheral' sectors in industry, the use of rate hand-outs. Thatcher has attempted to create on the one side a relatively secure, prosperous sec. tion of society, including a large part of the workvote Labour), On the other side she has created a working class of the dole queue and the innerof part-time women workers and poorly paid public sector workers, of the unskilled and those whose jobs are under threat of privatisaOf course Thatcher has difficulty in applying that strategy perfectly. Even the best paid sec tions of the working class are hit just as much by the crisis in the health service as the poor paid for example. And that is why some of the most explosive crises for the government have come of British capitalism means that wider layers of the working class are progressively hit by the crisis. But that does not prevent Thatcher The Tory government, and British capital knows what will be the political price of that Those who bear the brunt of her tacks will rise in revolt. The miners strike, the struggle at Wapping, the rebellions in the black communities are as inevitable as night following Because Thatcher has nothing to offer these sections of society, she demands support That is the reality behind the repression the daily assaults on the black communities This is the reality that Labour should be ex with a Thatcher government it is inevitable that with those who do revolt. It must defend the miners who fought for their jobs. It must defend the black communities whose rebellions are inevitable given the daily brutality to which they are subjected by the police.
That is the relationship between elections and what takes place between them. strategy in an election must be a part of the strategy it carried out every day of every year.
round this year. Because Kinnock stood with the aw and order' against the black communities, which will vote Tory (or at least not throughout society to hold down The Labour Party should be saying that of the miners, with THIS WEEKEND the National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS) is holding a student coucil to select its candidates for the NUS conferences al Easter. Given the overwhelming support for Labour students in the NUS the sort of slate that NOLS chooses will determine the next leadership of the dominated by the of removing the Militant by severely undemocratic Pacing them to No for the expulsion of Miliat a time when the Campaign left in the Labour ship has been more openly shown to be not oniv antiDemocratic Left in NOLS Dercontinuing and extenconerence.
Campaign Student is published to help link the student movement to the alliance for socialism which Campaign Forum is building in Campaign Student urges Labour Clubs to affiliate to Labour Left Liaison, promote Campaign Group News, and affiliate to For further information write to Campaign Student at 51 Grayson House, Radnor Street, London ECI. struggles of women, black gressive struggles and also dissatisfaction in the NUS COSTACLO Startine Calllpaign consistenly in support of the policies it holds on paper. NOLS can either give campaigning content › us bondes and ay wi Io Committee on Ireland is a their demands. NOLS supNOLS support for lesbian NOLS call ed bright optomeo
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SOCiAList ACTiON An election year
for sitions the objectives of a lo