sprung ingham FACED WITH a determined and discriminatory attack against the Black Section by the party leadership, backed up by the media, many Labour Party members have already the Black Section's defence. A recent meeting in Birmdecided to establish defence campaign within the Labour Party for Sharon Atkin and Phil Murphy, with Vladimir Derer of CLPD as its secretary.
The campaign will hold its first meeting next week in the House of ComDiane Abbott and Ken Liv- doing ingstone are among those who will be supporting the campaign. Like many other party members, those who are supdiscriminatory nature of the attack on Sharon Atkin and Phil Murphy.
The character of the attack on the Black Section was forcefully pointed out • by NUM president Arthur Scargill at a May Day rally in Birmingham. Ironical' ly, he was speaking within a stone's throw of Birmingham's city hall. Despite his and the NUM's well-known support for the Labour Party Black Section, Scargill had received no letter from Roy Hattersley or others telling him to keep away.
'Let me make my position absolutely said scargill. " am in tavour ot Black Sections. I also make clear that there is nothing sacrosanct about holding a view in our party which is different to that of the leadership or that of the con- particularly it their view i Do you remember the tight tol nuclear disarmament? For years we were in the minority. And yet when we passed the original resolution the leader of the party, Hugh Gaitskell, said immediately in the wake of that decision he would fight, fight and fight again to change it. If he had got a right at that time to argue for a change in policy, what's wrong with people in our party arguing to change the policy they think is 'I find it strange that the Labour ParDefence campaign This conference regrets the action taken Atkin at the NEC April that she was unable to attend and believes it acted in principles of natural decisions on inaccurate of Sharon Atkin's remarks made at a meeting and disregarded the context in which these remarks were 2) ignored her undertaking to abide by requirements for prospective candidates and acted before her representative could obtain Craculor NEC requested and which would have been forthcoming later in its meeting; 3) did not formulate detailed charges which would have allowed her to 4) failed to act against persons making attacks on the party ty national executive was determined to uphold the rules of party discipline over allegations made against Sharon Atkin those rules apparently disregarded when it comes to someone like Jim Callaghan's attempts to sabotage the party in the run-up to the general election. And why is it that no action is taken on allegations made against Frank Field who argues that you should have tactical voting - in other words a vote for another party in a general election!
'And if we want to look at people in our party in parliament who flagrantly disregard the rules, what the hell are we about Don . Concannon who resigned from the NUM, joined the company outfit known as the UDM and voted against the party in parliament? It seems that we operate double standards within the party.
Another aspect of the attack against the Black Section is the fact that the Nottingham hast abour Partv has beer deprived of its right to choose its own prospective parliamentary canaraale Mohammed Aslam has been imposed by the NEC against the wishes of the local party. The Notts East executive committee, which met on the day following the NEC's decision has pledged support for Sharon Atkin and is also supporting the defence campaign. But the media has lost no time in trving to drive a wedge in.
to such a campaign.
Defending Black Section supporters from disciplinary action is an issue which goes broader than support for their right ty. The attack on the Black Section opens the door to further attacks on party on members and campaigns within the par ty. Such attacks will inevitably form part of the right wing's strategy to get rid of policies like unilateral nuclear disarmament after the general election.
sponsorshio for the campaign ir defence of Sharon Atkin and Phil Mur phy is being sought on a broad basis. The draft conference resolutions reprinted below will be presented to the campaign including refusing to consider action against Frank Field despite his clear breach of Clause 4(v) of the Rules for Parties bi , calling for support for candidates standing against Labour Party candidates at elections; 5) violated the democratic right of the Nottingham Fast CLP to choose its and gave them no opportunity to be heard.
These actions have damaged the party in the run-ur to the action conference instructs the NEC to reverse us aecision Phil Murphy:
This conference deplores the decision of the Birmingham District Council Labour council to suspend councillor Phil Murphy from the group because he left a council meeting without permission of the chair. It instructs the NEC to instruct the group to reinstate councillor Murphy and drop any action against him