OVER THE last 10 years women have waged a long and successful fight to establish policy in the labour movement in support of the right to legal, safe abortion, and in defence of the 1967 Abortion Act.
the TUC to call a national demonstration against the Corrie Bill in 1979. However, despite the adoption of clear policy by the unions and by the Labour Party conference, the Parliamentary Labour Party has never taken a clear stand on the issue.
The excuse for this faiure has been a clause in the standing orders of the PLP which allow MPs the right to a position of conscience' certain issues, and therefore the Labour whip is not applied. These cience have traditionally inclided abortion. Indeed it is hard to discover what other issues of significance now No whips are appled on MOSCO Castribusapparently the still thinks it is a matter of personal conscience whether a The highpoint of this campaign was the decision by MP endorses judicial murder. STIT reality only one Labour MP has favoured the return of hanging, and the votes are a loregone conclusion.
Matters religious observance are usually the subject of free vores. Sunday trading was the subwhile pub Ject 0l d willp, opening hours in the north ot re and are oi course a matter of consciences.
However the real I scandal is that the Labour Party voted unambiguously and overwhelmingly that abortion should not be consheered matter conscience Composite to the Bournemouth of 1985 called for the 'abandoning there can conscience CONSC free VOLE fundamental right to decide whether or not to bear children'. Policy Betty Boothroyd, replying to the debate for the NEC, called for vole against the composite sought I free abolish the traditional vote for Labour MPs on this issue. decisively rejecica NEC's advice and adoptea the resolution by 5,305,000 votes to 611,000.
was not confused, what it had adopted. In addition to the form in Betty Boothroyd's reply, the debate had been fought out on precisely this issue by women in a whole number o me ae delegation, often against the advice of their general secretaries full-time officials.
Since 1985 however both the Labour whips and the NEC have simply ignored the conference decision. No whip was applied on the Powell Bill to amend the Infant Life Preservation Act. The NEC's statement •on acalla explicitly tions the right of an MP to a position or conscience or abortion.
Aim The 1987 statement by the NEC on Alton's Bill also included the issue of the right to a position of conscience. This was not in the original draft drawn up by Jo Richardson, shadow minister but was inserted. It appears, at the direct instigation of the leader of the party.
Women in the labour movement have the right to demand that overwhelming majority of men in the PLP vote in line with policy on this issue. 'The Labour whin must be applied in the votes against Alton's Bill A model resolution is being circulated the Labour Party by both the Action • te rigil Alton's Bill (FAB) cạm• calling tor the imvotes against Alton's BitE adopted by CLPs, women's sections and branches of atfiliated unions warded to the NEC, unior executives and to the coming round of regional conferences and national union olicicles
Socialist Action ANYONE WHO had any illusions hat the British acting artheid should have lost ollowing last weeks onwealth prime ministers conference. Not only did Thatcher reMany meaningtul rainst cepened her course by describing the African National (ANC) as a 'terrorist' organisation. For this she was greeted Pretoria, as BBC Radio put it on Monday morning, honourary citizen of white South Africa'. The British government is nOW committed to keeping power the most openly reactionary government in the world.
A report issued last week by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston for the i Anti-Apartheid Movement confirmed that throughout the last year the British government has been consistently and consciously breaking even limited existing sanctions against South Africa. The British government has failed to comply with I1 out of 14 sanctions formally agreed at the last Commonwealth summit in Nassau. • The US State department, in a report submitted to the Congress on 1 April, listed Britain as one of the seven countries still involved in supplying arms to South Africa in defiance of a Unice Nanons embargo • The Thatcher government has refus-* ed to terminate the no visa entry agreement for South Africans into Britain -which would allow the British government to follow Commonwealth and EEC countries and ban the entry of South African sports competitors • Official government backed trade missions to South Africa are continuing another leaves next month. • The Thatcher government neither banned the export of oil, nor of computer equipment capable of being used by the apartheid military, police or security forces. • There is no embargo on military cooperation between Pretoria and BriSouth against them Comsanctions but she sidiaries in that country. in September 1986. year.
major Western nations extensive trade and to raise new money.
The South African vulnerable sancuous.
has Action against Africa Department of Trade and Industry still advises British companies to set up sub• Thatcher had simply introduced a nonsensical 'voluntary ban' on the promotion of tourism to South Africa. • Thatcher undertook last year, at the Commonwealth meeting on sanctions in London, to accept and implement any EEC decision to ban the import of which col, iron and steel from South Africa. A ban of imports of coal was blocked regime. by the West German government on 16 The same day Thatcher flew to Bonn and publicly endorsed Chancellor Kohl's anti-sanctions policy. A ban on the import of iron and steel was agreed by the EEC but 33,000 tonnes of steel products have been imported from South Africa into the UK during the first seven months of this Meanwhile a report from the Starnberger institute in West Germany, commissioned by the West German protestant churches, has made clear that six - the United States, Britain, Japan, West Germany, France and Switzerland - could bring the apartheid regime to its knees in a matter of months. It would not even resanctions. It would simply require action through the international tinance svstem to forbid South Africa to extend old loans South report concluded that: 'the highly targeted By wielding effective sanctions, a small group of only six countries has the power to chop through one of apartheid's most vital supports — its integration into the world economy. As far as these countries are concerned etfective sanctions would entail a fairly small package of measures with negligible effects on their own 'economies.
financial ties of bout Airca to une worla economy• would swiftly push South Africa into international insolvency and provoke massive capital flight, leading to fiscal crisis of the state, a cessation of investment, and an exodus of business people and experts - in all, to irrecoverable weakening of the apartheid regime?
This could be: 'backed up by the mandatory cessation of operations by foreign firms in such key areas as mining, energy, capital goods and banking would soon bring about the complete collapse of the apartheid Instead the international banks, with the support of their governments, had been propping up South Africanotably by allowing the 'rolling over' of its foreign debts in 1986 and 1987.
In other words the major Western states had been deliberately propping up the apartheid regime.
The Starnberger report kills stone dead the idea that the British and US governments refuse to take effective action against South Africa even simply because of its effect on their own economies - we won't even bother to discuss the idea that Thatcher, of all people, refuses to impose sanctions because of the suffering it would involve for the black population of South Africa itself!
Sanctions Undoubtedly sanctions Africa would involved porary inconveniences for the major Western states - but nothing they do not have the resources to cope with. The picture presented of years of hardship in Britain with little or no effect, is a myth. Financial action alone would rapidly cripple the South The reason for propping up apartheid is not primarily economic. It is The fall of the regime in South Africa would unhinge the entire situation in that continent.
The US first increased its covert support South African against its neighbours - aiding.
South African backed UNITA invasion of Angola in 1975-76, blocking any in-. ternational pressure on South Africa over its occupation of Namibia, and then, al South AHncan SuDDOIL lO wing UNITA in Angola and the MNR in Mozambique.
Direct Simultaneously tervention in Africa the United States stepped up its attempt to pressurise the Soviet Union to end its support to left wing governments movements in plained in 1975 that: 'our task is to find ways to restrain Soviet power over an historical period..
Soviet power around the world through a combination of political, military and economic means. reorganisation of US foreign policy, during 'detente', United States air and naval bases in Kenya and Somalia. Between 1969 and 1980 US investment in South Africa increased nearly tenfold - from $286 million to $2,500 million.
Since then the United States and Britain have done everything possible in practice, to maintain the apartheid static emitrate to pro Wreten - within the necessity to against leaders of the black states.? They are providing aid to the frontline states — Len- primarily with the aim of increasing the West's image and leverage. But this aid absolutely damage done to its neighbours by the South African incursions and the cost of the havoc created by apartheid backAfrican ed 'rebel movements' in Mozambique and Angola.
perfectly aware that apartheid African regime - the regional superpower' as its foreign minister put it this week — were to fall the entire situation Africa would change. action drastically reinforce the black popula. the tion of Africa against imperialist inpropping the right ference last week.
with direct in- up In 190s.
rebel Africa. Kissinger by balancing off of Carter's states. 2.
was establish black future Africa.
"The position compared The United States and Britain are if the South on bluntly would terests and powerfully reinforce the left. That is why Britain and the US will take no action to overthrow apartheid. That is why we had the farce at the Commonwealth prime ministers conTo understand US British thinking on that it is worth going back "Kissinger report on United States policy in southern Africa drawn This formed the startin• point of contemporary western polic to South Africa and outlined clearly US interest in the region. It noted: 'Racial repression by white minority regimes and the black African opposition to i pose two problems for US interests i the area: 1. Our interests in the whit states to the degree they are seen as a least tacit acceptance of racism affec our standing with African and othe The prospect of increasin violence in the area growing out of insurgency and white reprisa could jeopardise our intersts in th 'As noted neither of the 'problems' for the US was the effects on the black population of the racist regime in South Te racial probrenor souther racial southern Africa probably will grow more acute over time, perhaps leading to violent internal upheavels and greater involve ment of the communist powers.
The report noted: 'The US takes the that force is not an ap propriate means to bring about con structive change in southern Africa We have consistently resisted efforts to exclude South Africa from interna tional bodies and to extend mandatory sanctions or use force on southern African issues. Thus the US has made it clear that we have gone as far as we can in the direction of greater UN pressure the white regimes. It also statec that the United States Euro pean allies were even more blatant ir propping up apartheid: "The Uk an have adopted an even mor
Socialist Action 23 Oct 1987 ::