delegates to CND's annual conference. the campaign in the years to come.
This year non-nuclear defence will issues that be the centre of a general elec- troversy over which way forward for CND.
ty have spent much time and energy getforeign turned its attention to finding 'credible' alsumation that public ouies, mustbe paigners start from the status quo?
Tony Benn has CND and chair Labour CND American war with a shopping basket full of non.
weapons, or even old-fashioned conscription. But where does it all get us?
Did the Greenham women done the most to build and inspire our campaign against nuclear weapons -start from accommodating public opioin the most determined way to change the case that a majority of public opinion is opposed to the new missiles.
Goals give all this up and turn from disarmament towards defence. CND is a single-issue campaign. That means that its supporters agree on one thing and on‹ thing only: the burning need to get rid of nuclear weapons.
Our who are pacifists, who believe all war is believe that the justice of a war is determined by which enemy we're fighting.
This year presented a ment to the campaign which says: 'Our over-riding goal is to convince the majority of the public by the next general the nuclear disarmament by the adoption policy which does not rely on nuclear weapons.? 10 November Able, and on what grounds? The October THERE ARE big decisions facing presented to it.
The outcome will direct dial use corticil -political conmembership.
non-nuclear delence Of course they didn't. They set out it. And just look at the results! It's still safeguard them.
But when Now CND leaders are asking us to CND to nuclear contains people socialists, who James Hinton has around.
Forward Planning statecase for of a credible defence built in past years nected Who's going to decide what's credi- ference agenda is national council meeting had this paper wasn't even allowed to vote. Instead we were told - or something like it! — would go straight to conference. It was a hot potato at the council meeting and it will be at conference too.
Labour's defence policy LUW been quite widely publicised. It advocates non-nuclear defence context of a 'firm' commitment to stay in NATO, and at the expense of the ped party's policy to cut arms spending.
Much has been made of the docCND council went as far as welcoming it. Not a word was said about the conflict between unilateralism and NATO For two years now Labour CND has been accused of being sectarian and pushing Labour's policies inside CND. Now the boot's on the other foot: it's the leadership of the movement who are going over to Labour's version of A version thai doesn't rock the NATO boat at all, that assumes Americans are our friends and Russians our enemies. And as long as you accept the rationale for dividing the world into two armed camos. ac cepting the need for nuclear weapons is only a small step away.
'Multilateralists' Labour CND decided neither to support nor endorse Labour's policy. We are campaigning in the party for CND's unilateralist policies, and we're not convinced this defence policy will course, we welcome a public commitment to nuclear disarmament.
'multilateralists' like Peter Shore and Denis Healey are bursting with support for the same detence document (precisely because it does commit the party to NATO) there's A resolution from Deptford calls on take no position on nondefence. Labour CND sup. ports this resolution. Along with many other groups we submitted an amendment to strengthen it. Without a byyour-leave, it's been lett off the agenda. Instead the Christian CND amendment aims to change the resolution This amendment must be defeated, and the other amendments debated this weekend. We must continue as a single-issue campaign whose first priority is refusing the new generation missiles by continuing the mass action CND has Another deliberate and conCommission from the concampaigning for Britain's withdrama! from NATO. Earlier this year, the con.
committee bitrarily ruled out of order a composite resolution from more than 20 groups which contained the demand that CND should step up its educational campaign on NATO and highlight the ques tion during action at the bases.
These groups pointed out that CND has failed to fulfill such commitments in the past. Their resolution was drop because 'reiterated existing nolicy', Amendments to the Airland Battle resolution those same groups have likewise been quietly ditchOf course, this begins to raise th whole issue of democracy in the cam paign. Who's really in charge: us or a selected few? The resolution calling for a biennial conference (and similar constitutional amendments) are very wor. rying. The idea of a biennial conference CONSOl individual Why does it have more weight than a composite from 20 groups?
If anyone's in doubt what's at stake in this conference, an incident at the last national council gives reason for grave concern. On the recommenda tion of the leadership, council decided to hold a mass lobby of the Warsan Pact embassies on 8 December, instead of marking the fifth anniversary of the Emergency resolutions calling on CND has wrong. Nowhere is this clearer than the the year CND has failed to give real support to the women at the Greenham camp who faced increased police har. rassment, intimidation and violence.
torn apart. And CND has done nothing about it. If we are going to keep the campaign on course, the first thing to do is assert the centrality of Greenham must be put back on the agenda. Then women can begin to plan the ongoing But conference must do something women have called a women-only ac tion at the camp on 9 December - the traditional way to mark the anniversar of cruise. Conference must support the emergency resolution and demand tha CND puts Greenham ai ibe top of t Socialist Action 23 November 1984
Socialist Action 23 November 1984