The election date having just been announced, a storm is about to burst over East Nottingham Labour Party.
Over the last few months opposition to the policies and persons who control the East Nottingham CLP has grown.
The left in the party is in revolt.
The right wing have been muttering about an NEC Enquiry to look into the activities of an alleged disruptive and dissident minority?
A number of strands make up the rebellion. The strugale started with three councilors laving the whip withdrawn for opposing the Tory Housing Fiance Aer in the Council Chambers. The polarisation that resulted led to the refusal of some members of Lenton Ward LP to. campaign for Jack Dunnert MP at the last election.
WEALTHY
Dunnett is a very wealthy man, a Lloyds Underwriter entrance fee E100,000 banker and speculator/ landlord in residential property in London.
In Nottingham East CLP what is known as the Dunnett Machine controls the party with an iron grip except Tor the Lenton and Market Ward Labour Parties.
The use or threat of writs against opponents is a popular measure to try and crack down on the left Recenily a writ was issued against Chris Richardson Chairman of Lenton Wird LP-for certain semarks made by Lim ut a ptivate LP meting. strike must be won The strike at Wingrove & Rogers in Licerpool seems likely to drag on for a good alcat longer than the present thirteen weeks.
Despite a number of mass pickets, the fact that it in a strike of women workers iscans that they are out in the cold as far as the ALEW leadership is concerned. Only Practically the only thing the ALEW has done for this strike has heen to make it official. After eight weeks of sitting outside the pares watching the scahs go through, however, the women began to take things into their own hands. They leafleted building sites for funds, organised blacking on the docks and in other trans port unions, and along with the Trades Council and its Women's Committee or ganised the first mass pickets and a pubThe strike still has a long way to go be Tore vietory is assured. At the public meeting the union official responsible for the strike was put on the spot and had to pro The fight against the apparatus known locally as the 'Theatre Point"
issue. The Council's Planning Dept.
gave outine planning permission for the development of a 140,000 sg It office block by a private developer on a Corporation-owned site.
The Council decision came in for widespread condemnation. Various Ward parties. the Trades Council, a UCATE branch and the Tenants and Kesidents Association passed resolutons condemning the Council's decision. A Theatre Point Action Committee was set up to coordinate the campaign. Apart from large-schle publicity and leafletting. ete. on the housing issue, the campaign organised a demonstration of 150 people under the slogan of Build Hornes Not Offices":
POSTPONED Partly as a result of thic campaign and the groundswell which accompanied it, the office block has been postponed for one year. Councillor Steve Evans was expelled from the Labour Group for his part in opposing the office block Embarrassed by the Theatre Point issue, the machine men were confronted with a public meeting organised by LP dissident Dieter Poetz, at which Eddie Milne MP spoke against the stuation in the North East LP The meeting was attended by nearly a hundred people, local actvials in the trade unions, the LP und tenants associations, elc. Dieter drow attendon to the similarities but net identities in the Nottingham LP to the North-Fast. No writs this time he was expelled pomthe IP was given a boost by what has become on 12 September, sponsored by off the meeting because of the impending election. Letters from local, regional and national leves were despatched to the organisers. by fighting on issues which affect working class people they take up these issues with the Another public meeting was beld associations, etc.
Lenton Ward L.P. Considerable pres sure was put on the organiser lo call workers The theme was simple rally around TEETES speculators This plea was rejected, It was agreed you had to keep the Tories out but the best way to do that was The way to take the campaign was debated at the meet. ine Should they restrict the fight to the party apparatus, passing resolubions, as argued by the comrades of the Militant? Alternutively, should Dave Hudson Bert Rothschild most active and decisive workers in the trade unions and the tenants The latter course, it was aruged, would help them to outflank the machine by allying themselves with local activises and wider sections of Clay Cross set an excellent example here. Without their base in the movement as a whole, the Clay Cross struggle would not have developed as far as it did. To the dismay of the Militant, the left have decided to make this fight, from the beginning.
WRITS
Ir has heen suggested that the writs should be taken up in the courts, to fight Dunnelt on his own If this became a central aspect of the struggle it could lead to disaster. The Clay Cross experience shows a completely different approach, They defied the courts and capitalist law They based that defiance on the mebt ation of the working people - Clay Cross. This is the way in which working class power can be used to break the grip of the hurean cracies and deal with the property The struggle in the Labour Party to get rid of Dunnett and company must go on. But it will only ultimately succeed if it is seen by local militants to be linked to fights on patients. important issues that affect the workers lives and show a way for ward to solving their problems.
Taken up in this way it would inevitably spall out of the narrow confines of the Labour Party Just as the "Theatre Point' campaign did PIERSEC Gays force real Proceedings at the British Medical Association conference on Psychosexual Problems were disrupred by the urrival of about 100 members of the Gay Laberation Front.
The conference-sponsored by Geigy Pharmaceuticals who manufacture a drug which destroys the sex drive- was to be addressed by various experts in the treatment' of abnormality". The intruders arrived with the message that sox is not something to be cured, controlled or directed but to be emancipated by removing the social blocks which aet against all forms of sexual expression, including homosexuality.
The confereace organisers, alarmed to see the patient climbing off the operating table, and desperate not to spoil their liberal image by calling ir the police, agreed to un hour's discus sion between the experts and the CALF Mr. Justice Walker, a judge of the Queen's Bench Division, who was to chair the day's sessiom, had no "liberal' image to preserve. He mude a hasty departure, accompanied by Sir John Peel-chairman of the BMA's Board of Science and Education.
The gay militants pointed to the use of such barbaric 'treatments' of homosexuality as electric shock therapy as indication of the way the medical profession was used to aid social repression. They demanded the doctors take a socially responsible attitude to their homosexua!
CONCESSIONS
Two concessions were extracted trom the conference. One was a pro mise from Enidford University to provide room for a conference involv ing health workers and the gay move ment on an equal footing The second was the setting aside of a room for continued discussion between GLF and interested doctors "Sile the other 180 doctors contisued to study ways of treating sexun enjoyment, 20 were discussing the use of their skills to help the opIt the projected conference be tween the gry movement and bealth workers docs rake place, one aspect of it is going to be crucially impor tant. The problems of guy people are social problems and what they actually need are subsidised socia facilities in which to meet and come to terms with themselves. This joh is cutrently done in a haphazard manher in doctors" surgeries.
Changing trom one to the other means redefining the scope of the National Health Service-having state funds available for community help in all areas, The campaign now going on to resist cuts in the NHS and to extend its provisions so that it is of direct henefit to all workers in ever increasing ways should include