Labour Left Briefing June 1998

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Below you will find links to all the articles from the June 1998 issue of Labour Left Briefing.

Editorial

Recognition and reality

It was Tony Blair himself who put his finger on the fundamental inadequacy of the Government's White Paper on workplace rights. "Even after the changes we propose, Britain will still have the most lightly regulated labour market of any leading economy in the world." In other words, it will continue to have the most heavily regulated trade unions.

News and views

Trade union recognition: break the threshold

Jim Mortimer, former General Secretary of the Labour Party

Self-organisation is the key

The legal right to a union and the Government's White Paper are important, but rank and file organisation is the priority for John Perry, TGWU Organiser, South London.

Exit the carpark negotiator

A Brighton ASLEF member explains how Lew Adams' leadership hit the buffers.

Virtual politics, virtual turnout

Christine Shawcroft, Poplar and Canning Town CLP, and Mike Phipps reflect on the big abstention.

Hackney Labour counts the cost

Sheffield shattered

Islington hung, drawn and quartered

After six recounts, Islington council, for thirty years a Labour stronghold, has been left with a hung council. Millbank tried to blame the left, but Mike Marqusee, Islington North CLP, sees the results as a warning to New Labour.

Fortress Barnet

Let the London Party decide!

Simon Fletcher, London Labour Left, reports on the campaign to stop New Labour stitching up the selection of Labour's candidate for London mayor.

Labour's candidate for the mayor of London

Model motion

A mayor for London

A selection of things people have said about a mayor for London

London mayor doesn't set London alight

Leonora Lloyd, Treasurer of the Campaign for a People's London, examines the result of May's vote.

EMU: very good indeed?

John Palmer, the Guardian's Europe correspondent, replies to recent LLB criticisms of EMU.

The Scottish Parliament must deliver!

Scottish Executive member, and candidate for the National Executive Committee, Cathy Jamieson, looks forward to an important year for the Scottish Labour Party.

Freedom to roam now!

Dave Bangs on about the right to roam, charting the ups and Downs of access campaigning.

Regaining control of our bodies

To read the headlines, one would think that in refusing to have a caesarean, a woman was risking the life of her child. But the reality is far more complicated. Leonora Lloyd reports.

Labour Party

NEC elections -- vote for the grass roots alliance

Mike Marqusee reports

New Labour's historic mission: completing Thatcher's revolution

Rob Deans, North East Cambridgeshire CLP, looks at New Labour's plans to transform the welfare state into a workfare state.

One step forward, three steps back

Ann Black, West Midlands Constituency Labour Parties' delegate to the National Policy Forum and a member of the Labour Reform Steering Committee, describes the pros and cons of the way the Forum is working.

CLPD model rule change

CLPD slate for the Policy Forum elections

Trade unions

Hillingdon strikers confound defeatists

Jon Rogers, Lambeth UNISON branch secretary

Trade Union Notebook

Leading with the left

The Geoff Martin Column

International

Ethical foreign policy or privatised warfare?

Sean Coyne tries to unravel the crisis in Sierra Leone.

Apartheid did not die -- as seen from South Africa

Anna Weekes, Press Officer of the South African Municipal Workers Union, looks at the reaction in South Africa to the screening of John Pilger's new documentary.

Liverpool to Australia: dockers' solidarity

Liz Knight (Liverpool Dockers' Support Group, London) and Arif Bektas (correspondent for Emek, Turkish daily)

Arafat begs for the last few crumbs

The impasse in the Middle East peace process represents a total defeat for the Palestinians argues Tony Greenstein, Jewish life-long anti-Zionist.

Abuse allegation rocks Nicaragua

Allegations of child sex abuse against Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinistas and President from 1979 to 1990 have caused a political earthquake in Nicaragua. But as Mike Phipps reports, they could also have a devastating effect on the whole international solidarity movement.

Free Vanunu

Jeremy Corbyn MP reports on his recent attempt to visit Mordechai Vanunu, incarcerated for revealing Israel's nuclear plot.

Pushing for real change

The referendum debate may have been dominated by unionist concerns, but now the Peace Accord must be made a reality, argues Brian Campbell, editor of Sinn Fein's An Phoblacht/Republican News.

Democratise Indonesia!

MAI: step up the fight

Protests may have forced the postponement of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, but it is far from dead. Caroline Dumonteil reports from Paris.

National strike closes down Denmark

India's nuclear nationalism

Achin Vanaik, India's leading campaigner against nuclear weapons, surveys the frightening implications of the recent bomb tests.

Pakistan must shun arms race

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, leading Pakistani physicist and peace activist

East is east and west is west

The Michael Hindley column

Fighting racism

New protests by the Sans-Papiers

Sara Callaway (Black Women for Wages for Housework) and Benoit Martin (Payday Men's Network)

Hit racism for six

Fascists falter in east London

Support the Campsfield 9

Lawrence inquiry latest

LLB's special correspondent

Dover multi-cultural arts festival

Reviews

Their ethics and ours

Mike Phipps reviews Privatising Nature, edited by Michael Goldman, and The Great Deception by Mark Curtis.

Still She Rises

Maya Angelou, acclaimed poet and novelist, visited the Brighton Festival to talk about her life and her new book Even the Stars Look Lonely. Abbie Sampson went along to find out more.

The god-like genius of Paul Richards

Eddie Tucker reviews How to be your own spindoctor by Paul Richards.

Homebeats

Mike Marqusee reviews Homebeats: struggles for racial justice, a CD-Rom produced by the Institute of Race Relations.

Periscope

AOB

LLB is an independent voice and forum for socialist ideas in the Labour Party and trade unions. It is managed by an editorial board elected at its AGM. Both EBs and the AGM are open to all supporters. We are happy to offer a right of reply to all members of the labour movement and we welcome criticisms and contributions. All the articles in LLB reflect solely the opinions of the authors, writing in a personal capacity, unless otherwise stated.

To survive and thrive we need the support of our readers. Why not take copies of LLB to sell at your Labour Party, trade union or campaign meetings?

Copy deadline: the deadline for the June issue is Monday 15th June. If you wish to contribute please phone us first. We reserve the right to edit all articles.

Editorial Board: Editorial Board: Graham Bash, Tony Dale, Liz Davies, Jenny Fisher, Jon Green, Simon Hewitt, Simon Kennedy, Des Kirkland, Liz Knight, John Leonida, Leonora Lloyd (Co-Chair), Sue Lukes, Dorothy Macedo (Co-Chair), Mike Marqusee (Political Correspondent), Fiona Monkman, Mike Phipps, David Pope, Jon Rogers, John Stewart, Alistair Ward (Editor).

Production Team: Graham Bash, Gary Drostle, Louise Kawakami, Dave Lewney, Leonora Lloyd, Dorothy Macedo, Mike Marqusee, Mike Phipps, David Pope, John Stewart, Eddie Tucker, Alistair Ward. Web site editor: Chris Croome (chris@atomism.demon.co.uk).

Front cover photo: Paul Mattsson

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