REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK - Division tactic of Tories _in British national election By BILLY ALLAN _GLASGOW — Split the opposition is the tactic of the British Conservative (Tory) Party in this whirlwind elec- tion that ends June 9. Their target is the British Labor Party, and its chief organized backer the 13 million- Strong Trade Union Congress (TUC). Diversion has been the tactic of the British Tories and their main spokesperson, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The main shots fired by the Tory gang is Tedbaiting that the ‘‘Labor Party is no different from the British Communist Party’’. _ Also that The Labor Party program for 3.5 millionjobs In the first two years in office by a labor government Would cause inflation. Aiding the effort by the Tories to split the ranks of the Tory opposition is an outfit called the Social Democratic Party, made up of renegades from the Labor Party. They are doing most of the attacking. They are granted equal time by the British TV networks. So all election seminars Or debates consist of Tories, SDPers and the Labor patty. It ends up with a 2-1 majority against the Labor arty. . Near Five Million Jobless The powerful TUC however has managed to keep the Labor Party and its candidates focussed on the main Issues of jobs and disarmament. Unemployment accord- ing to TUC leaders we spoke to here is estimated actually Nearing five million out of a work force of 26 million. A large number of the Labor Party candidates are from C international unions, like Norman Hogg, union teacher, and have this approach: ‘A Labor government must end the vast armament Spending that has been going on by Thatcher. She prop- Oses another increase in one year of £3-billion (pound is Valued at $1.97 Canadian). This redbaiting of the Labor _ Party is bringing McCarthyism into our elections and the Tising attacks on the unions is attempting to Taft- Hartleyize our labor movement. This is Reaganomics brought across the Atlantic by Margaret Thatcher after her visits to Reagan,’’ Hogg charged. As an active Labor Member of Parliament, he told a Labor Party rally in the town of Kirkintilloch, that “‘we know that Thatcher and her Cabinet if re-elected plan to [se spend £1.6-billion for increased armaments in the next five years’’. The 2.5 million-strong Transport and General Work- ers Union (Britain’s equivalent of the Teamsters Union in North America) has unveiled a new strategy in the fight for 3.5 million jobs. Cut Defence Spending The essence is for deep cuts in the defence (read military) spending of any British government and for that government to turn to the conversion of industry toward socially useful production. The union’s general secret- ary, Moss Evans, says that any Labor government must immediately establish a Conversion Commission to over see cuts in the military spending. He said that milit- ‘ary spending rose by 20 per cent, at the same time Thatcher cut housing spending by 55 per cent, and now the Tories propose to spend a third more on armaments than they do on education. He said all of this has caused inflation, lowered the standards of living of the British workers, and added two million more jobless in the last two years. In defence industries where his own members work, he said they have to begin organizing, with other unions, examinations of how to change over to peacetime pro- duction. He said if this is done several hundreds of thousands of jobs could be changed over in a few years from wartime production to peacetime. This must, he said, be a part of the Labor Party program for 3.5 million jobs in the next two years. This is to put to work a big part of the country’s five million unemployed, highest in Britain’s history. This huge Transport Workers Union is now an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Its members are active in hundreds oflocal CND groups now staging sit-ins, lie-downs, vigils throughout the country. The Tories are redbaiting the CND, charging, like Reagan, that such movements are “‘run by the Rus- sians’’. It haslittleeffecton the thousands who march and demonstrate constantly up and down this country. Industries Gutted, Jobs Gone Jane McKay, secretary of the Glasgow Trades and Labor Council, asked about election predictions said: ANTI-CRUISE PROTESTERS. British military spending under Thatcher has caused massive unemployment, in- flation and cuts in social services and education. At five million, Britain’s jobless is the highest in its history. ‘““We of Labor, members of the Labor Party, have to sharpen up our attacks. We must expose what they have done to state-owned industries, like coal, automobile, mining, railroads. They have gutted them by cuts in funds, laid off thousands like in steel, poured money into the European Common Market while prices here have risen to almost double. There are divisions among us, some want to patch up the system, others want to change it, widen nationalization, stop the strangling of what we got, defeat Thatcherism that wants to privatize every- thing that’s nationalized.”’ Assessing the first week of the election campaign (May 23) the Communist Party’s general secretary Gordon McLennan said that while opinion polls show a rise in Labor’s percentages of votes, 46 per cent for Tories, 34 per cent Labor and 18 percent for the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance, what Labor is doing is not vital enough. Communist Chides Labor McLennan cited for journalists these examples of na- tional Labor Party spokesmen appearing constantly in debates with the Tories and Social Democrats-Liberals. Denis Healey has already come out against unilateral action as far as Britain’s so-called independent nuclear deterrent is concerned; John Silkin says he wants to spend less on nuclear weapons so a new Labor govern- ment could spend more on conventional weapons; James Callaghan, the former Labor prime minister has again attacked trade unionists and declared his support for wage freezes, known as an incomes policy. McLen- nan said that Britain had had much experience with Labor politicians sabotaging programs in the past, but doing it before the campaign has seriously gotten under way is disastrous. International Focus Tom Morris And that’s not-counting the Williamsburg declaration tems in western Europe. Are there two up one? Or just a Prime Min- Pierre Trudeaus? ister trying to act clever? Trudeau is reported telling the other western leaders in Williamsburg, ‘‘We should bust our asses for peace.”’ That was on Monday. On Tuesday, after signing Canada’s name to a declara- tion which all but kills any hope for arms negotiation at Geneva and ensures deploy- ment of Cruise and Pershing-2 missiles in Europe, Trudeau told the press the western Summit was ‘“‘an unprece- dented success.”’ Are there two Pierre Trudeaus? Or one very mixed ! % The Williamsburg declara- tion rammed through by Reagan offers the USSR exactly the ‘‘choice’’ offered by Washington before — an ‘‘option’’ the Soviet Union re- jects. If that’s an ‘“‘unprecedented success’’ then Trudeau is the next shah of Iran. The declaration refuses to count British and French mis- siles as part of the western European nuclear arsenal (af- ter modernization, for exam- ple, the British submarine fleet alone will be able to hit the USSR with a force equal to 4,880 ‘‘Hiroshimas’’). oa British nuclear air arm or the entire French ‘‘force de frappe’’ aimed at the USSR — nor the sea and air-based U.S. missiles which ‘‘don’t count’, according to U.S. negotiators. The Soviets aren’t blind or stupid. Nor are they about to be threatened without re- sponding. The Soviet warning it may deploy missiles outside ~ jts territory proves that. Imagine, with all this power aimed at them, the USSR hasn’t a single nuclear weapon outside its own borders. But it’s faced with nuclear attack from every direction on the compass and from several powerful states. How’s that for what Tru- deau describes as ‘‘an unpre- cedented success’’? He should live in- Moscow or Kiev or Leningrad with his kids — then talk. If the PM ‘“‘bust his ass”’ in Williamsburg, it sure wasn’t for world peace. Or perhaps there are three? The engines on Trudeau’s jetstar hadn’t even cooled when Reagan publicly an- nounced what he thinks the means: Reagan deserted our prime minister by telling the press the U.S. will deploy the new Cruise and Pershing-2 sys- tem first, then negotiate seriously after. So much for Trudeau’s “*two-track’’ understanding. All the while he had been telling the public he favors ser- ious talks at Geneva. Then, he says, if the USSR won't listen, we deploy the new weapons. The series of impossible op- tions offered by the U.S. these past months which the USSR turned down didn’t seem to phase our leader. The fact that French and British weapons were left out didn’t bother him either — although the USSR said that torpedoed the talks. Even Reagan ramming through his MX missile plan last week didn’t seem to excite our Trudeau. : It was still the ‘‘Russians”’ who were ‘‘misunderstanding the messages of peace’’ com- ing from NATO and Washing- ton. Now it’s clear: The U:S. conned Pierre at Williamsburg into believing it will get down to serious bargaining in an ef- fort not to deploy the new sys- That’s bad enough, given all the evidence and advice Trudeau was getting that Reagan wasn’t interested in disarmament. In the Commons, June 1, he was forced to draw a thin line between himself and Reagan’s views. The country should be thankful for small mercies. But it’s not nearly enough. It may be an affront to Trudeau’s dignity, but the clear fact is that his agreement with the Williamsburg declara- tion (intended or not) was based on deception. If he really believed Reagan would negotiate before deploy- ing rockets he was fooled. If he now tries to pass this deception on to the Canadian people who are hearing Reagan’s words from Reagan, he’s a fool. If anyone wishes to feel sorry for our prime minister, that’s their right. But the issue at stake is far larger than one man’s pride — it’s war or peace, life or death. How much will it take for this government to lead this country in a real search for peace? PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 10, 1983—Page 9