PLAYING WITH WORDS is an old trick to confuse one's opponents. The National Association For Freedom should know: members tend to describe themselves as extremisis one centre or vig orous moderates'. All of which MISTE eate one to SuSDeC NAFF itself is not what its name might imply.
NAFF's latest claim to fame is responsible for courts' intervention against plan by the Union of Post Office Workers (UPW) to black mail and calls to South Africa. Its administrative director, John Gouriet, claims 'that this is not the action of a right-wing mous concerca to proicer dodr theid'. He has yet to explain, however. which of his members are doing anything to attack aparWHITES On the contrary, there are clear indications that NAFF's much vaunted concern for freedom applies simply and solely to the whiles in soulnern AIrca NAFF's fortnightly newsnaner. Free Nation. commented of 6 August 1976 that, "To insist on maiority rule is a certain recipe for tyranny Africa free press and an independent judiciary.
* The latest issue of Free Nation devotes half a page to praising Electronics, a company Photo: which 'is perhaps the most impor tant model of everything could and should be right about Racal which was described by the Commanean General in 1973 as having 'renderec invaluable service to me sourn Defence Force": whose equipment was discovered in a Rhodesian armoured car captured after a raid into Mozambique in which at least 800 refugees were massacrcu LEGAL NAFF's intervention against the UPW is by means Is mIsE action. In little more than a year 1975 following the shooting of Ross McWhirter, NAFF has funded the legal appeal which prevencame move education in Tameside; prolonged dispute at vened to stop the blacking of mail to the strike-bound Grunwick factories in North London; and organised instant ballots unionisation moves in the advertiNAFF is also currently providing assistance to management in the Oxford hotels dispute. One of inese notes. Kanco Dis owned by Trust Houses Forte - a director of which the Hon. Hugh Astor, also happens to be a NAFF councemenses Other top businessmen on the NAFF council include: Sir Frank Taylor, director of Taylor Woodrow, English Electric, Babcock & Wilcox, and also a council member for Aims for Freedom & Enter prise; Lord De L'Isle, chairman of Phoenix Assurance: lan H. G1bert, Match (haich has if subsidiaries chairman Wilkinson in South Africa and one in Rhodesia); Lord Brookes, life dent of GN Ltd.; and Ernest Smith, president of the National Federation of Building Trade Employers (another of NAFF's campaigns is against direct labour and in favour of the lump). Americans in Vietnam; Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templar, who led the British campaign against Communist guerillas in Malaya; and Brian Crozier, director of the Institute for the Study of Conflict and former chairman of the CIAnews agency.
All of which suggests that a more accurate name for the group for Privilege and Exploitation. But such right-wing fringe outfits are constantly cropping up. What's so special about NAFF?
Major For a start, not every such group can number seven Tory MPs (in cluding two Front Rhodes Boyson and Churchill) among its council members. Not every group's newspaper can count figures like Tory leader and Not every group has a director who is also a speech-writer for Margaret Thatcher (NAFF director Robert Moss, Economist's Foreign Report' and author of the pro-junta Chile's Marxist Experiment, 'Iron Maiden' speech). Not every group can boast the Tory leader as guest of honour at its inaugural subscription dinner, as NAFF will be able to do unis nursday al London's Grosvenor Park Hotel.
NAFF, in fact, represents the first coherent attempt to bring the fringe groups dom and Enterprise, the National interIncome Tax Payers' Society, and •voIce Centre are all represented on the halt NArE CounCH sections of the Tory Party SCIOUS SOHLICaL DILCISIYC.
COURTS -The first aim is to compromise the leaders of the trade unions by tionalism which the Tories exploiICE SO SUCCesso. talk about "private armies" subsided; NAFF's chosen field is the courts, where it knows it can use bourgeois legal procedure to tie its opponents in knots. Tameside and two victories over Jackson under its belt, NAFF can already feel a certain pride of achievement in this sphere.
It is the same play on constitupresi- tionalism which lies behind the Tories' successful attempts to set up secret talks with TUC leaders behind the backs of the general council - on the basis that ine! would be bound to co-operate with any consulutiona Government But this is just a Despite all tner talk about tree Photo: ANDREW WIARD (Report reature V. THE LAUNCHING OF THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY at the beginning of this month was marked by an important turn for the former International Socialists. The transformation into a party was to be accompanied by serious and systematic work on the 'women's rights front'. This was a move to be welcomed.
But the line of march offered for the pro-abortion movement in
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South Africa is a society with a EW WIA
NOT A GOOD START FOR THE SWP