of building the campaign. This is as it should be. was the child of that campaign. participated in its activities!
credentials.
STRUCTURES Committee responsible for the control und are not being manipulated.
practical importance.
But their intervention at the ANL Carnival was involvement in the ANL STATEMENT OF AIMS vital importance of mass netions to defeat fascism Some of the experiences confereace mere, to put it mildly.
frank discussion on the way forward.
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NAME ADDRESS Sond ta Socialist Challange, 328:8 Upper LONERIE SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 15 June 1978 page 2 scheduled to take place on 8 July in London (for details see p.7). the task of the conference is to discuss ways of further building the campaign and taking it forward. The political direction of the ANL and its structures will be discussed within the overall context The ANL isa good example of a single-issue united front. It hus succeeded in involving large members of reformists both as sponsors and on the local level. At the same time most of the grassroots activists are more sympathetic to or are members of between the way the ANE was conceived and launched and the way Nice are definite in which the Communist Party launched its Civil Liberties campeign in the Thirties: the National Council of Civil Liberties We reject infantile descriptions of the ANL as a 'popular front' For those of our readers not in the know, a popular front represents a strategie compromise between a working class and a bourgeois party, It is a programmatic alliance. To put the ANt. in that category is to live in a dreamworld. We would remind such purists that the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign had members whose polidical affillations were to the Liberals and the Tories. There were not many of these, but they supported the SC demands and The ANL conference will be attended by delegates and sponsors from all over the country. Each branch will be allowed to send two delegates but large branches (Manchester and Bristol ure two clear examples) will be, in Peter Hain's words, allowed to send "more representative delegations'. In addition, trade-union branches anu anti-racist bodies which sponsor the ANt will be provided with We have consistently argued that the structures of the ANt should be made uccountable. This is not an abstract notion. It is a way of drawing the greatest number of non-aligned people inte regular activities. A National Steering Committee, representing the geographical spread of the movement, should be elected to meet twice a year. This Committee should thee elect a Cumpaign day-corday running campaign, At the sume time local stractures should also be made more accessible so that activists at the base feel that they have some This is necessary if it isintended to build the ANE as a long-term campaign. If it is going to be dissolved after the general clection, then clearly the question of structures is irrelevant. But no-one believes that the ANL can be wound up so soon. It has an important role to play and there appears to be virtaul unanimity that it has to be built as a serious ongoing campuign. It is this reality that makes its political direction and its structures of some la vor opinion, the alliance between left social-democrats and revolutionaries against the fuscists represents a real step forward at the present time. We ure not for disrupting this coalition in any way. But it is necessary for the ANT to devote more attention to anti-racist propaganda, as it is racism which wil be the problem during the elections and after. Clearly if the SWP had Totally dissolved itself into the ANI on the level of propuganda ne would have been forced to make some extremely shurp criticisms. opposing all immigration controls - a clear indication that Independent socialist propaganda is a necessary complement to It is obvious that it is only the far-left which campaigns today against Immigration costrols. It should carry on doing so, But to make its rerolutionary positions the busis for a united front with reformists would clearly be a self-defeating process. Nonetbeless the original ANL 'statement of aims" should be expanded to take account of the needs of activists in combatting racism, stressing the The main activity being organised by the AN In the coming months is Carnivals. This is escellent, bet at the same tiate the different components of the ANI (SKAN and Students Against schools, polytechnics and the camposes. A full discussion i the Nazis) should be discussing ways of taking initiatives in needed on such initiatives at the forthcoming conference.
of the recent CARE/ARAFCE extremely negative. We eun sympathise with the desire of the AN Steering Committee not to allow their conference to become a repeat performance. Bat it would be tragic if this were done at the expense of an honest and Socialist similarities