Newsline attempt to refute SO comes out WHITER THAN WHITE!
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
TWO replies in Gerry Healy's and Tom White's Newsline (Saturday 20th and Monday 22nd) have conspicuously failed to answer or even to refer to any of the questions that I raised in last week's Socialist Organiser.
Since then Tom White has been nominated as a candidate in the election for the TGWU convenor of the Cowley Assembly Plant.
In response to a campaign in Newsline against the current convenor, Bob Fryer, I posed four questions from Tom White's record in the plant, showing that he is in no position to criticise Fryer.
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That Tom White stood for election for the participation committees in 1975, an action which was defended by Workers Press (forerunner of Newsline).
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That Tom White and Newsline supported a joint management/ participation inquiry into productivity on the Princess track (which was opposed by the workforce, and led to the victimisation of a young Asian worker).
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That Tom White was on Reg Parsons' (extreme right wing) recommended list of deputy convenors for the December 1975 plant elections.
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That Tom White resigned from the 5/293 branch committee during the campaign to defend the Cowley 9, and wrote to the TGWU officials denouncing the other 8 as being guilty of breach of rule.
The Newsline has nothing to say about these four serious allegations against the WRP's candidate for convenor of the plant.
In fact, the embarrassingly weak reply (reprinted inset) is the best proof that Healy and White have no answer at all.
Saturday's article says no more except to confirm (in advance of the nominations) that Tom White will be standing.
Healy is reduced to a few fatuous and factually wrong points about the Oxford Labour Party, like the assertion that Alan Thornett has applied to join it. The Oxford Labour Party would be the first to confirm that no such application has ever been made. Not that Alan Thornett has much choice in the matter, given the atmosphere in the Oxford party in the recent period.
Sectarian stance
The left has been fighting for the reinstatement of those expelled or blocked by the right wing. The WRP has never been part of that fight. The sectarian stance of the WRP means that neither Healy nor White have the slightest idea what is going on inside the Oxford Labour Party or any other Labour Party.
If Healy wants to criticise Fryer's involvement in the Labour Party, it should be from the point of view of what Fryer does, what policies he supports, not that he is a member!
Healy should drop the smokescreen and answer the questions I have raised.
In fact, much more could be said about Tom White's record, since his record becomes an issue now he is aspiring to the leadership of the plant.
For example: last year the WRP distributed a leaflet in the Assembly Plant which implied that Alan Thornett was working in the plant as an agent of Scotland Yard. Tom White at first expressed reservations about the leaflet, but was then pulled into line and began defending it.
If Healy is prepared to sink to lies of that sort about other people, he should not object when some of the truth begins to be told about Tom White.