Party News (1967)

Party News from the November 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Swansea Debate

On September 13th, Swansea Branch held a successful debate with the Young Socialists.

Our comrade Ambridge represented the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Mr. Powell represented the Young Socialists. Swansea Branch members were present and also 20 Young Socialists. Plenty of questions were put and the audience appeared to be most interested. Literature sales were 6/-.

Black Power Debunked

Our comrade P. Lawrence spoke on Black Power at the meeting of the Camden Group in the Enterprise, Chalk Farm, on October 2. He pointed out that, when it came down to it, so-called Negroes had no problems that were not those of the working class generally. Certainly there was no specifically “Negro solution” to their problems. Black nationalism, like all nationalism, was a delusion and a snare and quite incompatible with socialist principles. A world of harmony and plenty could only be created by the actions of workers the world over, no matter what their language, colour, sex or ethnic group.

Half-a-dozen members of a Black Power group, the Universal Coloured Peoples Association, who had been invited to take part in the discussion, turned up. They were surprised to find that we as Socialists did not, as they no doubt expected, sympathise with their views but exposed them for the dangerous nonsense they were. They left after it was suggested that they were just another group of demagogues that wished to climb to power on the backs of discontented workers.