The Annual Conference of the Independent Labour Party, which took place at Morecambe over the Easter week-end, was a great success, with some lively and hard-hitting debates. The resolution on Vietnam, which called on the Party to declare its "Support for the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people against American [illegible]".
Don Bateman, Bristol branch, said that we could not stand aside whilst the people of Vietnam were struggling for freedom. He pointed out that the N.L.F. had the support of the majority of the Vietnamese people, and that after the fighting it was to the people that they returned. Seven-eighths of the country was in the hands of the N.L.F.
Stan Iveson, Nelson branch, said that war could in no way be justified, that humanity must learn to live without war. Eric Preston, Beeston Branch, said that although the N.L.F. had committed atrocities as bad as the Americans, there was no doubt who was in the wrong. After giving a brief but detailed history of the struggle of the Vietnamese People over a period of many years, he declared that the Americans had no right to be in Vietnam. They had set up a puppet regime in order to justify their presence.
The motion was carried.
A resolution on Rhodesia was passed and reads as follows: "This conference, recognising that the present political situation in Southern Rhodesia has become much more dangerous with the direct intervention of South African forces, urges the Independent Labour Party to give critical support for the African liberation struggle, and considers it the duty of a revolutionary Socialist party to give all possible aid to this fight for freedom from the reactionary settler Government."