General Secretary of the Indian Workers Association, Harsev Bains, shocked the Communist Party industrial cadre school at the weekend as he outlined the human impact of government citizenship and residence policies. Home Office fees for non-British passport holders and their spouses and dependants to remain here or become British citizens have increased by factors of between ten and a hundred over recent decades, he pointed out.

Describing visa fees as 'a tax that a British citizen must pay for a spouse', Mr Bains commented: 'I don't mind paying £1,400 council tax because the council takes away my rubbish-but I do mind paying £950 to have a form stamped'.

Spouses and fiancés have no recourse to public funds during a two-year probationary period, increased by this current government from one year. 'As with asylum seekers, this puts them at the mercy of violent spouses, people traffickers or illegal employers', he pointed out.

The IWA leader outlined the history of Britain's racist immigration and nationality laws, called for English-language tests to be dropped for children and the over-50s settling here and attacked the targeting of India for a biometric visa scheme this year.

'Regularising all illegal immigrants immediately would be in the best economic and social interests of Britain, bringing an extra £3 billion to the Treasury every year', Mr Bains insisted, welcoming the Communist Party's recent 'Workers of All Lands' pamphlet on migrant workers and immigration.

'All class-based societies downgrade women, treat them unequally and exclude them from wealth and power', Communist Party London chair Jean Turner told the school.

'Young women today are seen by consumer capitalism as a source of profit, bombarded with propaganda about how they must look and dress in order to attract a wealthy man as their highest ambition', she remarked.

Ms Turner highlighted policies in the Charter for Women-now endorsed by 12 national trade unions-for the right to work to be accompanied by rights to childcare and to decent pay as well as equal pay. She also reminded us that women have been to fore in many great revolts, from the French revolution and the Chartist movement to the 1917 Russian revolution 'where they led the marches for peace and bread'.

'We must learn from history and ensure that equality for women is an integral part of the struggle for a socialist society', Ms Turner concluded.

Former Labour Party general secretary Jim Mortimer set out the reasons why a stronger left wing is needed in the party and the wider labour movement.

'It is vital that we fight to increase wages, end Britain's participation in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, introduce economic planning including measures of public ownership, reverse the decline in manufacturing and abolish pension poverty', he urged.

'After eleven years of a Labour government, trade unions have fewer rights today than were achieved in the Trade Disputes Act of 1906', Mr Mortimer remarked, criticising the government for its lack of commitment to collective bargaining rights.

Calling for unions to exert influence on the Labour Party at every level, he argued that this would be more effective if socialist ideas were stronger in the movement. 'We develop socialists by studying and discussing socialist ideas as part of trade union education programmes and at schools such as this'.

Communist Party chair Anita Halpin proposed more effective broad left organisation in some key unions and at a national level.

Despite the formation of super-unions, she believed there was still a role for the TUC and its general council. 'But it should be to lead the mass working class mass movement, including in the battle of ideas, not-as so often in the past-merely to try to control and limit it'.

In particular, she urged greater resolve and unity to defend public sector pay and, with the United Campaign for the Repeal of Anti-Trade Union Laws, to promote the Trade Union Freedom Bill.

Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution speaker Brian Denny condemned the TUC leadership for refusing to carry out congress policy and campaign for a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty.

'The Viking and Vaxholm judgements at the European Court of Justice confirm that the neo-liberal basis of the EU now threatens basic trade union rights to collective bargaining and solidarity action', he argued.

Other speakers over the weekend included John Foster of the Communist Party economic committee, who explained the economic case for the Left-Wing Programme. General secretary Robert Griffiths and industrial organiser Kevin Halpin emphasised the need for a stronger Communist Party as 'the Marxist party of Britain's labour movement'.