IF a third term Labour government is to be elected, Labour must take heed of the mood of the people, the Communist Party warned at the weekend.

Reporting to the party's executive committee industrial organiser Kevin Halpin said that the TUC conference showed that working people have had enough of pro-big business policies.

On issue after issue, the TUC had gone far beyond the limited agreement reached at Labour's Warwick policy forum to demand a change of government direction, he said.

The party hailed TUC calls to end to the illegal war and occupation of Iraq. Pressure from new Labour, media and big business to backtrack on returning rail to public ownership must be resisted.

Privatisation and PFI are deeply unpopular with electors and must be abandoned. Unless Tory anti-union laws are repealed, trade unions should consider defying them, the party said.

The Prime Minister could not fail to contrast the desultory applause that greeted his grudging acceptance of the policy forum deal with the tumultuous standing ovation won by Cuban TUC leader Pedro Ross.

The party endorsed a call for maximum trade union participation in the October European Social Forum in London and the 17 October demonstration against war and global capitalist exploitation.

Closure of the Coventry Jaguar plant was the inevitable result of big-business policies, the party noted. Without policies to cut interest rates, end privatisation and invest in public services, Britain cannot sustain a manufacturing sector.

It is the City and big business that lies behind the drive to join the European single currency.

There is a direct link between the failure of new Labour's economic policies and the fascist BNP election result in Barking in east London, the party insisted.