THERE is a long-standing and growing concern among many Labour Party members about the direction the Party is taking and how this is denying a voice to socialists and social democrats in the mainstream of British politics.

I am therefore appealing to disaffected ex-members to rejoin.

In particular, the party is saying nothing about the growing influence of big business in every aspect of our society and the withering away of democratic accountability in local and national government.

It is a process that began under Margaret Thatcher and has continued since.

Until recent years, the Labour Party had never contemplated market forces as a superior provider to the public sector in housing, health, education, transport and the protection of the environment.

The nightmare facing many party members is that privatisation dogma will result in little visible improvement after two terms of a Labour Government, and will just be a repeat of the failed policies of the Thatcher years.

The Labour Party does not belong on the centre right of British politics even if a broken-backed Tory Party has chosen to vacate it in favour of its extremists.

But without a strong and vigorous socialist membership, it will continue to be led from the front in a direction that will leave a vacuum that will be filled on the streets.

PETER NIELSEN,

Chairman,

North Worcester Branch

Labour Party.