Labour Party conference gives massive support to miners
However, the left wing remains critically confused on a number of decisive issues. In particular, after a muddled debate on the question of defence policy, delegates went on to adopt a policy document which simultaneously seemed to promise unilateral disarmament and reaffirm Labour's commitment to contin-
Britain's Labour Party meeting in annual conference in Blackpool on
October 1, gave overwhelming support to the miners' strike.
welcomed Arthur Scargill, the left-wing president of the National Union of Mineworkers, with a standing ovation, before going on to pledge solidarity and condemn 'unlawful action by the police' against miners'
However, at the end of the day's debate dramatic scenes ensued when
Scargill was served with a legal writ by a private detective requiring him to appear before a judge who had ruled that the miners' strike was illegal.
After an emergency meeting of his union's executive, Scargill declared that he would defy the writ, even if it meant imprisonment.
Steve ROBERTS
The debate on the miners' strike was the major issue on the conference agenda.
In the week preceding the conference frantic efforts had been made by the Labour Party's leader, Neil Kinnock, to reany mention of police violence from the wording of the motion. However, the miners refused to alter the wording of their leader's motion, thus embarrassing Kinnock, who has made frequent
'from all sides without singling out the responsibility of the police for initiating the violent scenes that have ensued on picket lines through-
In his speech to the conference Scargill emphasised this point.
suffered from attacks on the picket lines from a state police force armed with full riot gear,' he said. 'Yes, we have violence.
State violence against miners whose only crime is to fight for the right to work!'
He went on to say that the appointment of Ian MacGregor, the American businessman who was appointed by Margaret Thatcher to decimate Britain's steel and mining industry, was 'a blatant political decision designed to provoke the
National Union of Mineworkers.'
Scargill went on to confront the main economic argument put forward by the coal board employers and the government in the strike on the necessity to close
"There are no uneconomic pits. There are only pits which have been deliberately starved of investment by successive gov-
Not all those who spoke in the debate supported the miners,
Hammond, the right-wing general secretary of the electricians' union said that the conference should condemn the violence of hooligans on the picket lines. By this
Hammond meant pickets.
Rank and file delegates at the conference representing both unions and local parties loudly heckled Hammond when he implicitly backed the call for a ballot in the miners' union on the strike
A massive round of applause went to Tony Benn, the leader of Labour's left wing, who was supporting the motion on behalf of the party's national executive. Benn attacked Margaret Thatcher for having masterminded the dispute and authorised the harassment of miners by the
Kinnock chose not to speak in the debate on the miners. However, the following day he delivered a speech which the whole of the media had bayed for after the conference vote.
Maintaining his equal-handed approach Kinnock said, 'I condemn the violence of the stone throwers and the battering-ram carriers, and I condemn the violence of the cavalry charges and of the truncheon squads.' Kinnock went on to call for the party to respect legality if it was to win the next election.
However, this approach was explicitly rejected by delegates when it came to the debate on local government. Tory government measures aim to cut local expenditure on social services. In order to defend these services Labour councils will have to break the law. Confronting Thatcher's laws
Noting the contradiction between the stand of conference and Kinnock's position, the leader of the local government manual workers' union, Rodney Bickerstaffe, turned to the Labour leader during the debate saying, 'it is not a question of which laws we break, Neil, but those which we obey'
The continuing strength of the left inwas demonstrated by delegates' decision to reject a measure sponsored by Kinnock which would have taken the question of reselection of the party's sitting MPs out of the hands of the rank and file leadership of the party membership in Nato. document, influenced by the proponents of 'non-nuclear defence' contradicted Labour's usual policy of defence cuts by promising increased spending on conven-
The issue of violence and respect the law also remains a critical blind struggles by trade unionists have run int legal obstacles promoted by the govem ment and the employers.
Just as the Labour conference gathering, police arrested occupying the Cammel Laird shipyard in the northwest of England following a judge's ruling. There was no widespread protest in the labour movement.
Neither was the left of the labour movement strong enough to prevent the betrayal of the printers' union, the NGA. by the trade-union bureaucracy shortly before the miners' dispute started, on the basis that the trade-union movement should not break the law, by supporting them in their fight against the Tory gorerment's anti-trade union legislation.
This issue is likely to become central in the next period of the miners' strike. A number of legal cases brought by scab miners against their own union has resulted in the strike being declared illegal. There is a real possibility that the courts, on the backdoor urging of the government, may seize the assets of the union. Seizure of the miners' union's assets has already taken place in South Wales. Such a move against the national union would present a clear challenge to the paper support offered to the dispute so far by
Trades Union Congress. Such a step could only be adequately met by a general strike called by the whole trade-
As the winter draws near in Britain, and coal stocks at power stations become run down, the pressure is on the government to end the dispute quickly. pressure has been increased by the decision of the 17,000 strong miners' supervisors union, NACODS, to strike unless the coal employers pay them during the course of the dispute and find a resolution for the pit closure issue.
government, having spent nearly £2 billion on the dispute (more than it spent on the Malvinas War), is determined not to compromise, considering the strike a 'worthwhile investment' if it smashes up the miners' union. their part, after having made so many sacrifices over the course of their seven
International Viewpoint October 15, 1984
month-old strike, the miners are equally determined not to settle for anything less than complete victory.
Increasingly commentators are drawing parallels with the 1926 general strike in Britain. Then the miners struck and the government provoked the trade-union movement into a nine-day general strike. The strike was called off by the TUC when victory could have been gained. The miners went on for another six months by themselves before the final defeat.
In its political, legal and military preparations, the government is obviously prepared for a similar confrontation today.
What is less clear is the state of preparedness of the labour movement. However, the miners themselves are prepared for such a central confrontation, and have few illusions in the role of the trade-union and Labour Party leadership. A left wing can be built around the miners which, taking its example from their struggle, can defeat a government that has been greatly discredited by its inability to resolve the dispute.
The victory of the miners at the Labour Party conference and the defeat of Kinnock and the right wing is another sign that such a left wing is taking shape.
Socialist Action, the British revolutionary Marxist weekly paper, has called international meeting to discuss the miners' dispute. Rank and file miners will be present from all over Britain and international delegations are warmly invited to attend The meeting will take place on October 20 in St. Helen's, Lancashire, England. Enquiries to Dick Withecombe (44) 061-223-4470.
A lot of Ardoyne people do not dare leave their houses for fear of being attacked or shot at by snipers. In accordance with its general practice, the British army has built a series of observation posts" around the ghetto. Every street is under surveillance.
"It's a prison without walls," Arthur said. He is another Yorkshire miner. "The people are besieged."
Wayne broke in:
"Every day people face their enemies eyeball to eyeball. The soldiers and the police break down the doors of the people here again and again. The living standard is very low. When the people throw bricks at the police and the British army, it is to protect themselves against their terror. It is to fight back, and to show that they want a free Ireland."
There is not a shadow of a doubt where the sentiments of these British workers - who have been fighting their own life or death struggle for half a year - lie. They are full of admiration for the work of the nationalist organizations