The national executive wavered. After first declaring that a national ballot was unnecessary it decided to call off the strikes that were due to start and go for a ballot the necessary 55 per cent was not reached. The Welsh miners had 1,200 lobbyers campaigning throughout the coal fields for a yes vote.
Whatever criticisms can be made of the tactics of the executive no one can claim that a lead was not given or that the issues were not clear. Indeed Thatcher went out of her way to raise the stakes by her lavish McGregor as the best person to rationalise the coal industry.
In no other union and in no other industry has such a clear lead been given in the recent past. But they voted no.
The reasons why lie outside the NUM. Of course, there were particular reasons for not fighting now: It is not the best time of year. There are huge coal stocks.
But the NUM anticipated this by promising that '... we would not sit around waiting for coal stocks to dwindle. dispute straight to the relevant point. We would also call on the other unions.
Nor was the issue confined to the future of one pit. The NUM made clear that the fight was about EEC plans for the re-structuring of the European coal industry, involving the closure of pits in peripheral areas including Wales and Scotland, concentration eventual privatisation.
EXPLANATION It is at the level of the leadership of the labour movement as a whole that the explanation for the ballot defeat is to be found.
The problem is not what Arthur Scargill did or did not do inside the NUM.
The leaders have failed to organise the forces at the base of the labour movement to deal with the right wing, The NUM vote, the Tatchell vote in Bermond sey, Benn's vote for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in the unions show that there is a large minority in the working class who will consistently. support left policies, against the Tories and are prepared to confront the sell-out policies of the right wing.
Scargill and Benn have not so far organised this minority for a fight across sectoral lines.
Inside the NUM the left is regrouping for a fight around the strategy that puts the interests miners and the working class before those of multi-national capital. the witch hunt, fighting for socialist policies in the manifesto.
It means controlling the block vote, man dating delegates to TUC and Labour Party con ferences, fighting to remove the right wing.
Broad Lefts are beginning to be built in the unions which take up the main policy issues -machines. The miners' vote has shown that sea Broad machines. toralism is dead; the relying on gut militancy is a thing of the past.
Understanding that the right wing leadership of the labour movement is a problem affecting every sector is a precondition for advance. This. is the new challenge that the left, strong and active minority in the class, must take up.
The future of the whole class depends on how we take up this challenge.
Socialist Action 18 March 1983: 12