than any other seciton of the population.
That same process that saw an electoral swing to Thatcher among better-paid and skilled sections of the working class, concentrated in areas such as South East England, was reflected inside the trade union movement, moves to closer links with the policies of unions such as the EETPU and AUEW.
As for the low paid and unskilled, Thatcher had an answer for them as well. No economic concessions could be given. On the contrary they were to bear the main brunt of the Tory attacks. They were to be deprived of the workers down to low-paid black and woned worker ability LO deliver everybody.
So the move of the Tories to increase differentials within the working class also meant an attempt to shatter the unity of the Labour Party and the trade union movement.
At the electoral level this process started with a big swing worker votes away from Labour, to the Tories, in 1979. In the Labour Party itself, it was carried through by the split of Owen and Jenkins to form the SDP in 1981. The SDP subsequently captured a substantial part of Labour's 'middle class' and skilled workers vote in areas such the South South East in 1983. The culmination of such a move in the themselves would be a split in the TUC. In these circumstances, the major rows created by the AUEW and EETPU decongress decisions ballots are just a taste of things to CULIC A Indeed the final outcome of the present processes, and of Tory and SDP-Liberal policy, is easy to see. It would be to split the trade union movement into two separate federations. based on the EETPU-AUEW coupled with white-collar unions, would essentially be based on the higher-paid more-secure sections of the working class. would be far more 'apolitical' - that is right wing - than the present TUC, co-operation Labour and the SDP-Liberal Alliance.
The second federation would based on the unskilled and unions, more left wing and linked to The Tories would seek to cooperate with the former and smash the latter. The aim at every level would be to split the labour movement.
Such a division of the trade unions would of course be a catastrophe for the labour movement. There wouldn't be 10 millions members - the present membership of the TUC - divided into two federations. Millions of workers would leave the unions altogether. Such a split would be a means to achieve, would qualitative defeat of the working class. This is the scale of the attack the Tories have in mind.
There should be no alarmism, or belief that such events will move rapidly. The fact that the ruling class and the Tory Party have this project in mind, and their ability to translate it successfully into practice, are quite different things. But neither must there be any underestimation of the scale of the assault against the trade union movement — or the scope of what is to come over the next 10 years.
The left in Britain, including the left represented by Marxism Today, have consistently underestimated radicalism of Thatcher. The goal of the Тогу party and British concentrate resources within relatively privileged sections of the working class, and to mount a ferocious assault on the tremendous implications for the future and structure of the British trade union movement.
The labour movement is not confronted with a Tory Party tinkering at the edges. union attacks a series of random proposals. Such issues as ballots are only the beginning of the process.
What is decade is an attempt to change the enment - and to qualitatively weaken it The left in the labour movement must raise its sights to the full scope of what is taking place. Only then will it be able to develop a coherent strategy for dealright to fight back, through a ban on...ing with that situation.
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The next thing they're going to do -and I hope from the bottom of my heart that you are — will be to express from this conference total support for the African people fighting against I hope those leaders of the labour movoment who were arguing that the leaders of the NUM should condemn alleged violence by our members, recognise that Nelson Mandela has been in jail for 25 years because he vould not condemn his people to ighting for freedom. And I'll no condemn miners fighting for theirs Peter Heathfield said that the ad • MacGregor (in a recent Financial Times interview, that the strike had weakened the NCB) spelled ut quite a lot of the Board's thin But you don't need to go to th report of the National Coal Board, at their annual accounts — MacGregor writes that the miners' strike was a setback to the National Coal Board's policy and plans for the industry.
If there's a lesson for this con ference, it's that if we want to maintain our pits and jobs then what we did in '84-85 I believe we're inevitably going to have to do again. We were fighting, each and every one of us, against government policy — and we were and we are involved in a class I'll tell you why we're still on the Perspaper I tell overly the Coal pages Board, the government, big business, the media supporting breakaways in Notts; because they realise that the only way they can hope to win is to try and divide the National Union of Mineworkers and These super-democrats in Notts Mr Lynk and Mr Prendergast, they talk about election of officials. You heard BBC and ITV give them loads of airtime about Scargill having to Arthur Scargill: commentators at the time tried to say Heathfield, MeGahey and Scargill stand on this question: where we've stood. If our conference decides there should be periodic elecwe've always we are were stood: in favour of it. Why don't Lynk and Prendergast stand for elecThe lessons of this dispute were seen at the Orgreave trial - when in nocent young men were put on trial on frame-ups, when they were tak cen nto court because police lied an forged documents. Some of the scenes down there could almost be laughable, had it not been so serious, with many of our sons and many of our people in the community facing shire and all over the place. They cooked - deliberately - the information put into that courtroom in an attempt not only to put into jail an to find guilty miners, but also thi women who appeared on those picket lines during the course of the strike For the first time in the history of the British labour and trade union movement, women took their rightful place defending not the jobs of their men but defending their job, their pit and their otts area leadership have now Notts area said that Michael MeGahey Peter Heathfield, and Arthur Scargill have been banned from going into Not tinghamshire to speak. Twelve bran ches of the Notts area have invited u! by majorities ranging from 70 to 9: per cent. And on instruction from the area leadership in Notts they've been told to cancel the meetings.
The first one was tomorrow morning at Blidworth - they cancelled Scargill speaking at Blidworth. Well I've got news for them: I'm going to Blidworth.
I'd like to conclude my contribution to this magnificent conference not by trying to impose my views or to introduce my philosophy or that of the national leadership, but as so meone who has been at the forefront in this historic class war, I'd like to re mind each and every delegate and visitor here today that they've got an obligation far wider than any small divisions that may exist between you;
to cement those divisions, to come together in unity, to lift up your eyes, to look further afield than the present situation, to recognise the part you have to play in the ongoing fight to save this industry, to understand the role you have in fighting to maintain the National Health Service, the education system and the social services — to take into account the wider political role that you yourselves have created.
Above all else to say to yourselves that we have to win not only our fie against pit closures and job losses.
do not only have to have a united conference, but we have to create the conditions that we will need in the next general election to ensure the election of a Labour government pledged to real socialist policies.
I can give you a thousand reasons why we should follow that course of action. I'll restrict myself to two. You owe it to the memory of two of our lads who died fighting for those principles: Davy Jones and Joe Green.
Go from this conference united.
Together we will win.
Socialist Action 30 August 1985 making quite strong financial surpluses.
This development-
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IT to see it written in glossy terms. All you have to do is to look at the annual