THE THOUSAND miners at Coventry colliery in Warwickshire were virtually solid when they went out on 24-hour last Wednesday in support of five of their work The five went to an industrial tribunal after being victimised for supporlilig the Not sycar-song strike. They won their case with the tribunal, but the Coal Board refused reinstate them. obvious that the Coal Board does not want to take back miners who defended their communities fought for their jobs.
One of the victimised miners, Dennis Evans said: 'none us thought that we would get so much support for what we were doing This was the first over reinstatement country. shows that we were wanted the lads. The DaLk was supported who worked throughout the year-long shows that coventry Dil Ipe only Warwickshire pit which militancy is still strong.
The industrial tribunal compensated the men, but the Coal Board is under no obligation to give them their jobs back.
Colin Wall and Nev Beli, two otnel sacked miners from the pit, said, *e want our was base.
The issue is reinstatement we wit lose our pensions. It would be like we just started on the job. in This information in this box was compiled from the June/July pilot issue of Pitwatch, 9 Poland St, London WI Scotland TWO HUNDRED and two miners have been Albert Wheeler, until TECHLY IC DEERI Area director, has refused to reinstate any miners.
tcher and the anti-soci Photo: JOHN HARRIS WHAT DO you think will be the key issues facing this year's conference? I think you've got to start. with two sides of the picture. One is what's actually happening. The government is losing support very widely in the coun try because of the policies they are pursuing.
Therefore there is a genuine desire, and belief, possibility government. think movement's feeling is that we have moral responsibility to do everything we can to win. That's the first thing.
I think the second thing is that there are issues we've got to be clear about. We must stick by the miners. We must by Liverpool and Lambeth counSACK cil. We must stick by our own people.
My guess would be - I can l forecast exactly but my guess would be — that there would be very widespread support at the conference for a resolution of the type put to the TUC on the miners — whatever the NUM come forward with. There will be a strong commitment to Liverpool and Lambeth.
I think if you look a bit further ahead, as the prospects of the election get nearer, we've got to ask ourselves very clearly what we're going to say to the new appeal which the establishment are promoting, that we want a hung pallanel.
I think we've got to say to people quite openly what a hung parliament would mean. It would mean a paralysed parliament. I would mean compromises and shifts. It would mean that power would rest where it does rest with the civil service, anyway media, the companies, the banks and so on.
We've got to warn people against a hung parliament. The reason that this is important is that the hung parliament is the end product Thatcherite' campaign.
If you say we must concentrate on Thatcher, and say we've all got to have an alliance against ¡natcher, you ic playing for a hung parliament. And a hung parliament would not give us the power to do what needed to be done.
A couple of other aspects stand out — if I review the whole area. We've got to think very very carefully about what would happen when a Labour government is elected. What pressures would be put upon it, how it would deal with what its would be with the banks, the city, the multinationals, how we'd cope with the treaty of Rome, what would happen vis a vis the Americans and so on.
something I would call preparing for victory.' The last point, which is on the agenda, and which is of great importance, is about the nature of the party itself.
Because with all the problems we've had in the past, and all the disappointments there have been, the Labour Party is the only vehicle for social transtormation. It potentially contains within itself everybody who would be needed to make that transformation. But it is too narrowly based.
Therefore the question of black sections, the question of women's rights, the question of further affiliations, the question of undemocratic expulsions — which is an attempt to narrow down our base still further — all these are on the agenda. I think the conference, if it is to be successful, will need to give a lead and come to clear decisions on all these matters.
İ don't think anyone wants a personal attack on others. I don't think the personality side is whatever in internal party politics, any more than it has any relevance in external party politics. we say has got to be a principled presentation of a point of view.
That means there are no circumstances between ye Labour, No circumstances whatever.
We talk about the Alliance but the only true alliance is the Owen-Thatcher We've got to be clear on what we are about. We're there to protect our people. And you cannot protect your people if you dilute your policy in an agreement. That was what paralysed us during the Lib-Lab pact tributed very substantially to our defeat in 1979.
I think that if we'd said we are going to Dul forward our policies, anyone brings us down they election on the issue on which they brought us down, then we'd have done much better in the subsequent election the than by going along with a diluted policy, and disillusioning our own people.
There seems to be two contradictory processes in British politics. On the one hand there is no doubt that there are right the Tories sind the SP pressures merely from the but within the labour movement. The EETPU and AUEW are consolidated right wing forces. But on hand you have consolidated left wing minority, but at the same time are much more combative than anything we've seen for a long time.
How do you see the situation?
I think there's something in that. But when you look back at the post-war Labour government it wasn't a minorty of right wing trade union leaders, it was a majority union leaders.
During the Gaitskell years, which I remember very well, the parliamentary leadership was a very right wing leaderendless ship. And it was protected ference after the antirelations That is Socialist Action 27 September 1985 praetorian guard of right wing trade union leaders. So I think you have to have a reasonable historical sense. relevance the labour movement may be a minority strain. But I don't think it is. I think Therefore whatever that it's a majority strain. But I don' think that the majority of people in the Labour Party what's tended to be a very personalised form of left critique. agreement the deed repelled, by the idea that the left's who's betrayed us and identify them distrust of all personalities in politics, 'look, if you're telling us to back the miners we're with you', 'if you're tellment, that's millions of new jobs, we're COll pointing the finger of scorn at whoever the last person is to have shifted to the and if right, then we're not with you. And if face an you're asking us to engage in an interHow do you assess the significance of what happened in Handsworth?
I think Handsworth is an example of the end product of Tory policies. It's a day the riots broke out in Handsworth 'bankrupt, and disquality the Lambetn the other the media covers things. They absolutewhich are now ly ignore pressing problems. I think only thirty out of two hundred and eighty and articles in the papers examine it.
of right wing trade at condriven out of political life, ing played a large part in it.
Community policing, clever policing, send at now used in Handsworth these factors come togetner Tory Party up Steel, Thatcher alliance. the wets, know something has tional situation. ment about South Africa?
DAVE big investor in South Africa is to present You say that the radicalisation of something that doing something using crude language. would go along with Because the will to win, plus the against individuals then government decided to surcharge, West Indian youth in Handsworth hac been able to get jobs in the last twelve It's only when you have a riot that miners, What Handsworth shows is what we know. That if a democratic, socialist, labour movement political alternative abolished, if the Metropolitan councils capping's introduced, councillors are hounded and tempts are made to destroy the miners — if you try to remove the democratic option then you will get, put crudely, People don't plan a riot. A riot is the product of a straw that breaks the I think there is no doubt that policwhich is no solution to the problem but which is was abandoned favour of the riot type policing. And if force whenever anything happens — practiced in northern Ireland, in the miners?
- then all What it indicates to me is why the and the establishment are terrified of Mrs Thatcher. Because at a certain stage if this got out of control then they think there might be, as there would be, an overwhelming landslide to Labour. So that's why they're building building up Owen, building up the antiBecause the purpose of the hung parliament, the coalition, proportional representation, the SDP and so on, is to fend off a Labour victory. But they gol change because riots of this kind really are very, very frightening to a government. Just to take some aspects of the internaWhat do you think needs to be done by the labour moveI think you have to step up the pressure for a break in diplomatic relations and I think you also have to relate it to what's happening at home. Britain is a - because they've made a big profit out of it.
One of the most hypocritical things as if it were the 'Afrikaners' were the blacks. It's actually we're doing to the black! with the help of the Afrikaners - I'm It's a British problem as well. If you were to tackle it properly you would have to tackle the way in which capital in Britain has made a profit here and were keeping ine trade umolis where bigger profits could has been exported from every man, woman and child in Britain since Mrs Thatcher came to power. It means you tighten your belt in accordance with what the Treasury say, and make a profit for your employer, and he sends it to South Africa. He then brings it back as dividends which he gets I think a lot of our arguments now burns £207 million worth of food. They spend £500 million on the Falklands They decided to highlight their hostility Defender' exercise — and expel Soviet people from the London embassy. Because when you connect otnerwise disconnected issues they come together in a way that gives people a new percepI think apartheid should be put in its proper connection, and linked to the fact that Namibia provides the uranium to go into the nuclear power stations that the government wants to build, out of which comes the plutonium that goes warhead that goes to Greenham Com1918 the cold war and so on. If you can con nect these up — and it's not a difficult an envelope in which your argument is contained which registers with people we've got to do is get rid of Mrs Thatcher and all our problems are solved."
That has tended to be the way in which some of these arguments are presented. That is a great danger because it ends support for what you want to do therefore no • backing when From the criticised and pressurised from boardrooms.
One very sharp issue at this year's cor ference will be over the question of black sections. How do you see that? I'm one hundred per cent in favour o black sections. When you look back at when the laborty wat founded in its modern form -trade unions and the Independen were affiliated. Paol Zion affiliated later, , as did the Fabian Society. . You can see that what happe ed in '1918 was that the progressiv forces of one type or another, togethe with the unions, came together to forn a socialist party If you had a founding, or refour ding conference now, which i think w should have, then obviously the bia sections would be a part of it. might find Indian Workers Association would want to affiliate women would demand greater righti progressive groups migh want to affiliate Many so called 'registered' group which were only invented in order t justify expulsions, would be recognise as legitimate strands of opinion, an would be affiliated.
at some stage Labour Party will have to bring itse into line with the nature of the suppo which it wants by changes in its ow constitution. Of that I'm pretty sure You stressed very much the necessity t link issues at present. There have bee quite a lot of attempts by people t create different types of organisatio on the left of the Labour Party at th present time. How do you see those And how do you see the role of th Campaign groups of MPs in relation those?
It's a good question because during th deputy leadership thère was the Rank and File Mobilisin Committee set up, grouping of people around a particul question: to follow up the electoral col lege with a candidate who was commil ted to party policy. That ended with th hairsbreadth defeat the 1981 ference.
There are a wnole range organisations in existence trying to d this.
My own view is that the best way t unite people on the left is around issue I think that if you are campaigning fo something Cycl depi leadership was a discrete issue in th sense that it was a campaign that ende with a particular vote and that explai
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Socialist Action 27 September 1985 "THIS calls on the next Labour government to break off He dELIN South Africa and impose economic sanctions until jailed last year. Torture is widespread prison conditions horrific.
• The policy 'constructive disengage-
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- large scale sackings
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