ACTION SCOTLAND IS leading the way in solidarity action for the miners. The Scottish TUC on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a day of action, including strike action, on May Day. Moving the resolution Mick McGahey called for this to be a day of strike action on 1 May - May Day.
All over the country the labour movement should follow Scotland's lead. Make May Day a real workers' festival behind the miners!
THE DECISION of last week's magnificent NUM executive meeting in Sheffield has given the labour movement its greatest opportunity since the Thatcher government was elected five years ago.
Despite the press campaign and the police intimidation the strike has been getting stronger every week. There is a clear majority for a national strike — even the press is forced to admit this now. If this week's NUM rule change goes through that will allow the majority view to be expressed with or without a ballot.
The serious press — the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph — already admit that Thatcher has lost the first phase of the war.
But what happens now depends entirely on the response of the rest of the labour movement.
Thatcher is prepared to try to sit out the strike indefinitely. She is willing to sacrifice hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of pounds to win. The f200 million the NCB has already lost is peanuts compared to what Thatcher would give to defeat the NUM. The government's tactics are simply and solely to starve the miners into submission. To exhaust the NUM before it can close down the power stations, shut industry, and force the government to surrender — as the miners have the power to do.
Thatcher has every reason to be worried. Just look at what's coming up behind the miners to take on Thatcher. • Every sign is that Labour is going to win a huge electoral victory in Liverpool on 3 May — which will put the council and the city in a better position than ever before. • With the economy slowly making an upward turn workers at British Leyland and other firms will be trying to take revenge for the defeats and humiliations of the last five years. • Even some weaker sectors such as teachers are showing new militancy.
All this means for Thatcher that she must win the strike. If she doesn't it is the end of the credibility of her government and much of its ability to intimidate workers.
The Scottish TUC has shown the way with its resolution for financial support and a day of solidarity strike action in Scotland. The rest of the British labour movement must follow Scotland's example. It only needs a determined push by the Labour and trade union movement and the backbone of this government's policies can be broken. Because if the NUM can hold out it has the industrial muscle to bring the government to its knees. But exactly because so much is at stake the struggle will be long and bitter. What matters now is solidarity above all.
Solidarity to raise money to alleviate the incredible financial hardship of the strike.
Solidarity to stop the movement of coal and shorten the strike Solidarity strike action that could crush the government's resistance in days.
Solidarity that now makes support for the miners strike the number one priority for the activity of every trade union and Labour Party in the country.
Thanks to the leadership of the NUM the labour movement has it within its grasp to break the back of the most hated and reactionary government for half a century. It must take it with both hands.
The labour movement must have one key slogan in the hard weeks battles to come:
All out on May Day!
All out with the miners for victory!
Socialist Action 20 April 1984 TEN MONTHS ago, when Thatcher won the general election, capitalist press thought they could succeed in marginalising the Labour left in British politics.
They were joined in that by Neil Kinnock, the Labour Coordinating Committee, the Guardian, Marxism Today and the New Statesman. All merrily set about burying the Labour left and exorcizing the ghost of what they chose to call Bennism more than one person anyway.
La whole section of the although Labour's left was always far • The urgently D. MAN STAR
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SOCiAList ACTiON resurgent left