Photo: MORNING STAR THE TALKS between the NUM and the coal board should not be treated as the end of the miners' As Mark mented published his obituary 'reports of my death are premature.
Despite the the strike now faces, question of the NUM signing an unconditional after 11 months large sections of the union are not broken, both the government NCB are well aware of it.
Thatcher's retreat from mand that the NUM give a written undertaking before talks could start is a clear ins accept dication that total victory is not on the agenda. In addition to the issue uneconomic pits, question of the 600 miners who have been sacked in the course of the strike, whom the NCB has reinstated and whom the NUM will be determined to protect.
Willis and Kinnock will continue to bleat that Thatcher 'contradicts the best conventions of character'. Bul me lask labour movement is not pleading for peace on behalf of the miners but mobilising the greatest possible support for the miners during the talks.
This means building for the 11 February day of action and for the 24 February demonstration in London, and continuing that has been built up in the last 11 HORERS. Every section of the movement should now be strengthening their links with the miners.
Whatever the outcome of the talks — and agreement is by no means certain - these links will be crucial in the battle that will open up in the labour movement The Sunday Times editorial put the matter in a nutshell, in a comment on Kinnock's attacks on Thatcher.
'The Labour leader's absurd public blusterings fool nobody, least of all the hard left activists they are designed to appease. They know, as does everybody else who thinks politics, that Mr Kinnock owes the prime minister a debt of gratitude for being determined to defeat Mr Arthur Scargill clearly and decisively.
If Mr Scargill were able to claim victory then Mr Kinnock's difTwain comnewspaper difficulties that there is no surrender. Even the the declosures of there will be the said will not the British facing the CaNs the solidarity when the strike is over.
about ficult task of turning his party into a credible alternative to would be gone ever; moderates and the Kinnock soft left would be swept aside as a triumphant Mr Scargill spread the message that militancy and mob action pay.
Exactly SO. through Healev through to Hammond, the Labour leadership has feared a victory for the miners much much tory for Thatcher. general council sabotages sions of TUC congress, and why they attack picket line violence.
Sabotage They are as determined as ever to adopted at the '83 congress. that there can be a peaceful accommodation with the Tories remains the The Labour Party and the trade union movement they seek to develop British ruling class. In the context of the present economic crisis such a course is disastrous for the labour movement. he lorv government wil not reduce its attacks on the working 'damaging and costly' disputes.
On the contrary, they with increased ferocity. Rail and local government are the next in line for the Tory axe, and the welfare state will face even deeper cuts. The Tories are accommodation organised labour. They destrov it.
The mobilisation of the forces of the state in the miners' strike should leave no doubt on that score. saturation policing of the coal fields, the unprecedentea legal allacks, and the attempts to split winch will be used again.
They will not be stopped by the hypocrisy of Kinnock or the cowardice of Willis.
The miners' strike has clearly shown that, for the labour movement, these are the enemy within. Integral to the struggle against the Tories in the next period will be the against the labour traitors. The righ will lollow their treacherv miners with an attack on the left in the drive business unionism, and a Labour ParTories Kinnock Willis more than a vicThis is why the will continue.
the declthe left LouISC in Neil and Duffy. promise Focus with out to the Hills.
The midable eliminated.
the NUM are oppressed.
demonstrate Lne working class. towards cities. ty that will be fit for a possible coalition with the SDP-Liberal Alliance Such a course will demand the crushing of the left in the party and the unions. But those sections of the press and of the labour leadership think that the miners are crushed and defeated al C premature obituaries.
The miners' strike has hardened and clarified the left. There are few on the left now who have any illusions Kinnock the dream ticket. Fewer still think that Willis and Basnett will be allies of the left against the hard right of Hammond In the course of the strike it has become clear that the line of divide within the movement is between a leadership which will stand and fight and those whose policy is For shameful com The leadership which has emerged in the course of the strike has become the focus for all sections of the oppressed in Britain.
The alliance which was seen at the Labour Party conference, between the black sections. women, Irish activists, and those who will fight to defend the cities is a forIt will not be easily Throughout the country miners are joining the Labour Party with the clear intention of settling accounts with the labour traitors - with the intention of turning the Labour Party into a real party of Labour, a party that is a coalition of all sections of the The Tory assault on the working the next period increasingly layers that only a policy of class struggle will defend the interests of the The attack on British Rail funds. on the closed it.
mand a leadership leadership.
who in the support writing of the coming struggle. the enemy within either take anti-union laws.
fighting for and for accountability.
the closed political funds.
has te address will deveioping = soverei: wide ibe the labour movement which stands and fights.
The struggle against the enemy within, through forging an alliance of the oppressed, can produce such a The movement that has been thrown up by the miners' strike, the womens committees. the activites in the unions and the Labour Party, and the thousands of miners who have fought for the last eleven months and continue to fight, will be the vanguard The task now for the left is to continue support for the NUM, to build the days of action and the 24 February . to keep the money coming in. It is also to deepen the political battle, to settle accounts with In the unions this will mean campaigning between now and the union conferences to put the leadership's ac tions in the miners' strike on the agenda of conference, so that those who failed the miners can be called to ac. count. It will mean fighting any move government money for ballots, and any move to accept the We must also prepare for the next TUC congress and the moves by the new realists even further to the right. In the Labour Party it will mean positive action, for reselection, against any witch-hunts, Above all, it will mean fighting for mass action to defeat the attacks on local government, in support of al workers in struggle, and in defence of Against the backsliding of the right, it will mean fighting for action against the anti-union laws, and campaigning for the Finally. it will mean that the left issel! to the task of programme in
THE RIGHT-WING leaders of the NottinghamSocialist Action 1 February 1985 policy conflict, national