ACTION SociAlist NUM day's delegate conference.
The refusal OI the NUM to sign an agreement, to become complicit in pit closures, means that unc ers relurt lo work in a much more favourable situation than, for example, the workers in British Leyland or British Steel -MacGregor's previous two victims. There the leaderships accepted the agreements effectively policed the run down of the industries.
The NCB tried to force same role the NUM. It failed Of course the NCB will try to move rapidly now to stamp its authority on the coalfields: to isolate militants, restructure industry, and impose its spurious criteria of protitability. MacGregor has already announced he will continuing with the closure programme.
But the miners under Scargill better position to rebuild for a fightback than the steel workers were under Sirs or for that matter the miners would be under another Joe Gormley. This is what makes the Scargill leadership different from anything that has existed in the British labour movement for 60 years. That is, ≥jan intransigent determinlation to stand and fight on the basic issues.
That determination tumed strike into a that welded the into § struggle layer whose growth i and development will continue period.
The blame for the defeat does not lie with the NUM leadership The mining communities have given the greatest example of struggle in the history of the British working class Responsibility for the defeat lies with the leadership of the TUC and the Labour rarty As Mick McGahe kinds cadet round the table': the honourable ones who had tried to deliver support and succeeded, the honourable ones who had tried deliver support and failed ansnonourable ones who had never tried.
The last are in a clear majority the TUC There is no room in the offices of the TUC for a leadershin that stands and fights for its members' interests The NUM's refusal to allow the TUC to take over the dispute was correct. The decisions of the September congress to give 'total support' to the miners were sabolagea Dy Willi and the majority of the general council The TUC, no doubt, will use as an excuse the clause that support particularly in particularly had to bewer agreement with the unions concerned' that from the beginning the general counci have beer more afraid of a Scargill than a Thatches victory To cap it all there can be few more despicable incidents in the history of the British labour movement than the TUC using last week's talks to bring them closer to the coveralcul The TUC's treachery is all the greater realises just little effort was needed to brins power cuts and win the dispule. As few as eight ot the major power stations had to be stopped to bring nationwide cuts. This was well within TUC's Instead, along with innock and Hattersley, concentrated attacking the NUM for sotrade union movement. ir Britain, with a few honourable exceptions, has left this union isolated. The have not carried out TUČ congress decisions, to their eternal shame.
From Willis through to Hammond, and Kinnock through to Healey. the labour leaders have clearly to lead the labour movement.
In the present crisis the working needs leadership that will stand fight. The miners' has ariven LO1S understanding deep into the unions, the Labour Party, and all sections of the oppressed in struggle. That is the permanent gain this dispute, and the greatest guaraniet avolding future setbacks The centre and right of the TUC and Labour Party will undoubtedly • 1 natener s viciory as ar Photo: JOHN STURROCK (Network)
occasion to try and crush the left in the movement They want the defeat of the miners to be, as CLOC Observer put it last 'the making of Neil Kinnock'. And now Kinnock has announced his opposition to amnesty for sacked miners.
For the labour movement, such a strengthening of Kinnock would be disaster. It would consolidate leadership that betrayed the miners - one that couldn't fight its way our ol a wer baver Dad.
But Kinnock will not have an easy task. The miners' strike has brought into being a class struggle Jave and leadership Britain which is thousands SLOS organised throughout the movement It has opened a period o radicalisation and politica suruzue or a kino nor see! in Britain since the 1920 It is a radicalisation that will deepen The task now is to organise that left to throw out the traitors. It requires a programme for a government as loyal to our class and a fight for the Labour adopt such a programm We need a leadershi that Will follow the example of the miners in resisting the attacks on the working For the working class there is no other road no matter how long it takes Arthur Scargill put it very well: 'It is on struggles such as ours that democracy itself depends. Our fight will go on.
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tat the December TH general council, there were