The miners' leaders responded sharply. In an interview with Socialist Action, a revolutionary Marxist weekly, Peter Heathfield, the National Union of Mine workers general secretary, said:
•We are disappointed we haven't re-
Labour Party leaders refuse full support for miners ceived the out-and-out support of the Labour Party leadership. I'm bewildered that they speak of a ballot as if they believed it would resolve the problem. It won't. Yorkshire men, Welsh men, Scotsmen and miners from the North East will not allow people working in profitable pits to deny them the right to miners have now been on strike against pit closures for nearly
The end of the second national docks strike has eased the on the government to settle the dispute.
miners' union president, charged that the government effectively sabotaged recent negotiations between the National Coal Board and the union. Now the strike seems set to extend into the winter.
The next battles will take place as the government tries to move coal reserves to the power stations.
The Trades Union Congress, the general confederation of British unions, which met at the beginning of September, pledged 'full support' to the miners. But a recent meeting of the unions representing power station workers produced nothing more concrete than proposals for 'discussions' with the miners.
Instead of promoting solidarity actions, the TUC leaders have instead devoted themselves to setting up new negotiations through the government sponsored arbitration service.
The next important labour movement gathering at which solidarity with the miners will be high on the agenda is the annual conference of the
Labour Party in Blackpool on October 1.
ty leadership will make the charge that the actions of the party leadership and of Neil Kinnock, the new leader of the Labour Party, have been at best equivocal and at worst counter-productive for the miners' cause.
All-out solidarity will be urged on the delegates present both from the unions and the party's rank and file.
For many labour movement activists the election of Neil Kinnock as leader of the Labour Party at the 1983 conference
Kinnock, the represented a new dawn.
son of a Welsh miner, had been traditionally associated with the left of the party.
Under his leadership many hoped that the bulk of the gains won by the left in terms of democratic reforms of the party constitution would remain intact and policy positions, like that of unilateral nuclear disarmament, would be defended.
There was mixed reaction to the simultaneous election of Roy Hattersley, a right winger, to the post of deputy leader, but the majority of the rank and file of the party and the overwhelming majority of the unions affiliated to the party regarded the new leadership as a 'dream ticket' — a team which would unite the party on the basis of its radical policies.
The miners' strike has been the most sustained test of the new leadership and the spirit of optimism generated by its election. The Labour Party National Executive Committee has adopted a position of full support for the strike reflecting the solidarity work being carried out at the rank and file level. But the parliamentary leadership of the party has refused to adopt a position of support for the miners' union actions, instead confining itself to 'agreeing' with the miners' case against pit closures, but joining with the government in condemning miners' actions at the most critical turning points
International Viewpoint 1 October 1984
Arthur Scargill, the Left-wing critics of the par-
The first issue posed in the strike was that of whether the miners' union should call a ballot of its members on the ques tion of national all-out action. previous attempts by the miners' union to mobilise its membership for action failed when ballots failed to produce the required 55 per cent for action.
So, when in March of this year the government proposed the closure of a pit in the powerful Yorkshire area of the union, the miners' leadership decided to leaderships to with the Yorkshire strikers, who sent out pickets to explain the case to the rank big majority of the unions 180,000 members responded to the ap-
But sections of the membership. especially in the important and profitable Nottingham area, demanded a national ballot before taking action. Public attacks on NUM
The Thatcher government then swung the entire resources of the media into action condemning the 'dictatorial' methods of the miners' leadership and demanding a ballot — a call that was supported by the National Coal Board, the miners' employers, and government ministers.
At first, Kinnock and the parliamentary leadership of the Labour Party remained silent. But as the press campaign reached a crescendo, Kinnock added his voice to the campaign for a ballot.
defend their jobs.
'Neil Kinnock's statement was pretty miserable - it amounted to a call for a
The Labour leadership should be calling on the government to intervene to redirect MacGregor to enable us to return to work and continue producing the coal this nation requires.'
Kinnock's statement also dismayed the thousands of Labour Party activists who were already building support for the strike. Within weeks of the strike being called, over 400 solidarity committees were being initiated at a local level all over the country, in the vast majority of cases the initiative coming from the left of the Labour Party.
That pressure from the base was re flected in the unprecedented action of the Labour National Executive which at its April meeting decided to levy all of its 270,000 members of the Labour Party at least 50 pence a week for the miners'
Jack Collins, the general secretary of the Kent miners, commenting on the contrast between the actions of the rank and file and the leadership says:
With regard to the Labour Party, I have to differentiate between the thousands of Labour Party members who have rallied behind us and leaders Hattersley and Neil Kinnock.
I would say that they're taking out insurance. They're saying these things now so that in the future, when they really want to come down hard on the miners, they can say they ve been consistent
'And to those Labour Party leaders who attack Arthur Scargill, I say that i wish those same people were as deter mined to implement Labour Party policy as Scargill is to implement NUM policy.'
The private attacks being made on Scargill by the Labour Party leadership were widely reported in the press. Kinwas credited with comparing the miners' leader to the First World War generals who squandered soldiers lives by sending them into senseless battles.
But such attacks were of little consequence compared with the increasing attacks on the actions of the miners' union. As the campaign for a national ballot petered out with the de cision of the miners' union April conference to reduce the required majority to 50 per cent, the media turned their exclusive preoccupation to the question of
Increasing amounts of scab coal were being used in steelworks all around the
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BRITAIN
In May, events reached a cliRavenscraig steelplant in the West of Scotland. railway workers reached an agreement to allow only the basic minimum of coal necessary into the plant. The reaction of press and government was frenzied, accusing the unions of hastening the closure of the plant, already under threat. Grass roots support
Again, in marked contrast with their reluctance to give support to the strike, to move Labour forward is to come out on the side of the miners, 100 per cent. And that means to join us on the picket lines and speak at our rallies.'
Kinnock's fears were proved in practice to be false. Labour made sweeping gains in both the local elections and the EEC elections in June. In both cases the most marked gains were made in those areas where the Labour Party was led by the left wing, who had led and supported the solidarity campaign with the miners. In Liverpool, for example, where the local Labour leadership had tied their fight to defend local services from govern-
"They know that public support is alienated by violence. They know that that's what being British means.'
In the interests of "being British', Kinnock has pursued his condemnation of the miners 'fighting to win'
In his first speech as Labour leader to the September TUC Congress, Kinnock was heckled by left-wing delegates as he denounced violence in the dispute.
He said, 'Violence distracts attention from the central issues in the dispute. It obscures the justice and the validity of the miners' case.'
At no stage has Kinnock explained the Labour leadership sprang into action. ment attack to the solidarity with the that the violence in the dispute arises Kinnock immediately sanctioned a statement by a shadow cabinet spokesperson calling on the unions to reconsider their
The statement was welcomed by the government and used extensively against the miners' union in the press.
The use of parliament by the Labour leaders to condemn the miners was in marked contrast to the reluctance to use parliament as a forum to put the miners'
Harry Cohen, a member of the 30-
'Campaign Group' of left-wing Labour MPs, said at this time to Socialist
*At grass roots level the constituencies are helping out in a big way. But there hasn't been enough support in parliament. The Labour front bench have shirked getting a proper debate on the dispute. There hasn't been one in the first 10 weeks of the strike.
*In desperation the Campaign Group tabled a resolution giving full support to the NUM in its justified dispute saying we have no confidence in the government's handling of it....This has been supported
"The Campaign Group has made all the pute at our weekly meetings, and regularly have miners' leaders along. imposed a £5 a week levy on our members, and have successfully fought for the whole parliamentary Labour Party to do
However, despite the activity of the left wing and increasingly violent attacks on the miners by the government, the Labour leadership continued with their even-handed approach to the dispute.
In private, Kinnock argued that the miners strike was doing the Labour Party great electoral damage. It was no accident that the Labour leaders' intervention against the blacking of coal at Ravenscraig came a few days before the local government elections.
But rank-and-file activists among the miners saw the question differently. As Colin Lenton of Bold NUM put it:
'Neil Kinnock should remember that he was elected with the full backing of the NUM, and without that support he wouldn't have got the job. He's sat on the fence worrying that to give us support would lose him popularity and votes to the Social Democratic Party (SP) in the Euro-elections.
'I say this to Kinnock: the only way miners, Labour won a landslide victory against their Tory and Liberal opponents.
The EEC elections provided an even clearer test since it took place after the pitched battles between police and miners at the Orgreave coke depot near Shef-
The battles at Orgreave, which resulted in hundreds of injuries for picketing miners as a result of North of Irelandstyle riot tactics by police, appeared night after night on British and international
However, the response of Kinnock was not to denounce these alarming innovations by the police, but to present the violence as being generated by both sides.
In an extensive interview on the subject in the Financial Times Kinnock said:
*The miners may be wrong, but they are not unreasonable. They are simply reacting to a situation created and fostered by the government; and their tactics are a mirror image of those of Mrs Thatcher and her supporters in their insistence that they are "fighting to win"
Kinnock went on to say that the British trade union movement differed from many of its European counterparts in that it had never resorted to systematic June 7 NUM rally in London (DR)
directly from the massive police operation which, in an effort to prevent the miners' picketing to defend their 'just and valid' case, spends £2 million per day in the coal fields with 20,000 men equipped with riot shields, batons, police horses and dogs.
Miners' leaders in their speeches call for replacing Thatcher with a government as loyal to the working class as Thatcher
However, Kinnock's line on the miners' strike is now attracting criticism from those who had been counted as his most ardent supporters. Fighting to win
In the Labour Party magazine, New Socialist, Peter Hain and Jean McCrindle, both members of the Labour Coordinating Committee which organised Kinnock's campaign for the leadership elec tion, criticise Kinnock for having 'allowed This obsession with violence to mutile [his ] support for the miners' cause.'
The very week after Kinnock's speech at the TUC the Tories seized on the opening provided to promise that miners convicted of violent offenses could face "life sentences' in prison. So far, nearly 5,000 miners have been arrested on the picket lines and many are still facing trial.
There is no doubt what is meant by this. Increasingly, the record of the Kinnock leadership is pointing to the necessity of the left wing, led by Tony Benn in the Labour Party and Arthur Scargill in the unions, organising and presenting an alternative to the vacillations and cowardice of the Kinnock/Hattersley team.
Such an alternative will take time and further experiences to build. Labour Party conference, Kinnock will still have sufficient support to reverse some of the most, important gains made by the left over previous years, both in terms of the constitution and the radical policies of the party.
It is unlikely that in the period before the next general election there will be a central challenge to Kinnock's leader-
Nevertheless, alliances are being forged at the rank-and-file level, between trade union and Labour activists, that can be the foundation for an organised left wing that will see 'fighting to win' as a positive virtue rather than a foreign vice.
International Viewpoint 1 October 1984
the basis that the miners are receiving strike pay, which they are not.
The self activity of the women and in particular, their role on the picket lines has had a massive impact within the labour movement. The National Union of