[by groups of unemployed women and hlacks "We'd…]

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by groups of unemployed women and hlacks

"We'd like to see the march led marchers that if disobedience continued, the March would be halted.

So there was little internal democracy. When, after the death of Bobby Sands some marchers wore black armbands, they were ordered to remove them.

On the Liverpool leg the marchers were more successful and were able to elect their own stewards. A constant problem was the attempts to stop the marchers linking up with anti-redundancy struggles.

Twice the Ansell workers were prevented from addressing rallies, while the likes of Roy Hattersley and Mathers held forth, speaking volumes for the organisers' priorities. In Sheffield the Plansee convenor was refused permission to speak from the platform because, it was argued, the local bishop, also down to speak, didn't like strikes!

The youth on the Eastern leg who had been chanting 'What do we want? The Right to Work. How do we get it? Organise, Occupy, Kick the Tories Out' were in the end reduced to chanting in answer to the second question 'We're not allowed to say!' But that's ridiculous. What kind of politics did the organisers have?

Basically those of the Communist Party and the Stalinist-influenced section of the Labour Left. You get a lot of left junior bureaucrats who think like that. They wan't to go place. Jack Dromey thinks that if Norman Willis, Muraay's No. 2, takes over in a year or two, then Jack will be TUC general secretary in 1990.

Peter Carter told the big job on your hands.".

Dromey told Tribune "some on the left may criticise the People's March for being too broad. We utterly reject this. We want to see socialism in Britain, but we are not going to see socialism unless we reach out and persuade the centre ground in British politics to join us."

Peter Carter retorts in the CP magazine Challenge that as far as unemployment is concerned, "the middle classes are also teeling the effect, with students, professional people, executives and small businessmen being unable to find work. The march will unite these people behind a call on the government to make full employment its first priority."

That's why it's called a People's March and not a workers' march, why Peter Carter could state "Tespect the views of: the Churches" .. and why respecting those views meant that the Plansee convenor was not allowed to speak.

But don't we want the support of everybody regardless of colour, creed or class? I know people like Cyril Smith supported the 1981 march and also building companies like Tyson. Doesn't every little bit help?

First off, while the kind of people you talk about gave some support it was minimal.

The March was organised, built and sustained by the working class. But, despite the fact that the Cyril Smiths and the bishops gave little real support to the March, and none at all in terms of reducing unemployment, the organisers were so thankful for the respectability that they. trimmed the basis of the march to what Liberals and vicars would find acceptable.

In this kind of alliance, workers always do the donkey work while the middle class call the tune.

Yes, we need a broad front. Thousands and thousands of employed and unemployed workers did not support the 1981 March. Shouldn't we be concentrating on getting their support?

What about ensuring that when the 1983 march comes rolling through each town, every single worker downs tools to welcome them. Isn't the real broad front one between unemployed and employed workers? What have Tysons done to help the working class movement? I bet you a pound to a penny they donate to Tory Party funds. I know that if there was an upturn in the building trade, Peter Carter would find them trying to weaken trade unions, and sacking workers once the downturn came again.

Our interests are different to those of Tysons. They can't help because it's their system that causes unemployment and it is they who do the sacking.

In 1983 we've already got CP members and Bob Litherland MP saying that what is required 'is a broad movement like CND":

But CND is not already based on the unions like the People's March is. Our jot is to take CND into the unions. What the CP argue is that we should dissipate the strengths the People's March already has by taking it into the middle class and saying "If you support us, we'll just say what you want. We won't criticise your system at all. We'll pretend unemployment is something you can catch like flerpes.

Imports

Wasn't the last march also based on calling for import controls? Wasn't there s 'buy British' policy amongst the organisers?

That's right. But import controls are no answer to the problem of unemployment. Like the Tysons business, they can lull some workers into believing that the gaffers are not the enemy, foreign workers are.

At March Moss Evans was saying about the bosses' failure to call for import controls: "We take the view that the CBI ought to end its silence and represent the interests of its members properly'!

Import controls will be met by retaliation in other countries and this will reduce the standard of living of British workers.

But that's not the point.

They increase nationalism, unite us with the bosses, and divide us from our brothers and sisters in other lands.

You've painted a fairly black picture of the last People's March and the prospects for this one.

I don't want to do that, but we are looking at what the problems were last time so that we can try to draw the lessons this year.

There was another side to it. There was constant tension between the rank and file marchers and the organisers. One of the great perils of a march is it brings workers, particularly the youthful, together.

As in some of the examples I have given, the rank and file were constantly chafing at the bit. Thousands demonstrated, hundreds struck, as the March went through each town and city.

The way the TUC left struggles like Ansells or Plansee isolated was at least raised. Attention was focussed on the polities of unemployment. The last massive rally in London provided a platform where Arthur Scargill called for industrial action as a reply to redundancy and Gardiners' convenor Tom McAfer pointed out "We will not beat them by speeches, but by action.

must strike and occupy"

The March made an impact. Our argument is it could have made a bigger and better impact. If that is to happen this time, then it is up to us. Nobody else.

To anybody who says we shouldn't support the march, I'd ask what is the alternative? country.

from Great Yarmouth to London.

What can we do? control of the unemployed.

ployment.

full trade union membership.

So what would you want to see on this year's march?

We'd like to see a political, workers' march aimed at uniting employed and unemployed workers against the Tory government.

We'd like to see the march led by groups of unemployed women and blacks - the greatest victiras of Thatcherism.

We'd like to see workers striking when the march cornes to their town. We'd like to see the march visiting every workplace where there is industrial action.

We'd like to see this time a democratic march placed n Murray 'posed its he ma eep aw. under the control of the marchers. We'd like to see the TUC call a one day general strike on the day the march enters London.

We have to argue for all this and more. Whether we get it is another matter. We should certainly try to get together on this basis all groupings in the Labour Party (and outside it, like the SWP) who will fight to turn the march into a weapon for fighting unemployment now as the best means of electing a Labour government, pledged to socialist policies in the coming contest.

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