North-West march diary Coventry to Northampton

Scan page 7

THE People's March has been run like a Stalinist state on the move. Marchers have been expelled for 'disobeying the marshals' (crimes against the state) and acts of violence against dissident marchers have been ignored.

The right wing of the TUC didn't want a march going around the country giving support to workers in struggle, linking up the battles of the unemployed with employed workers, and encouraging the unemployed to join a union and stand up and fight for their rights. And the march organisers, dominated by the Communist Party, have ensured that the right wingers aren't embarrassed.

The march has done precious little of that type of organising. But it has expelled marchers for shouting "Tories Out' and called in the police to remove labour movement support banners from the march in Birmingham.

Scarce

On the western leg march meetings were scarce, and even when they were called, marchers couldn't vote at them. On the eastern leg at first there was more democracy, and anti-Tory chants were permitted.

Since the two legs met in Northampton on May 26 matters have got worse, if anything. The East Midlands banner was dragged off the march in Northampton because of the anti-Tory chanting and the chants drowned out by IOHN HARRIS "I've heard we're not supposed to say this" said Tom Robinson over the mike his gig at Milton Keynes, as he led the audience into singing "Tories Out'. Before the gig, Class Fighter supporters had interviewed him and told him about the march regime.

Among the furious CPers was chief security steward John Ellis, a large and drunken man. Later that night he stumbled on some a gang of Stalinists. After that the Eastern leg decided that if anyone was expelled they would refuse to march. They would continue to chant the slogans their meetings had decided on.

But the following morning, after a marshals', meeting and recommendation, they agreed not JOHN HARRIS dissidents and seized his opportunity to get his own back. He abused them, threatened to put one through a window, pushed a woman against a wall, stamped on her foot and broke her toe.

As yet the marshals have done nothing about this. Ellis is still on the march. Marshals from the western leg didn't turn up to the to chant that day, until a full march meeting that evening. The evening meeting didn't discuss he slogans. In Luton the leg went on sit-down strike. Again the leg agreed not to chant until another meeting, due to happen that night.

That meeting, once again, was unemployment; for support for ONTHE M undemocratic, with no speeches from the floor. A list of slogans was read out and voted on, with no debate or amendments. 150 marchers walked out and insisted on chanting the following morning.

The marshals hauled them over to the side of the road and threatened to expel the lot of them. Anyone who didn't like it should go home, they said. Six or so did.

As the march enters London, the CP marshals will find it harder to control. And for sure when the marchers report back to their trades councils and sponsoring organisations, a lot of people are going to want to know just who is responsible for this fiasco.

They will find that the answer is: the Communist Party and their co-thinkers in the Labour Party. tive to woo "Tory businessmen"

22.5.83 GOT up late and missed the march. We had to get several buses to catch up and then we were on our way to Coventry.

As we came to the outskirts of Coventry we were met by a support march of quite a few hundred people. Later on a Church Brigade band joined 1. US and was conveniently placed between the march and the support march.

We arrived at the Cathedral, where there was a rally, and we then went to a nearby school for dinner. Trying to find out where you were staying was very chaotic and in addition there wasn't enough transport, so a lot of us were left hanging about. We finally got away at about 8 o'clock. Stayed the night at Warwick University.

23.5.84 Rest day. There was a short march from the Cathedral to the shopping precinct where there was a rally, a band playing and of course speakers. A vicar, at one point in his speech, asked the crowd to all say "mass unemployment is evil" and some idiots did.

We then went back to Warwick University for a full marchers' meeting. This meeting turned out to be the same as the other two, lots of talk, no action.

We made several proposals, which we had also made at previous meetings. We proposed that there should be regular marchers' meetings and also that the expelled marchers should be allowed to tell the marchers their view of the expulsion.

A vote of no confidence in marshals was proposed but the subject was swiftly changed and the vote was forgotten.

The meeting was full of complaints about laundry and the pace of the march but anything we said was lost as the subject was always changing.

There were some heavy personal attacks being thrown at people, mostly by the marshal chairing the meeting.

In his-reply at the end of the meeting the chair said there would not be any chance of the four expelled being allowed to speak to us, and that anyone who didn't want to sing the official slogans could leave at anytime they wanted.

In the evening we were bussed to a Sikh communit i centre for our meal and after wards were presented with a cheque for the march fund.

24.5.83 March from Coventry to Leamington. At the march meeting we got a concession from the marshals to send a minibus of women down to Greenham Common. On the march itself women were asked to the front of the march. It was a really tokenist gesture and a lot of the women went along singing love songs.

The support march was mainly all women who sang "what do women want - jobs not bombs"

• Reception at Leamington was a bit sparse. That evening we went to another Sikh temple for our meal and then went to the Spa centre for a social. When we arrived, a couple of marchers towns en route, not just stage told us that there was an occupation of an empty hotel, so a group of about ten went down there, climbed in through a window and stayed a little while.

They told us they were there because of the lack of housing in the area and lots of unemployed people had no homes.

The hotel, the Clarendon, is owned by Trust Houses Forte and there is only the caretaker still there, but he told us that his job was lost.

We were only there a short while before two marshals turned up and asked us to come down and talk to them. They said they were in sympathy but we were discrediting the march by being there. They went 'on to say that the press would tear the march apart and if we went back in we would be off the march by the morning. We had all made a point to hide or cover up our march clothes so that it wouldn't happen.

25.5.83 Coming out of the Spa centre, after breakfast, the same two marshals from the night before came 'up to us and, looking very tense, told us that we had been on bréakfast TV because of the occupation.

Varieties

They then went on to spiel about the structure of the march and how all these people who were arguing for democracy thought there were 57 varieties of it.

While we were waiting for the march to start a girl from the occupation told us five or six idiots had gone into the hotel with iron bars and smashed the place up.

After this the people in the hotel decided it was best to leave, although some of the people said it was , probably the police who had gone in.

The march itself was a very hard slog. When we arrived in Daventry we were met by half a dozen Labour Party members and their banner. Later on there was a rally of about a dozen nonmarchers and only about twice as many marchers.

26.5.83 Daventry to Northampton. NorthWest region held a meeting where the Stalinists managed to pass a vote of no confidence in their marshal, who is in the Labour Party, and TGWU. In his place they • now have a member of the CP who used to be the steward. We set off to Northampton where we would meet up with the Yorkshire and Humberside leg of the march.

As we came into Northampton our leg of the march started up their defeatist, pleading slogans for jobs. One of their favourite siogans comes from a spiel the marshals do over the megaphones "Full employment is the first priority" Another is, "All we are saying is give us a job".

The meeting up with the Eastern leg wasn't that dramatic as they were far smaller in number but it was probably the high point of the day. needs.

----- pull-quotes -----

Peoples march for jobs ·83