Silkin's plot to take over Tribune

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Tribune was set up in 1937 with 26 original shareholders, most of whom are now dead.

John Silkin and Lord Bruce have cornered the majority of shares in the hands of the living.

They called a shareholders' meeting in December 1981 to vote out the existing board and put themselves and their supporters on it. • The first thing they wanted to do was remove the workers from struck down 43 years ago. the Board. Five of the ten board Sixty-six years. members were workers. But they were stopped from doing that by Jack Jones, (he has ten shares) who made it clear that it wouldn't be a ggod idea for a TGWU-sponsoręd MP to go against TUC poliey öf workers' representation on the board. : they only kicked two workers off the board, myself and the then-advertising manager and elected themselves onto the board Thanks to Jack Jones, however, they ended up a minority on the board, so they were unable to sack me and run the paper in a rather different fashion.

We took legal advice and were told that under the 1980 Companies Act it is possible to set up small part of the population. employee shareholding scheme. So we called another board meeting. Lord Bruce and John Silkin, sent apologies and at this board meeting we agreed to allocate 50 shares each to each member of staff out of the unallocated authorised shares, giving us a total of 450.

The writs then arrived made out against every member of staff, was isolated. against the company and against the chairperson of the board, Michael Meacher.

The writs allege that our motivation was bad. The Companies Act is silent on the question of motivation, so it will be up to the judge to determine. The second point in the writs is that they had inadequate notice of the nature of international socialism." business on the agenda.

Why do you think they did it?.

Well, some people were very upset when I became editor and tions and be against them.

YTS CHRIS MULLIN, editor of Tribune, spoke to John Bloxam about the latest legal comings and goings.

immediately there were attempts to cut off advertising.

Whai probably happened is that some former employees approached Silkin and Lord Bruce with a plan. They possibly showed them a photocopy of the shareholders' register.

Silkin and Bruce probably had different motivations. Bruce thinks he is doing the best by his own standards.

Silkin saw himself as leadership material for the Labour Party (he was probably the only person in the country who saw himself in this light). It perhaps wouldn't have done his chances any damage if he'd had a newspaper like ours on his side.

That assumed it would be a quick, clean operation and it turned out to be very messy.

I don't think he anticipated that and I'm sure he now regrets the terrible mess he's got himself and everyone else into.

Negotiations

What have been the more developments?

There have been three sets of negotiations or attempts at mediation. The breakdowns always come on the same point. They won't accept any formula that doesn't leave them or their friends in control of the paper.

They regard themselves as the owners of the paper, and as long as they suffer from this delusion it is very difficult to help them. How would you sum up the political issues involved?

This is a test case for it is possible for a free paper to exist in a socialist environment.

We don't have many papers that are broadly speaking 'on our side and we talk about the need for a labour movement newspaper. I think we must judge by the few labour movement newspapers we do have and the way they are permitted to conduct business.

I think the moves against us began in the political climate of a year ago, when the idea of expelling Militant emerged, and the Idea of vetoing various Parliamentary candidates.

But we've moved on a bit since then and some members on the right of the party, never mind the centre, are opposed to what Silkin and Bruce are doing.

Invitations What pressures have there dissuade them?

Well, I didn't initiate it, but a lot of people from Silkin's Deptford constituency started ringing up, offering to help. So I said why don't you get me invited to your ward meeting, and to my astonishment, seven of the eight wards invited me and all of them went on to pass resolutions in April and May of this year, calling on Silkin either to stand down as MP or drop the writs.

He and i were invited to address the May GMC and the recorded vote was 43-9 in favour of his either standing down or dropping the writs. Unfortunately the general election was announced a few days later.

So his constituency have been very helpful, several times passing resolutions in support and one of no confidence in Silkin in September.

Many people who don't agree with us politically have been very helpful, while they have won no friends at all. They have no support among the staff or on the board and no MPs are really prepared to stick their necks out over this.

Silkin and 1 addressed the Tribune Group, where I am not JOHN HARRIS Meacher: one Shadow minister being sued by another! the most popular person, and they, too, passed a motion calling on Silkin to drop the writs.

We are now faced with the interesting spectacle of one member of the Shadow Cabinet (Silkin) suing another (Meacher). A High Court case involving two members of the Shadow Cabinet would really do tremendous damage.

I would like to see the leadership say publicly that Silkin has got to stop.

What can members of CLPs or trade unions do?

"I would have liked the TGWU who sponsor Silkin to take an interest in the matter, but this hasn't happened, and they've remained pretty neutral so far, at least publicly.

There was an attempt to get it raised in the TGWU group of MPs in the Commons but it came to nothing.

Bankruptcy

Do you intend to defend self against the court action?

Well, the court action would, of course, bankrupt the paper, and everyone understands that. It could bankrupt individual members of staff, which is a sign