SARAH TISDALL'S CASE is a fitting epitaph to the final decline of the radical democratic tradition in British establishment politics. It is also appropriate that the Guardian, self-styled banner bearer of that tradition in British journalism, should bear the responsibility for ner imprisone.
Why did the Guardian give in to the government's obsession secrecy and let a young woman go to jail for doing what she believed to be morally right?
The Guardian explained the reasons last Saturday:
'The Guardian is, and had stated in court was, acwovauci. Only that weeke editorial columns, it has expressed the view that it was not for the NGA to take into its OWIl because it did not like the law.
'The Guardian advocated
paigning to change laws of which it disapproved, not selective breaking of them. It would have been inconsistent with the Guardian's regularly published material to break the law then. It Fould have weakened authority in the future, and made it very difficult for the Guardian to argue against the selective breaking *hich others found disagreeable' At least the Guardian When it made the NGA Six hostages to their boss Eddie Shah on the ington pickel line in the name of legalithey made themselves and Tisdall hostages to the ment's attacks on press freedom -in the name of legality.
The run up to the Sarah Tisdall case proves the hollowness of the Guarsian s lperal outrage over the harshness of her sentence.
• Why weren't we in the dock as well?' moans Guardian editor Peter Preston. But the question wasn't the Guardian in the dock inSocialist Action with law-abiding its hands simply camSarah Tidall paper's stead? the stead they honest.
Warr- and democratic convictions!
Sarah govern and even • also born in the Civil was none or tem exactly legal acts.
to smash the 30 March 1984
Guardian editors had
destroyed the document Sarah Tisdall would never have been convicted. Inwrung their hands, wept crocodile tears, and handed it over.
So much for the courage of liberal Liberalism and democracy in Britain did once nave a genuine radical revolutionary, tradition. It Inelr War, and was reinforced by the French revolution and American war of independence — But that tradition was buried long ago. It really died in the streets of London in 1848 When the city was occupied Chartists. Ironically, of Sarah Tisdall goes to jail, finally proving it is dead, as thousands of police occupy the coalfields to smash the miners.
The origins Guardian were as the tribune of the radical 'millocracy' the vanguard of industrial capitalism in its against the power of the landowners in the nineteenth century. From 1848 it was obvious what kind of democracy they wanted. Having their own grubby hands on the vote, political power was bent to ensuring that the workers' movement never threatened Capital's new liberty.
Today the Guardian reflects the same interests and the same hypocrisy - for freedom, for democracy, as long as it does not conflict with the interest property. the managers have the right to manage, and companies have inviolable rights to make profits. Police have the right to fight pickets, but pickets don't have the right to fight police.
The only force in this society that Guardian newspaper, tried to defend the that would defend people like Sarah Tisdall.
Thousands of miners braving police violence on the picket lines have no interest in halting the democratic process at the doors of the Guardian, or in the corridors of Whitehall. movement can democracy for all. The Guardian abanloned that struggle a long time ago veil Kinnoc uphold the law, where this left the Guardian. Harriet Harman got it right in Labour Weekly saying:
'Sometimes democracy is defended better by a principled objection to the law rather than an adherence.
What about Greenpeace, breaking the law to prove that waste was poisoning our oceans?
What about parents blocking traf fic and illegally obstructing to protest al the death of a child on a dangerous school crossing?
stamping out such protests as these?' And one coula add, now nas le Guardian improved got aiding the Tory government in sending Sarah Tisdall to jail?
of the revolutionary capitalism his views in the disagree with what you defend to the death your right to say it.
For the Guardian that has become 'We will defend your right to say it ... but if it turns out to be illegal we may factory, turn you over to the police anyway.' Thus has liberalism trod its historial path even for the law. is the force that NUA. The force Concern way they The labour will defend , who claims to always should take note of ship of restrained, challenged, best, workplace door.
For Sellafield nuclea La single persor i is democracy improved by dent on livelihoods.
greatest writers in , Voltaire, put the immortal phrase, join a trade union can still be denied by any employer who has the forced to do so. Grunwick showed that and so did Stockport Six The simple democratic liberty that every worker has the right to join a trade union, and that the employer must recognise that union, is still not accepted by British The explanation for that is simple _ British laws is capitalist law. The owner of property, of capital, has the right to dispose of that property in any choose unless that specifically limited by law. A worker confronted with capital on the contrary has no rights unless they are specifically granted to her or him by law.
The British system of law can accurately be described as the 'dictatorcapital' dictatorship but never fundamentally by law. something which very firmly, and al stops at the factory gates or the example the Tories aotale about the NUM not having a ballot on a strike, but the right of MacGregor to cut 20,000 jobs without the miners having any right to vote on their jobs is In a compan person board of directo - sometimes › can decide to sack ten, twenty, thousand people who are totally depenthose for their The Thela shrines title more the owners capital. democracy of those who work.
In fact, it is necessarily built into the foundations of capitalist society that what should exist is not democracy but the limitation and denial of democracy. For democracy and private ownership of capital are totally incompatible If the private ownership and control of capital are to be maintained then the
cy vs. the law