Sporting the miners in the strike make a concerted effort to persuade the Speaker to grant a special debate on the issue, for the government to give time for a debate on the implications of the strike: the cost to public spending, DHSS regulations, role of the police, the safety of nuclear power stations, the likelihood of power cuts in the power stations, and its effect on the mining communities. government refused to give time for this debate and the Speaker also rejected an application for member's debate made by Eric Heffer.
So Campaign Group members all stood together and refused to sit down; the Speaker accordingly suspended the lor a period When the session resumed we had a meeting and decided that Tony Benn would make a brief statement on our behalf, to the effect that we would continue demanding that such a debate Lic blare Every day since then we've taken it in turns to raise different aspects of the miners' dispute. There have now been 22 separate applications debate on the miners' strike. I believe we're getting somewhere.
Inititally we were condemned by the 10 month the we get what we want.
Line Dal t OI the governent, a private miners' its leadership. of 20 minutes Group as a focus support for the NUM. anything without first that's what solidarity is about.
made for a as a Socialist Action 1 February 1985 leader of the party and most of the shadow cabinet. But we'll persist until The wide press coverage of our action represents a paranoia, a fear on the establishment the of the truth about getting out. isn't anything to do with the cost of coal or with energy policy, it's everything to do with smashing the NUM, and smashing The government sees the Campaign for parliamentary We don't do support of the miners consulting the NUM The Campaign Group defines itself group in parliament determined that the party should fulfil a genuinely campaigning role, and recognises that defeat of the Tory government will be brought about by a series of disputes, of which parliament is only part. It's struggle and activity outside parliament that is the key to that.
Each week at our meetings discuss what we consider to be the main items on the agenda. At virtually every meeting since the strike started, we've discussed the dispute in the coalfields. We have ensured that all the Campaign Group members are on the picket lines. We also send speakers to rallies for the miners, and we've been prominell l picketing the power stations.
1 personally have been involved in picketing a number of power stations because I think that at the moment that is the key to victory in this dispute: to stop the coal supplies coming in from abroad, to stop the oil movements, and stop the switch-over power.
We see our function as campaigning to carry out the decisions of the Labour Party conference. Remember the party Concrete only three months voted very, very clearly -enormous majority — for the NUM's position.
we Frustration discussing longer-term strategy but its membership is fairly new to the House of Commons for the most part. It was established in 1982, out of frustration of the ability of the parliament to actually seriously fight against the drift in party policy -as the witchhunt, the register, the ditching or se many other Labour Party policy loomed.
nuclear had a very great increase in member. ship. There are 38 members, a lot of whom discussing is the way of building the issues and building the demands in the party at large. And we're supporting, and by an Increasingly the Campaign Group is government • Tribune Group in - such aspects of - as the election In the new parliament in 1983 we've What we're now rallies at each of the regional Labour Party conferences, most of which are taking place moting discussion and promoting discussion Quite simply the issue is this: that we have in power at the moment a Tory trying to destroy the labour movement, ideologically trying to shift power to the right in this contry. And we have a Labour Party which has a series of laudable policies on a whole range of issues. We require the mobilisation of the entire labour movement to get into power in order to carry out all those policies.
We're concerned about the talk that too often happens (based around the media) of retreat from those policies in order to get short-term electoral advantage. I'd put is quite simply this way: if the party obsesses itself with the entrails of opinion polls on any one issue, then what you start doing is jettisoning one policy after another in order to go for
Government