Author: johntyrrell310899

“The slaughter of innocents, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine/Gaza has been condemned by the United Nations, supported by the overwhelming majority of countries throughout the world.

The Socialist Labour Party welcomes the January 2024 judgement of the International Court of Justice condemning the genocidal action of Israel in Gaza. We also welcome the May 2024 call by Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

We support the isolation of the Apartheid Israeli state, Britain should with draw diplomatic and all other relations, refuse to have any financial dealings with and indeed fully sanction the Israeli state until a Palestinian state is established with the right of full return for all exiled Palestinians and their descendants.

The Socialist Labour Party stands in full solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The world is in a perilous state – in danger of nuclear annihilation. We have been driven to this situation by increasingly desperate, warmongering elites and governments. The conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have their roots in this approach by western governments and there is the potential for more war and destruction because of US aggression towards China.

The Socialist Labour Party opposes all this madness and stands for internationalism, friendship between nations and peoples and against war

The Socialist Labour Party does not adopt a position in support of any capitalist country. However, we are aware of the origins of the Ukraine – Russia conflict. In short, it is because of NATO expansion, the 2014 CIA organised coup against the democratically elected Ukrainian President and government, and the civil war launched by the Ukrainian coup leaders against their own citizens in the Donbass region of that country. Even after Russia’s intervention in 2022, the then Ukrainian government had an opportunity to come to a settlement with the “Minsk” accords. Their own negotiators signed but goaded by then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (seen recently in a leaked video lauding the openly fascist AZOV brigade) the agreement was reneged on by President Zelensky. Unfortunately for Ukraine any future deal is likely to be so much less agreeable

The Socialist Labour Party is clear; we oppose globalisation as we do NATO expansionism and US aggression- we say stop funding war. Let us begin working towards a world truly at peace with liberty, justice and prosperity for all.”

From the Socialist Labour Party Manifesto
Pages 2-3.

Comrades, we are being led into war – again. The media is full of stories about the threat of war from Russia, China, North Korea. Nato is warning us that we are about to be invaded and we must prepare for war, like WW1 and WW2. The Russians are coming, with snow on their boots.

Why is this? War is very profitable, for some people. The manufacturers of Arms are delighted to be selling more arms and seeing their profits soaring. They will sell arms to both sides, maximising their profits, laughing all the way to the bank. Some Governments are also very happy with the fear of war since they can use this to divert money away from the provision of essential services onto “defence”. This power they can use to subordinate people, to control any dissent. These were the tools of imperialism and colonialism. When we had the greatest navy in the world we ruled the world. “Britain never, never, never will be slaves”. We ruled the world; we exploited the world and its people.

Of course, to do this we have to have “enemies”. If we don’t actually have any then we must invent them. China and Russia are clearly our enemies. We must arm against them. Wrap ourselves in the flag. Invoke patriotism, nationalism.

Of course, it won’t be our leaders who are doing the fighting. They will be photographed wearing battle fatigues riding in a tank. That is as close to the front line they will get. No, it will be the working class taking the fire, fighting the working class of another country. We are the cannon fodder not our leaders.

No sisters and brothers we must resist this call to arms. Instead let us invest in what is needed to produce a fair, just and equitable world for us all to live and prosper in.

Chris Butler

December 2025

It appears from news reports that the London Metropolitan Police have found the time and resources to investigate an incident from over a year ago where a member of a young Irish hip hop group flew a flag of a group or groups who oppose Israeli aggression and genocide. This has resulted in a charge associated with a “terror offence” to which a young man from Belfast will be required to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court next month.

Here’s a thing, the same Metropolitan Police have, as they acknowledge on their own website, a responsibility if“a UK resident has been responsible for core international crimes anywhere in the world (then) they may be investigated and prosecuted in the UK”. Such “core international crimes” include a litany of serious offences including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

I suggest to the Metropolitan Police Force or for that matter any police jurisdiction within the UK that they need not focus their attention or resources on minor matters such as the waving of flags but rather focus higher up the scale of seriousness of offence such as complicity, aiding and abetting or furnishing the means to commit such serious crimes. I suggest to the Met that they need not have to cast their net across the Irish Sea but rather just stroll a few hundred yards along the Thames. There they will find several senior government figures and officials well worthy of serious “core international crimes” investigation.

James McDaid, Leader, Socialist Labour Party. 24/5/2025

The Struggle Goes On.

Wakefield, Saturday 10 May 2025 Start time: 10.45am Ends: 17.00 Banners Held High festival 2025:

With Banners Held High is Yorkshire and the Humber’s very own Trade Union and community festival — an established and well-loved fixture in the trade union calendar. Held annually, it commemorates the end of the Miners’ Strike and reflects on the lessons learned. Last year’s event, marking the 40th anniversary of the Strike, held the biggest march so far. Trade union branches from across the country marched with banners, joining progressive campaign groups, stall holders and local residents. This year, the theme is “40 Years On – The Struggle Continues.” Trade unions are stepping up across new workplaces, defending workers against fresh challenges, standing strong for their members, and protecting our collective right to protest. Speakers include guest Jeremy Corbyn and Union Leaders. A series of Fringe events will take place before and after the main festival, reflecting on the legacy of the Miners’ Strike and exploring how those lessons can guide us through today’s battles. These events are open to all. Banner Held High will take place on 10 May: Gather on Smyth Street: 10:45am Banners march across Wakefield City Centre: 11:30am Speakers, Music and Poetry at Wakefield Exchange (WX): 12pm – 5pm Arthur Scargill, John Tyrrell . Socialist Labour Party 30/4/2025

generation only now being compensated for some of those diseases – bronchitis and emphysema. Imagine what it must have been like to have had one of those men as a son, husband or father. Now, at the point when technology can prevent such destruction, that selfsame technology is being removed from the few remaining pits.

On the 20th anniversary of the start of the miners’ strike three key points need to be understood. First, on energy policy: instead of being the only European Union country that is self-sufficient in energy and a net oil exporter, in a few years we will join the others in their energy dependency. This time the UK will be at the end of the gas and oil pipelines from Russia, central Asia, Algeria and the Gulf. Windfarms, however welcome, will not save us. Last year’s energy white paper acknowledged this: “By 2020 we are likely to be importing around three-quarters of our energy needs. And by that time half the world’s gas and oil will be coming from countries that are currently perceived as relatively unstable, either in political or economic terms.”

There are no major plans to build clean coal stations, but that is what Spencer Abraham, the US energy secretary, advised George Bush and Tony Blair in July 2003. Second, the economic and social costs of destroying the British coal industry have been huge – at least £28bn. This is nearly half of the North Sea tax revenues of E6obn collected since 1985. Unless further support is forthcoming, the horrendous damage to mining communities will take at least two generations to heal, notwithstanding the work of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and the Coalfield Communities Campaign. Third, the miners’ strike could not have taken shape in the way it did in any other EU country. It would have been negotiated to a settlement firmly within the restructuring aid framework of the European Coal and Steel Community treaty, the founding treaty of the European economic and social model. Instead, in Britain we had the application of 19th-century industrial relations to an industry that was at a technological watershed. Arthur Scargill, the miners’ leader, was right about two things in particular: the huge scale of the redundancy and closure programme, and the inability of the consultation procedures within the industry to handle the issue.

Restructuring had to be collectively bargained as well, but neither the National Coal Board (NCB) nor the government wanted to negotiate the substantive issues. Scargill was right by instinct, but also because a group of us from Bradford University had done the research. In 1982 we showed the National Union of Mineworkers executive that automated, heavy-duty technology would produce a productivity explosion. If the market for coal remained the same, this would lead in the worst case to the loss of more than 165,000 jobs, or 74% of the 1981 pit workforce of 225,000. The first to go would be the coalfields of Scotland, the north-east, Kent and south Wales, which had received little investment.

As Nelson Mandela observed with his customary frankness at an international mineworkers’ conference in Johannesburg in 1992: “Scargill and the NUM have been vilified for trying to defend their members.” At the famous meeting of March 6 1984, James Cowan, NCB deputy chairman, admitted only reluctantly that around 20 pits and 21,000 jobs would be hit. Scargill’s initial figure of 70,000 job losses was attacked as scaremongering. Only in her 1993 memoirs could Mrs Thatcher admit the truth. lan MacGregor, NCB chairman, had told her in September 1983 that he wanted to cut 64,000 jobs in three years and extend the redundancy scheme to include miners under 50. The huge hi-tech Selby coalfield is due to close by June this year. Then there will be fewer than 5,000 miners working in Britain’s pits. While the second phase of pit closures arose in the 1990s from market displacement – mainly by the new, privatised gas power stations – the majority of job losses had earlier flowed from the productivity revolution.

To illustrate this point: just one hi-tech coalface, at Kellingley colliery in Yorkshire, was producing 42,000 tonnes a week in 2003, almost as much as the 46,000 tonnes a week the whole pit was producing in 1983 from six faces, with six times as many men. Many have argued that the miners’ strike could have been settled well before that terrible year had run its course. This was made immensely difficult because the NCB would not negotiate. True, the NUM was forced into tactical options that made matters worse. And a civil war fought against the mining communities generated such pressure that an internal civil war broke out inside the union, at a time when members in the Midlands did not understand that their jobs were at risk.

There was always another way. The union had tabled a draft technology agreement in 1983. The NCB rejected it as “inappropriate”. When NUM negotiators raised this in 1984 they were accused of moving the goalposts. A new technology agreement would have cut working hours and allowed older men to leave, to be replaced by their unemployed sons. Anywhere else in Europe it would have been seized upon as a basis for settlement. The October 1984 agreement with the pit deputies’ union, Nacods, added an independent review body to the colliery review procedure. But it dealt with consequences, not causes, and was not binding. Britain suffered a needless civil war and the mining communities were destroyed. Many thousands of managers and breakaway UDM members lost their jobs. And now the country is about to lose one of its founding industries, just as it is on the point of being modernised. Dave Feickert was the research officer for the National Union of Mine Workers from 1982 and 1984 agreement with the pit deputies’ union, Nacods, added an independent review body to the colliery review procedure. But it dealt with consequences, not causes, and was not binding. Britain suffered a needless civil war and the mining communities were destroyed. Many thousands of managers and breakaway UDM members lost their jobs. And now the country is about to lose one of its founding industries, just as it is on the point of being modernised.

• Dave Feickert was the TUC’s Brussels officer from 1993-2003, and NUM national research officer from 1983-93 d.feickert@ntlworld.com   The 1984/1985 miners’ strike. Arthur Scargill writes: Dave Feickartmaccompanied me to my visit to South Africa in 1992 and was at an event where he heard Nelson Mandela describe me as a hero. The fact that Dave stated in the Guardian that Thatcher admitted the truth in her memoirs is clear evidence that the NUM was not simply in conflict with the NCB and proves that the longest strike in British history was with the Tory government and Thatcher.

She is on record saying that there must never again be a battle like that at Saltley Gate in Birmingham in 1972. It demonstrates the Tory government’s determination to crush the trade unions. This was not understood by the right wing trade union movement, with exceptions such as the rail union, the Seamen’s union and many smaller unions. The real victory in 1984/5 was the struggle by the miners, the wonderful women against the closures and the backing that the NUM had from the public, which was stronger at the end of the strike then at the start one year earlier.

Socialist Labour Party 25/03/2025

Today, radical opposition in Britain is symbolised not by the Labour and trade union movement but by the groupings such as Stop The War, Free Palestine movement, Just Oil, animal rights bodies, Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear campaigners These are now the voices of protest and direct action, reminding us that only through direct – including industrial – action and defiance of unjust laws can we achieve real advance, whilst a moribund Labour Party and trade union hierarchy pleads with citizens to accept and submit to those laws.

The environmental and community activists are doing a good job, but, inevitably, their aims are “single purpose” with no clear political perspective. Therefore trade unionists & socialists really have to decide if they are prepared to carry on supporting the current establishment ‘Westminster uni party system ‘ which now embraces Capitalism and the “free market” or take a decisive step towards supporting the Socialist Labour Party GBP that with their support is capable of not only resisting Capitalism’s attacks but of fundamentally changing society

“Our demands most moderate are…. We only want the earth” James Connolly

To view the SLP Manifesto go to Policies section on the main menu above.
Johnnie Taylor SLP South and East Region 20/3/2025

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Socialist Labour Party (UK) l to r Arthur Scargill, present Leader of the SLP, Des Bonass and James Connolly. This poster was drawn up in Ireland following the death of Des Bonass. The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) is a Socialist political party in the United Kingdom, established in 1996 following a series of meetings involving activists in the Labour and trade union movement, environmentalists and peace movement campaigners including women from Greenham Common. The SLP chose the same name as the party established by, among others, James Connolly, Arthur MacManus and Tom Bell in Scotland in 1903.