Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday’s (1-5-2025) local election results should give us cause to pause and reflect. Reform have caught the political establishment by surprise by the extent of their success. It is widely acknowledged that Reform achieved a major political breakthrough. The party won the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election by a razor-thin margin, overturning a massive Labour majority and gaining its first MP in this Parliament. It also captured two newly created mayoralties in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire, signalling growing regional support. Additionally, Reform UK took control of ten councils, including Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire, and even my own Derbyshire and secured a total of 677 council seats nationwide — surpassing both Labour and the Conservatives in vote share.

Political pundits say that this represents a seismic shift in the political landscape, with voter projections suggesting that Reform UK could now command up to 30% of the national vote in a general election. Starmer: Reform’s best recruiter For those of us, who have been keen political observers, this will not come as any surprise. Notwithstanding the steady right-ward drift that has been going on in the Labour Party for decades, many observers are attributing the meteoric rise of Reform to the mis-directed policy decisions of the current Labour government.

In the run-up to the General Election, last year, Labour promised to be the party of change, but many of us, observing many of Starmer’s lies and U-turns on progressive policies, on assuming the leadership of the Party, knew that the promised change would never materialise. The last 10 months of Labour government has surpassed even the lowest expectations of the most sceptical of us. The betrayal of the WASPI women, the removal of the winter fuel allowance, attacks on the benefits of the disabled, the continued support for rogue state of Israel in its genocide of the Palestinian people, not to mention the pumping of £billions into an unwinnable war in Ukraine, while simultaneously complaining about the ‘black hole’ in the country’s finances, not to mention their anti-immigrant rhetoric.

It seems that the Labour Party faithful are beginning to recognise the root cause of their electoral problems.  The narrowly re-elected Labour Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones said just after the count: “I think national government needs to look and see what people are saying. I wrote [to Starmer] as soon as the winter fuel allowance was mooted and I said it was wrong…The results tonight demonstrate that they need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street and actually deliver for the people, with the people…The working man and businesses want national government to listen to them properly and help drive this great country forward…What I’m saying to Keir is this: he needs to listen and take action.”

It is precisely that sense of betrayal by Labour, that has driven people into the arms of Reform. The result of Labour’s desire to out-right, the Right. History shows us that at times of economic difficulties, some will react positively to populist, right-wing rhetoric, people like Reform, that exploit people’s fears and prejudices, in its unholy grasp of the reins of power. Once unthinkable, now, a Farage-led government in 2029 seems a distinct possibility.

This country is crying out for genuine change, not endless iterations of re-warmed Thatcherism. For most of my adult life I have seen this country passed from one establishment-led party to another, each party promising change, which never materialises, while the quality of life has diminished for the working classes. There is an urgency about the situation that we find ourselves in, we have just four short years to prevent a Farage-led, fascist government here in the UK. There has to be a fight-back against the fascistic Reform party.

The Socialist Labour Party stands in a unique position to provide the alternative. The Socialist Labour Party stands on a truly socialist platform, with a transformational manifesto, a manifesto that is a blueprint for a just and equitable society. The Party’s manifesto directly addresses the need for the abolition of capitalism, which is the root of the country’s problems and provides the political mechanism for the transference of wealth to those who create it, through their effort and labour, the working classes, with the aim, as enshrined in the Party’s constitution, “To promote political, social and economic emancipation of the people as a whole.” (Clause IV, 16). A cause and a future worth fighting for.
Allistair Lomax

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

Dear comrades, In the past, the Socialist Labour Party has had a presence at the May Day Gala in Chesterfield and the Silk Mill Festival in Derby. This year the May Day Gala will take place on Monday, the 5th of May and the Silk Mill Festival will take place on Saturday the 7th of June. Would anyone be interested in being part of SLP presence at these events, this year? These may be opportunities to make people aware of the Socialist Labour Party’s presence and policies, and hopefully generate interest. Please get in touch via the form on the Contacts pag and we can begin the organisation. In solidarity, Allistair Lomax

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

The true political nature of the European Union is now becoming evident and can be clearly seen in the call by Britain’s Prime Minister for a European Army – a concept first advocated by Adolf Hitler.

Starmer’s call together with his promise of UK troops to assist Ukraine is a betrayal of the British people who voted in 2016 to leave the EU.   At least £15 billion has been spent or committed by the UK to NATO’s war in Ukraine, whilst the Labour Government has taken away the £2 billion that gave our pensioners a winter fuel allowance for nearly 30 years.

Members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who profess to be “Socialists” or even “progressive” should be speaking out against the truly evil concept of a European Army and against Britain’s sending troops to Ukraine.

We urge all in the trade union and Labour Movement who  are  Socialists to pressure Labour MPs into calling for Starmer’s resignation – or his sacking.

Arthur Scargill, James McDaid, John Tyrrell  Socialist Labour Party 20 Februar

53rd anniversary of Saltley Gate 10/2/2025

I was informed today by his son, Graham, that Ken Capstick  whilst on holiday in Bulgaria with his daughter, Julie, was taken ill and following an emergency operation  sadly passed away. I know there will be many messages and expressions of sorrow and shock at the loss of an outstanding trade unionist and Socialist, who continued to fight to the very end of his life for workers’ rights and Socialism. During the railway workers’ strikes of a couple of years ago, Ken and I stood side by side on RMT and ASLEF picket lines.  To mark the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the Battle of Saltley Gate, 1972 – in which Ken fought on the picket lines –  we spoke together.  Only last year, we shared a platform at the major rallies marking the 40th Anniversary of the Miners’ Strike of 1984/1985. Ken was a former Vice-President of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area.  He was a leading member and official in the Socialist Labour Party, and since 2017 a Trustee of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.  To every task or role he took on he brought unswerving commitment together with an extraordinary range of skills. Ken and I were comrades and personal friends for over 50 years.  No words can express the sense of loss I feel.  However, his death is a massive loss to the Labour and trade union movement of a man who fought from a young age for trade union rights and a Socialist system of society. I extend my deepest sympathy to Ken’s much-loved children, David, Julie and Graham and his grand-children who were his pride and joy. Arthur Scargill President, National Union of Mineworkers 1982-2002 Leader, Socialist Labour Party 1996-2024

Palestine Support Campaign is just one reliable outlet for genuine Palestine goods.

https://shop.palestinecampaign.org/products/olive-wood-salad-server-set

Olive wood artefacts include jigsaw puzzles.

Crafts people have suffered from attacks from both the Occupation Force and vindictive settlers seizing land and property. Wood carving, textiles, jewellery etc. are just a part of a vibrant arts and craft tradition. It is a great source of gifts.

John Tyrrell, Socialist Labour Party 5.12.2024

SLP 5/12/2024 J.T.