Britain

The Blair government is putting the lessons it has learned in Iraq to good use in attacking workers at home. They have unleashed a campaign of shock and awe against their own workers in the civil service.

GM Europe makers of Vauxhall (Opel) announced this month that they are planning to cut 12,000 workers across the continent – the equivalent to 20% of the European workforce. They are carrying through these attacks to put them back into profit.

The Blair government is facing serious difficulties. It cannot convince the trade unions that its pro-big business policies, its continued privatisation of public assets are in the interests of the working class. Brown tried to make up for this by hinting that in some way he might be “old Labour”. In reality there is no fundamental difference between the two.

The Butler Report, the official inquiry into how intelligence sources were used by the Blair government to justify the war in Iraq, has produced nothing surprising. It is another whitewash, just like the Hutton report. What is amazing however is that it provides enough evidence to show that the government did indeed lie to the British people, that it went to war under false pretences.

Only a month ago Tony Blair pledged to resign if he became an electoral liability to Labour. The results of the triple elections held on Thursday June 10 confirm him, and more importantly his policies, as just that. In not one, not two, but three elections on the same day Blair was given his marching orders. Labour suffered their worst electoral defeats ever.

The 2004 elections to the European Parliament, London Assembly, and local councils were a historic defeat for Blair and the Labour leaders. Phil Mitchinson looks at the rise of the UK Independence Party, and the lessons of Britain's Super Thursday elections.

Has British capitalism finally overcome what used to be called the British disease: slower growth, higher inflation, continual currency crises and a falling behind in living standards compared with the US, Europe and Japan? Growth figures actually disguise a far more diseased system that the media would like us to see.

The Annual Conference of the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party) meets this weekend to discuss a draft manifesto for the European elections and debate other issues against the background of the recent events in Spain. Despite the successes over the past period there is a growing unrest in the party over the reformist and nationalist drift of the leadershp. The road of nationalism and reformism offers no way forward for the working class in Scotland or elsewhere. The struggle for socialism is international or it is nothing. We must learn the lessons of the past so that we may prepare for the future

Role of leadership

An essential lesson to draw from the miners' strike is the vital role of leadership. The miners' leaders stood head and shoulders above the majority of British trade union leaders at this time. Arthur Scargill in particular demonstrated an unbending will to struggle in the face of the most appalling personal abuse and character assassination. In this sense the leaders of the union were a source of inspiration for the miners in the areas. At the same time these leaders were inspired by the courage and determination of the rank and file miners, of their wives and their communities. Unfortunately courage alone is not enough to win such titanic

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Twenty years ago on March 5, 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) embarked upon the most important class struggle in Britain since the general strike of 1926. Over the following twelve months of ferocious battles billions of pounds were spent by the ruling class to crush the miners' militancy. More than ten thousand miners were arrested; two were killed on the picket lines and countless others injured. Decades of so-called consensus were obliterated and the real and ugly face of British capitalism was exposed for all to see. The masks of Democracy and the Law, behind which the ruling class try to conceal the rule of capital, were shattered as the veil of so-called independence

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The key role played by women in the 1984-1985 miners' strike has been an inspiration to working class women everywhere. Many other issues affecting women have yet to be fought. Cuts in education, housing, transport and health just to name a few. Originally published in 1986.

This article was written to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the commencement of the 1984/5 miners' strike in the United Kingdom. This ferocious confrontation between the organised working class (led by the National Union of Mineworkers) and Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government was a momentous chapter in the history of the class struggle in Britain. The lessons of the miners' strike – and its defeat – are of great significance to the future of the workers' movement, and deserve thorough study.

An interview with Nigel Pearce, a member of the National Executive of the National Union of Mineworkers and working miner. He explains how the strike developed and the turning point that it represented for labour relations in Britain. In spite of the defeat he says, "We were right to fight, we had a duty to fight, and I'm proud to have fought, and I'm proud of all those I fought alongside."

Former Cabinet Minister Clare Short, who resigned over the war, has candidly admitted that British Intelligence had spied on UN officials including Secretary General Kofi Annan, in the run-up to the Iraq war. This follows on the admission of a former translator at GCHQ who revealed that the US intelligence services has asked the British to spy on senior UN officials and representatives of other "allied" governments.

With the media frenzy over tuition fees and the Hutton report, you can be forgiven for not noticing the launch in the same week of a new British political party called simply RESPECT. The launching of RESPECT, also known as the Unity Coalition, was the brainchild of a layer of people disillusioned with Blair who wanted to form a left alternative to New Labour.

The decision to readmit London Mayor Ken Livingstone back into the Labour Party has came as no surprise to anybody. A third Labour victory at the next general election is no longer the certainty many once though it was. Only through a socialist programme alongside a fighting leadership, rather than the pro-big business bunch we have at present, can a Labour victory be assured and the hopes of the Tories and the rest be ground to dust.

The Civil Contingencies Bill which is to come before the present session of Parliament has as yet attracted little attention except from civil rights campaigners. However its implications need to be taken seriously by the trades union movement.