In a TV debate with Quintin Hogg, Bert Ramelson, industrial organiser of the CP. put forward the monstrous argument that the pickets were jailed under "judge made (Le. common law) and not under laws passed by Parliament.
This sort of rubbish continues to tive credance to the CP's fetish that while mass action in the facLones and on the streets (officially backed by the TUC, of courser is all very well and has its place, it is ultimately Parliament and the good offices of the Labour Government that will decide whether to please the ruling class or the working class. If the law is merely biased and made by the wrong kind of people, then it can be changed in Parlia ment for the Communist Party and the TUC and all the Labour lefts".
So where do we go from here on Shrewsbury? Since the demonstration in London two weeks ago, the activity at a local level has been patchy. Only Sheffield Trades Council has started the kind of cam-a paign that can make any national strike action really effective. They have printed 50,000 copies of Forward the Trader Council paper, devoted to Shrewsbury They have organised a mass meeting in the City Hall on 16 Feb tuary to plan the local campaign. Other areas should take off from this example either through Trades Councils or special Action Comm ittees to put real life into the one hundred calls on the TUC to hack a one-day national strike. Such national action will only be powerfal enough and will only gain the breadth and impetus to turn into indefinite action until the pockets are released if a broad campaign in the localities offers the hope of real action this time round.
While the big London demonstration on 14 January was i real show of force, it took place against a back-drop of many defeats in factories and sites up and down the country for stewards recommendations and voles to take action on that day. The reality is that many workers ure so frustrated at the effectiveness of the campaign in the last two years, they are not prepared to act now unless there is: some chance of success.
Local bodies of the movement should demand that the TUC set n date for national action and organise regional conferences of stewards delegates from all industries and unions, to prepare the final push. If the TUC ignore theac calls, in every organisation of the labour movement, resolutions should be put giving support to this march.. The resolutions should include lin ancial support, the sending of the biggest possible delegations to Join the march, and calls for solidarity strike action.
Whenever the march reaches a new town or city it should he gree ted with the bigpest possible demonstration of solidarity from the sites and the factories, the student unions and tenants organisations, women's organisations and the political organisations of the left.
This can lead to the formation of Action Committees in each area. The trade union bureacracy and their allies in the Communist Party want to isolate the march. The so-called left" Lahour MPs prefer to lobby fight their right-wing friends because this meuns declaring war against the Government's anti-working class actions In every trade union branch, and
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y pickets.. in !