January 9. The emergence of a thriving labour movement and the
benefits that this brought in terms of housing, education, health, and
welfare, as well as material improvements, to the working people of
Scotland and the rest of the UK rested on a very few simple pretexts --
the struggle of one was the struggle of all; picket lines must never be
crossed; blacked cargoes remain unmoved; the bosses must always be
assumed to be lying; you never scab on a brother worker; you never treat
with the Tories.
Every single one of these inviolable conditions for labour success was
broken by the Ravenscraig men in their misguided attachment to Labourist
leadership during the late miners' strike.
They were not alone -- railmen, haulage drivers, dockworkers, all
scabbed on the miners.
Those of us who tried to explain the lessons of labour history were
howled down at Labour Party meetings by the careerist quislings of the
New Model Labour Party in their (soon to be) vain attempt to gain credit
in English Tory yuppieland.
The people of Scotland have been betrayed, not by the Tories, who
promise nothing and give nothing (although they surely taketh away), but
by Labour politicians who mislead workers into thinking that the
hard-won gains of their fathers were guaranteed by an attachment to
Westminster.
When Mrs Thatcher waged war on the Labour movement by proxy against
the miners, real labour leadership urged united resistance.
Ravenscraig was finished the day Mrs Thatcher beat the miners with the
kind assistance of the Ravenscraig workforce.
The spoils of war have been divided; Scottish industry is dead; and
the Labourists have their safe seats.
John J. O'Dowd,
23 Riverbank Drive,
Mossend,
Bellshill.
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