Joe Waters, Gloucestershire Socialist Party
Socialist Party members from across the south of England gathered at Tolpuddle on Friday 14 July for the annual festival in memory of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. This festival of working-class culture is held to commemorate the six agricultural workers who, in 1834, were prosecuted due to their, then illegal, membership of a union and transported to Australia. Attacks on our right to strike by the bosses are nothing new.
We were eager to discuss the Socialist Party’s ideas with attendees, especially relating to the strike wave and the question of working-class political representation. However, opportunities to do this were limited by the extreme weather, which led to the festival being called off on Saturday morning. This year’s very wet and windy conditions, the result of the unbearable heatwave in southern Europe, contrasted with last year’s very hot and dry conditions. Someone bought a copy of the Socialist to read the editorial (see ‘Hottest month: socialist planning and working-class organisation can reverse climate crisis’ on www.socialistparty.org.uk) as the weather itself highlighted climate change and pointed to the need for a socialist transformation of society.
Despite the cancellation, we were still able to attend a talk on Friday featuring representatives from the unions Aslef, PCS, UCU and the FBU. We raised the question of a concrete plan to oppose the new anti-trade union (minimum service levels) laws, including the demands that Labour should commit to repealing all anti-trade union legislation when in government (including those left in place by Blair and Brown). And that all Labour authorities, including councils and the Welsh government, should commit to not issuing a single work notice.
We also raised the demand that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) call an emergency meeting to discuss strike action in response to any worker being sacked or union penalised under the new law. This received enthusiastic applause from the audience and shows what an impact the Socialist Party could have had on the event if it had gone ahead as planned.
Socialist Party members from across the country paid for transport to Tolpuddle, printed leaflets and prepared posters for the event. Can you help recoup some of the costs of this by making a donation to help us to continue to fight for socialism?
