THE Tory-led coalition’s proposed new Lobbying Bill is sending shock waves throughout the leadership of the TUC, as its full import becomes known.
This bill, purportedly being introduced to regulate the lobbying industry, is aimed at emasculating the trade union movement, and making any criticism of government policy illegal in the 12 months before a general election.
Under these proposals, any activity that ‘may’ affect the outcome of a general election would be illegal for this period.
Any criticism of government policy could be construed as having an effect on how people vote and would therefore be illegal.
The TUC and other unions meeting in the general election year of 2014 would be committing a criminal offence, and the organisers presumably would face jail for breaking the law.
Alongside this is the provision in the bill to limit the amount third party campaigners can spend.
All expenditure, including funding TUC and individual union conferences plus the cost of organising any demonstrations, and staff wages, would now count towards the political spending limit of £390,000.
In other words, the TUC and unions would not be able to organise any national conference or a single demonstration without busting this limit; at a stroke, the unions and the TUC would be shackled and silenced for the year before any general election by this legislation.
The response of the TUC leadership has been to publicly denounce the bill as an ‘outrageous attack on freedom of speech worthy of an authoritarian dictatorship’, and to seek an urgent meeting with the Cabinet Office Minister to protest.
The TUC’s Head of Campaigns, Nigel Stanley, summed up the position of the TUC leaders when he said:
‘It’s hard to believe that ministers across the coalition have intentionally signed up to such a draconian and illiberal bill’, before going on to state: ‘Once the effect of the proposals is better known around both Westminster and the country, we hope ministers will take stock and go back to the drawing board.’
This idea that the bill is some kind of mistake caused by careless wording, and that the government do not really want to criminalise the trade movement, is very wide of the mark.
The coalition government knew exactly what they were doing when they drafted this bill, it is a statement of intent – the intent being precisely to make trade unions illegal.
If they get away with this bill then the next step would inevitably be laws to make all trade union activities a criminal offence, a return to the days at the turn of the 19th century when the Anti-Combination Act forbade workers to combine together in unions for the purpose of collectively confronting employers.
Despite this law, workers not only built trade unions but they flourished as illegal organisations.
Today the issue is not building trade unions afresh but of defending them from a ruling class that wants to turn the clock back over 200 years, to impose on the working class today the conditions of poverty and misery that trade unions were formed to fight.
The TUC leaders must immediately stop all this appealing to the government to be reasonable.
The working class is not some helpless puppy begging not to be kicked by its master – it is the most powerful force in society.
At the TUC conference on September 8th, the same week this bill is due to come before parliament, the leaders must submit a simple emergency motion stating that if the government does not immediately withdraw this bill the TUC will call an all-out general strike to kick them out.
If the present leadership refuse to fight then they must be removed and replaced with a leadership prepared to use the full strength of the working class to stop this attempt to make unions illegal.
