THERE will be ‘no retreat’ over defence of ‘the legitimate right to protest,’ Unite leader Len McCluskey told 1,200 delegates assembled at the union’s industrial section conference in Brighton yesterday.
‘Today, we meet in the middle of a vast media witch-hunt against our union, reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s,’ said McCluskey.
‘We are facing unscrupulous smears from both media and politicians. Every day we read statements and press articles about Unite which do not come within hailing distance of the truth.
‘This shows one thing above all: Unite is making a difference. We have served notice on the establishment that fighting trade unionism is back – and the elite don’t like it.’
McCluskey was speaking following prime minister Cameron’s threat to bring in new ‘laws on industrial intimidation’ during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons last Wednesday.
Accusing Unite of ‘a deliberate attempt to disrupt the economy that could have an effect on investment’, Cameron had told MPs: ‘This sort of industrial intimidation is completely unacceptable’.
McCluskey continued yesterday: ‘Of course, there is another agenda behind these attacks too.
‘We are a proxy for smearing the Labour Party and Ed Miliband, since the same elite is now worried that a Labour government which may itself not play by the old rules is a possibility,’ he claimed.
‘They will continue because that is the Lynton Crosby (Tory “election strategist”) agenda – the genius behind the racist “go home” vans touring our cities; the man who believes the Tory path back to power lies in demonising the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable; the man imported by David Cameron to poison our national life so he can get a new tenure on Downing Street.
‘I have confidence that the British people will not fall for the ugly Toryism that Crosby is peddling – and I am absolutely certain of one thing – Crosby, Cameron and their kind will never break or browbeat this trade union into submission.’
McCluskey went on to accuse the Tories of ‘taking us back to the 1870s, and the days of pure free-market liberalism, with no role for the state, no social safety net, no curb on the bosses’ power and little or no trade unionism.’
He warned that the Daily Mail ‘lies’ about protest are walking the country into a Tory assault on basic freedoms:
‘The protests which the Daily Mail has targeted are something different. They are as old as democracy – free speech and the right to peacefully demonstrate. For that, our members have been described as “thugs”. We will see what the law makes of that phrase.
‘It is, at any event, a lie. These protests were peaceful, mostly silent, and of course had nothing to do with intimidating families, children, or anyone. In more than two years we have not had a single complaint about our members’ conduct on such protests, nor a single police charge.
‘So let me send one clear message to the Daily Mail: This union is not retreating from leverage, or from the right to peaceful protest.
‘And we are not taking lessons in proper conduct from a paper which, from its support for fascism before the war to its smearing of Ralph Miliband today, represents a stream of poison in British society.’
