Des Warren defends his real jailers

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PAT LALLY revie an enquiry, a pam The jailing of Des Warren and other buildtrials in 1973 was part of the all-round attack on trade union rights which has marked the present decade in this country.

They were victims of a carefully engineered and deliberately executed plan by the then Tory Government aimed at the right to picket and centring on the use of the antiquated Conspiracy Law.

It was not until several months following the end of the 12-week strike, an important aspect of which was the highly effective use of flying pickets against scab labour, that moves were made to bring the charges.

In the interim, Home Secretary Robert Carr had told the Tory Party conference in October that the attention of Chief Con; SHREWSBURY, Whose let by Des Warren. 10p. stables should be drawn to the "provision of the law" and what further . action could be taken "to defeat such violence and intimida= tion in industrial disputes".

In January 1973 a whole battery of charges, 214 in all, were brought against 31 of the pickets. The six leaders faced a total of no less than 92 charges, predominantly unlawful assembly, affray and conspiracy.

Upheld

Although found not guilty of the other offences, which anyway carried maximum sentences of 3 months, the conspiracy charges were upheld allowing massively heavier sentences-Des Warren jailed for 3 years, Eric Tomlinson 2 years and others 9 and 6 months.

In jail, Warren courageously fought against the corruption of and constant harrassment: and intimidation by the prison authorities. Appeals to newly-elected Labour Home Secretary Conspiracy?

Roy Jenkins were systematically ignored.

But. how was it that Warren, imprisoned in the wake of such important victories for the working class as the 1972 miners' strike, the freeing by mass action of the Pentonville 5 dockers in defiance of the Industrial Relations Act and Heath's defeat by the miners in early 1974, was nevertheless forced to serve practically the whole of his sentence?

Despite drawing telling and repeated connections between the successive Tory and Labour governments, the treacherous role of the trade union leaders, themselves moving to the right in harmony with the Labour government, is not only not taken up, but criticism of them is contemptuously dismissed as 'nonsense'.

• Foreshadowed But if Warren's critical and perceptive gaze were to examine the record of the trade union bureaucracy he mart reviews the y Phantom on tl record label would see how the deliberate restriction to protest gestures of the campaign by the TUC for his release foreshadowed their subsequent role in Grunwicks and their acceptance of scabbing by the government troops in breaking the firemen's strike.

And, within that, he would do well to look at the part played by his own organisation, the Communist Party, in consistently covering up for these betrayals.

Real conspiracy

It may be, judging by his letter in a recent issue of the Morning Star, sharply attacking in strong class terms that paper's shabby review of his pamphlet, that this may yet happen.

As this pamphlet makes clear, the real conspiracy was between the employers, the police, judiciary and an assortment of government ministers and state officials with the eager assistance of an hysterical media and press campaign.

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ing workers as a result of the 'Shrewsbury 23'