Workers Socialist League

Socialist Press, Trotskyism Today and the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee, 1975–1984

Wrp: No Action

Socialist Press no. 12, 10 July 1975 · scan p. 7 · about 299 words

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The Workers Revolutionary Party made no detectable intervention at the conference other than Workers Press sales and an open letter to delegates carried in Workers Press.

Not a single motion on the social contract, wages, unemployment or the Shrewsbury Two was moved by any WRP member in any T&G branch in the country.

This is instructive, because in the period when the resolutions had to be submitted, last December and January, the WRP had just carried out a major adaptation, in mid-October, to the criticisms raised by those who later formed the WSL. (See page 3)

Workers Press had suddenly begun carrying demands for a sliding scale of wages and hours. _and the first Shrewsbury March had been called.

It shows that all this was never more than verbal adaptation. No attempt whatsoever was made to take any of these issues into the trade union places where left.

movements, even in the WRP has anything The most astounding thing however was the question of the Shrewsbury Two. After marching from north to south, and east to west, and after holding a national conference on Shrewsbury the previous Sunday, anyone could be forgiven the expectation that the WRP would lobby or intervene in the T&GWU conference.

But NO! The WRP totally ignored the one conference which could actually call strike action to get Warren and Tomlinson out. What, then, was the point of voting for a general strike at the ATUA conference if it was never to be taken into the trade union movement? The WRP's Open Letter to T&G delegates, incredibly, did not even mention the Shrewsbury Two.

Again, this shows the WRP 'fight' on Shrewsbury was a sham fight, and was directed more towards the internal problems of the WRP than the release of the Shrewsbury Two.

← Contents of Socialist Press no. 12, 10 July 1975