Mason in the firing line
Socialist Press1980 1980-03-05Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 5
The extreme right wing politics of Roy Mason, Labour's former torture chief in Ireland, have plainly been an increasing embarassment to Arthur Scargill in recent years.
Mason is an NUM sponsored MP, whose impregnable Labour seat is Scargill's headquarters town of Barnsley.
Vulnerable
So no matter how left wing and militant a stance Scargill himself might choose to adopt in the NUM and wider labour movement, he knows that wherever he goes he is vulnerable to the obvious and embarassing question-what are you doing to get rid of Butcher Mason?
Socialist Press and WSL supporters have been among those * who have repeatedly raised precisely this issue. And finally Scargill has m made 1 a concerted and thorough move against the Mason gang in Barnsley.
Conspicuously, Scargill has not resorted to bureaucratic manoeuvre but to mobilisation of broad support in his preparations for last Friday's Labour Party AGM, at which the right wing were all but obliterated.
The AGM saw not the usual 50 or so delegates, but a turnout PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Scargill approaching 200 as the full strength of the NUM and Scargill's mass base of support was brought to bear against Mason's backers.
And though NUM spokesmen have talked simply of "bringing Mason to heel" and denied attempting to remove him as local MP, it is clear that Mason and the new political leadership in Barnsley are. already set on a collision course.
There must be no retreat from the fight to oust this brazen defender of British imperialism, and staunch supporter of the Callaghan-Healey leadership.
There is now talk of further possible moves by Yorkshire NUM against the notorious gang of right wing MPs in the area that continue to feed off the solid Labour vote and trade union sponsorship.
Such moves-though long overdue-must be welcomed and supported by socialists. It is correct to mobilise the rank and file of the Labour Party and the unions in the struggle against their so-called leaders and representatives.
Yet at the same time it is essential to fight to ensure that those who replace the right wing base themselves on consistent defence of the independent class interests of the working classand opposition to all forms of nationalism and class collaboration.
rek Spiers, IFL Mason
Scan page 6
Sartre SOCIALIST PRESS. nesace: ME SOCIALIS