'witch Hunt'! Right-winger
Socialist Press1976 1976-06-02Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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Always eager to proter t its own, the Tory press in y 'orkshire has been falling over itself to support extreme right winger Bill O'Brien.
He was suspended for two years as NUM branch secretary at Glasshoughton Colliery Castletord, by the Yorkshire Area Counci following his divulging a voluntary statement and internal union documents to solicitors acting for the Sheffield Star.
The information was used as part of their defence against a successful libel action brought by Yorkshire NUM President, Arthur Scargill.
The suspension of O'Brien, together with another right-winger, former branch secretary, Tom Roebuck of Manvers Main Colliery, was on the charge of "acting against the interests of the National Union of Mineworkers". . Scargill maintains that the documents were the property of the NUM.
PRESS
O'Brien, as all right-wingers when in trouble, made straight for the press claiming that he was being "witch-hunted" and launching into a full-scale attack on the Yorkshire area leadership. In a statement to the Yorkshire Evening Post referred indirectly to Scargill's principled fight against the 4%% pay cuts advocated by the TUC and La majority of the NUM executive:
"I support decisions taken democratically by the national executive and what I do abhor is people who come back after an executive decision and work to oppose it"
O'Brien wisely kept silent on the role of Joe Gormley, NUM Fresident, who as an individual defeated in a democratic vote, launched a national press witch-hunt to seek to reverse the recent executive decision for an overtime ban in defence of jobs at Langwith Colliery.
These tactics are deemed fit and proper when the right wing carry them out, while left wingers like Scargill are supposed be constrained by executive decisions from campaigning within the union to reverse wrong positions.
O'Brien is clearly putting himself forward as the focal point of rightwing opposition to Scargill and all those who support Labour government and TUC policies of attacking the working class.
Miners leaving Glasshoughton Colliery their leaders in accepting the wage cuts. be the best treachery of