1984 Remembered

Alex Falconer

January 1984, the Fife Federation of Trade Councils knew that a momentous event was in the offing. Strikes by individual groups of miners were already occurring. Our Secretary Mike Morris was producing an A3 folder over to A4 pamphlet to highlight the Miners cause. This pamphlet was produced for the next 6 years as the main voice in Fife for Trade Unions and the wider Labour movement.

By February 1984, sections of the coalfield in Fife were on strike. Collections were being organised and Gordon Brown's agent Davy Stoddart, a former mine worker, drove Gordon to his many speaking engagements, visits to the picket lines, women's groups and soup kitchens. The soup kitchens had been established by the women comrades and ex miners in the Fife communities. These were people who knew the struggle that lay ahead and their redoubtable spirit shone through during that struggle. In this month I was selected as Labour's candidate to fight the European elections due in June that year. The support and comradeship I received from miners, their families and communities during this period I will never forget. Times may move on but you don't forget the kindness shown by people who were deeply involved in that momentous struggle.
When the election came, Labour won the seat and I was packed off to represent the constituency of Mid Scotland & Fife containing Seafield, Francis, Longannet Complex, Comrie, Kinniel and Polmaise mines and the Cowdenbeath Workshops - over half the total workforce in Scotland. The first action of the new intake of Labour MEPs was to enter the Strasbourg building singing "Here We Go, Here We Go." The next session we held aloft the Blaenau Gwent NUM Banner which Llew Smith, then an MEP now an MP, brought over - much to concern of the heir to the Austria Hungary empire, Otto Habsburg. Les Huckfield interrupted the following session with a hand held megaphone as the Labour Group's motion on the Miners Strike was refused to be discussed by the right wing. In addition we held collections within the building for the miners and their families. The strike also gave rise to demonstrations of solidarity by comrades in Europe. Visiting shipyard workers in Bremen with Michael Hindlay MEP we called into a pub and there on the bar was the miner's can and badges. This was indeed an extraordinary time.

The Labour Group of MEPs accepted a proposition from a number of us to hold a report into the effect of the Commission's energy policy on Coal. This report written by George Kerevan of Napier College and Richard Saville of St Andrews University with research by Debra Percival was produced and hopefully assisted the NUM in their work in slowing down the closures of our coal fields. This was a time when an MEP meant something to the Labour and Trade Union movement. It was also the start of an attack on the left within the Labour Group. This attack continued over the next 13 years with the eventual result of every single left comrade being removed from the notorious list devised by a group selected by the Leadership, meeting in secret, making a report to no one.

In October 2002 the Labour Party conducted a postal ballot for the placing of those previous selected MEPs on the list system for the 2004 election. Labour Party membership, according to the March Reports was 22,094. The turnout was 35.08%, which meant that some 7,750 papers were returned. The total number of votes cast for the current MEPs on the 1st preference vote was 5644. 2,106 papers were spoilt. The No 1 placed received just 11.1% with No2 & 3 receiving less than the spoilt ballot papers total. It was reading Mark Gallagher's article 'More Politics Please' that made me decide to write this. In the hope that Party members will learn the lessons from the past. And will not allow groups meeting in secret to decide who will represent Labour, call for a full return to democratic choice of candidates and thereby regain control over the democratic process.