Nurses picketing University College Hospital, London, in January 2023 during their pay dispute. Photo Workers.
January is the month of Janus, the two-faced god looking backwards and forwards. It’s also time to reflect on coming anniversaries; their importance lies in learning lessons for the future, not in nostalgic reflected glory or in distorting past events to fit a different narrative.
In this issue we look at the Wapping print dispute 40 years ago, a turning point in trade union activity. And like the 1926 general strike, it ended in defeat. The hard lessons are about the necessity and inevitability of struggle against employers and the limitation of trade union power under capitalism.
One anniversary stands out – ten years since the vote to leave the EU which rocked the ruling class. It compromised their wish for the free movement of labour and capital, embodied in a remote and unaccountable transnational organisation.
The vote challenged the view that somehow workers benefited from this arrangement, that somehow progress could be achieved without struggle. Workers did not vote how they were told.
Most union leaders and officials, wedded to the Labour Party and its social democratic politics, were as dismayed as the ruling class. Over the years they had come to hope that somehow EU institutions could mitigate the policies of British governments.
That turned out to be either a massive miscalculation, or a brazen attempt to mislead their members. Or both. British workers went along with the illusion but dissatisfaction and unease found little focus until the 2016 referendum.
Yet what happened after British workers called the bluff of the EU capitalist club? They sat back! They left it to others!
The result was the long-drawn-out wrangle over the terms of departure. Most of those in parliament tried to sabotage the vote by egging on the delayers and procrastinators or questioning its validity.
Yet workers still had power. Politicians paid lip service to honouring the vote. But it took the 2019 general election to show that the British people were fed up with the shenanigans and delay. And then what happened? They waited for the opportunist politician they’d voted in to do the right thing!
Since then, governments have come and gone. Little has changed. Britain is still limited by ties to the ECHR and to NATO military structures. Net zero crucifies industry. Foreign owners buy up British manufacturers and live high on public service contracts.
Unease is growing again. Workers may choose to remain passive, but they don’t believe the lies of a desperate government on things that matter – jobs, pay, housing, energy, immigration and so on – and suspect a government sneaking us back into the EU.
It’s time for change in 2026. Don’t sit back and hope, against all experience, that something better will turn up. Make a start this year, wherever you are. Shout loud about what you need, what Britain needs for the future, and how things can be different.