The criminal convictions of members of the ‘Shrewsbury 24’ – convicted in the 1970s after successful picket action in an industrial dispute – have been quashed by a court of appeal as ‘unsafe’.
The workers and their families have campaigned for almost half a century against the state persecution of workers for organising collective action. Tragically, the verdict comes too late for Des Warren, one of two who received the longest sentences. Warren died in 2004 without seeing his name cleared.
This is a fantastic victory for those wronged and their families and supporters – and a chilling reminder, in a time of ‘SpyCops’ laws and the Tories’ plan to give police draconian powers against protesters for merely causing annoyance, of what unaccountable state power means.
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At last!
At last. Love to the friends, families and supporters. I am still livid because industrial injustice continues unabated. God Bless code Warren. Regards ☮️
Good news but just as with Derry, Hillsborough, Orgreave etc. the British state is always dragged kicking and screaming to admit its crimes against the working class – 30, 40 or more years later.
Just as one arm of the state makes what could be seen as a concession, another is busy putting the boot into another working class organisation.
https://challenge-magazine.org/2021/03/22/communist-party-attacks-electoral-commission-name-ban/
Thanks for the link. Good to see the youth getting it together. I thought that the Euros shut them down after assett stripping the party. X
They might be making a mistake there the eloctoral junta and digging a hole with the UK prefix.enforced on the communist party….ITs now up for debate of what and were the UK is..The Unionists in Ulster will be jumping into that one and the Labour party never politically recognising that part of Ireland as the UK and not running candidates there.will probably be in another tight corner.Shame they the electoral commission didn’t keep their gobs shut.
The revoking of the Shrewsbury 24 convictions (after 40-odd years of constant campaigning and an escalation of the matter by Steve Rotheram MP, PPS to Jeremy Corbyn) shows that 49 years ago the British State was guilty of wrongly convicting and imprisoning trade unionists who did nothing more than try to persuade non-unionised staff to join their strike.
Effectively, the conviction amounted to the CRIMINALISATION of going on strike. The British state was looking after the interests of the soon-to-emerge thatcher-model of enterprise and government (neoliberal socialism for the Corporates and heavy surcharging for the Many.
Today with the vicious and ferociously oppressive spy-cops bill, the British state (newly freed from European standards of decency) is trying to make it’s heavy-handed oppression the New Normal.
As Ricky Tomlinson might say “NEW NORMAL MY ARSE!”
Democratic socialists have never been more needed by a Many being tied down and robbed-blind by the spivs we refer to as ‘the Few”- of whose special interest group, the Trilateral Commission, Sir Keir Starmer is a very select Member.
About bloody time.
Well done Eileen.
Like everything else eveery governemt has gotten away with, it’s either covered up for another thirty years, or the truth comes out so all today’s kids wonder why the people around at that time were angry about.
….But don’t worry kids, the murderers of your grandparents; the ones who took from you to further enrich their own progeny at your expense – even when they were already richer than Croesus – will be long buried themselves, before the politicians of your generation (The ancestors of those who should be brought to book this very day, while they’re alive) might be called upon to issue their worthless apologies and platitudes.
Finally!!!!!!!! Thev9nvoctionsshoukd not have happened in the first place!
I must dig out my well-worn, tattered old Justice For the Shrewsbury 24 T-shirt and WEAR IT AGAIN WITH PRIDE…!!!!
In another 30 years will we discover how EXTREMELY close were Thatcher / Prince Charles / Jimmy Savile …? Or maybe that will take another 130…?
Ricky Tomlinson,who considered himself a political prisoner and eventually went on hunger strike for over a month said…We didnt win they kept us waiting over half a century and then said oh.dear!this was wrong!….And like I have said before the “Lump” system and blacking of workers in the building trade carried on.Still high fatilitys,blacking workers and a mutated form of the Lump in operation,with very little real employed workers.in whats called the Construction industry..Mcalpine Bovis wimpey Costains were all glorified employment brokers subbing work to Gang masters…
Neil Kinnock would probably denounce them as ‘stubborn’ just like he denounced Corbyn for opposing nuclear weapons.