Mike Abbott
29/3/39 – 27/2/14
The Justice for Shrewsbury Pickets
Campaign has lost its founder and most lion-hearted champion. Mike re-kindled
the campaign from dormancy when he retired in 2006, just as he promised Des
Warren he would, when Des was dying from drug-induced Parkinson’s disease in
2004. For the first 5 years, the high profile that the campaign rapidly achieved
was entirely down to Mike, who travelled the length and breadth of the country
to build support. The intention was to persuade the TUC to organise a public
inquiry to learn from the experience and overturn the 1970s criminalisation of
mobilising solidarity action.
The campaign quickly became very
popular, with a network of supporting organisations and individuals, all looking
for a way to unite today’s campaigns against collective injustice with the
unresolved issues from 1972 – casualisation, bogus self-employment, blacklisting
of activists, poor H&S standards and inspection, and the behind-the-scenes
‘nod and a wink’ collaboration of employers, Tories, senior media, judiciary and
police officials to prejudice public opinion against trade unionism. Wherever we
went for support, it was forthcoming.
The campaign would not be where it
is now without the National Committee that Mike recruited. He constantly
reminded activists of Des’s statement from the dock, just before he was sent
down for 3 years for conspiracy:- “Nobody here must think they can walk away
from this court and forget what has happened here. Villains or victims, we are
all part of something much bigger than this trial. The working class movement
cannot allow this verdict to go unchallenged. It is yet one more step along the
road to fascism and I would remind you — the greatest heroes in Nazi Germany
were those who challenged the law when it was used as a political weapon by
government acting for a minority of greedy, evil
men.”
The National Committee organised a
lobby of parliament, 2 Early Day Motions, fringe meetings at UCATT, TUC and
Labour Party conferences; we lobbied traded union leaders and Brendan Barber; we
produced a DVD with Platform Films which has been shown all over the country; we
have spoken at numerous trades councils. We campaigned for both the hugely
successful annual Shrewsbury Pickets marches, in Shrewsbury organised by Telford and Shropshire TUC.
In the summer of 2010, out of
nowhere, some members from the North
West began to divide the campaign, insisting that the
only campaigning they would do was to seek legal redress for the 24 convicted
pickets. Legal redress was not on the campaign agenda until convicted picket
Arthur Murray requested it, and since then nobody opposed it. Walking away from
the National Committee will not overcome the criminalisation of mobilising
solidarity action.
Unlike Mike and others of his
generation, today’s young activists have no experience of the mounting
world-wide optimism and strength of the struggle for socialism in the 60s and
early 70s. And they have no other trade union organisation which is trying to
develop their understanding of how that optimism and strength arose and was
subsequently undermined. It was undermined by the unprincipled manoeuvring of
all manner of left-talking people and organisations, not just the official
leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions. These left-talkers blocked the
mobilisation of solidarity action that could have prevented the criminalisation
of trade unionism 40 years ago, just as the mobilisation of solidarity action
brought down the Heath government and forced the release of the Pentonville
dockers. Instead, the solidarity of the 1970s was broken down using the same
unprincipled tactics that were used against the National Committee — dividing
the different mobilisations against collective injustice instead of uniting
them, by claiming they are not part of the struggle for
socialism.
Mike continued to be active, turning
out and speaking up for every mobilisation against collective injustice, until
he was put on palliative care at the beginning of February. He went on
cheerfully talking and joking right to the end, with barely a moment’s
self-pity, despite the excruciating side-effects of the 3 courses of
chemotherapy he endured over 3 years, until the doctors could do no more. Mike’s
determination, integrity and fortitude are beyond question, a blazing beacon to
all who knew him, just like Des Warren’s. Des refused to allow himself to be
called a hero, and Mike felt the same. Nevertheless, all those young activists
who take up the struggle against collective injustice will honour people like
them, and be inspired by the qualities of unyielding principle and
self-sacrifice that they embodied.
