To be or not...

Labour’s continued lead in the opinion polls has fired new talk of a snap election next year to give Andy Burnham a proper mandate to carry out his “Manchesterism” agenda. Labour are now four points ahead of the Faragists that only a few months ago were being tipped as the likely winner of the next general election. But while the “Burnham bounce” has revived Labour’s fortunes in England – at least for the time being – it has done little to boost the party’s standing north of the border. The nationalist constituency remains supreme despite all the scandals that have rocked the SNP in recent times. So it’s not surprising to hear words of caution from the Labour ranks.

Scottish Labour leadership front-runner Michael Marra openly argues against an early poll. He told the Daily Record  that “I think we’ve got a very significant mandate to make the kind of change that the country needs”. Burnham had made a “brilliant” start, in contrast to Starmer whose relationship with the country had “broken down”. And  “there’s lots more to do and I think that we should be taking the time to do it”.
However most suspect that Marra’s caution is based on a realistic assessment of Labour’s chances of winning any Scottish election in the near future. Scottish Labour came fourth in two recent by-elections for the Westminster parliament and many fear an early election would see them reduced to fewer than 10 MPs in the House of Commons.
There’s no constitutional need for Burnham to seek a new mandate. He’s perfectly entitled to carry on until Labour’s term of office – won at the 2024 general election – expires in 2029.
The toppling of prime ministers by their own ranks has become an increasingly familiar feature of British bourgeois politics these days. Back-stabbing is more or less written into the unwritten code of conduct of both the Conservative & Unionist Party and Labour alike. The names of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sir Keir Starmer immediately spring to mind. Those on the losing side always whine. No one cares... 

Talking about mandates…

...none of the political pundits who are now bleating on about Burnham ever seem to question the arbitrary decisions of past governments on the economy let alone war and peace.
The austerity regime we’ve put up with for nearly 20 years was never part of the manifesto of the Tory government that set it up. And needless to say neither they nor the Labour Party have ever sought public endorsement before spending untold billions on nukes and conventional weapon systems or taking military action – usually at the behest of their masters in Washington – in defence of imperialism.
The mainstream gurus who work night and day to confine political discussion to immigration, taxation and the European Union never talk about the ruling class whose real debate is held behind closed doors and whose decisions are carried out by self-serving politicians on both sides of the parliamentary divide in the Westminster parliament. This is what we’re up against. This is why communists must close ranks with the rest of the anti-war movement to stop the drive to war in Ukraine, Iran and the rest of the Global South threatened by imperialism. 

The Burston School strike

Burston strike school -- now a museum

by Robin McGregor

 Sunday sees the sleepy commuter village of Burston in Norfolk come to life for the annual celebrations of the Burston Strike School which ran between 1914 and 1939.
 In 1914 two popular school-teachers, the husband-and-wife team of Tom and Kitty Higdon, both members of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) were dismissed from their posts at Burston. They had arrived at the parish school three years earlier, having previously had trouble with Norfolk County Council for the same offence of supporting the farm labourers’ unions in a different school. 
 They continued with this work at Burston which resulting in false allegations of assault against pupils being made against them. This time the gentry and clergy who controlled the county ensured there would be no second chance.  
 On the day of their departure, 1st April the vast majority of their pupils (66 out of 72) refused to attend school in protest and held a lively procession around the village lanes. What the local Rector airily dismissed as an “April Fool’s day joke” was no flash in the pan.  
 Instead it led to most of the pupils leaving the County Council run school permanently and the establishment of the Burston Strike School which was to endure for the next quarter of a century. At first the two teachers taught their pupils on the village green, moving to a disused carpenter’s shop as winter approached. Repeated fines for non-attendance were levied on the parents, who were mostly farm workers. Attempts by farmers to sack and evict their rebellious workers were halted by war-time labour shortages. 
Press publicity brought nation-wide support from trade unionists, first to pay the fines for non-attendance and later to build a new school on the village green opened in May 1917 by Violet Potter, the leader of the children three years earlier. George Lansbury, chairman of the national appeal for the school and future Labour Party leader unveiled the foundation stone. Contributions came from many branches of the ILP, the National Union of Railwaymen and in particular the coal miners’ unions who contributed a quarter of the cost. 
The school continued throughout the twenties and thirties. In 1920 the Rector who had been the main opponents of the Higdons left and was replaced by a more agreeable clergyman and relations between the Strike School and the county school improved to the extent that both schools had equal numbers and had friendly contests on sports days. In addition to local pupils members of the Soviet Trade Delegation in London sent their children to Burston. During the 1926 General Strike children of Nottinghamshire miners were educated and boarded free of charge. The school finally closed in 1939, when it had only eleven pupils, after the death of Tom Higdon. His widow, then aged seventy-five, was unable to continue. 

The Background

 This episode remains one of the highlights of the generally sad story of rural trade unionism in Britain. When the Higdons arrived at Burston Norfolk long been an almost exclusively agricultural county. The medieval woollen industry did not survive the industrial revolution. 
 The lack of alternative employment meant that agricultural wages in Norfolk were the lowest in England and Wales. In 1902 the average wage in the county was only fifteen shillings and three pence (76 pence or less than £77 today). The “Great Depression” of 1873-96 hit agriculture particularly hard, grain imports from across the Atlantic were especially damaging to an arable area such as Norfolk. 
 However, Norfolk was a comparative stronghold of agricultural trade unionism. Joseph Arch founded the Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers Union in March 1872, in May of that year a conference of this and other county unions formed the National Agricultural Labourers Union (NALU) with other local unions joining in the coming months. London trade unionists formed a committee to assist them. The next two years saw a great deal of conflict between farmers and their workers who were eventually defeated, setting back trade unionism in the fields for decades. At first the mere existence of unions persuaded some farmers to increase wages. Highly localised strikes, particularly at harvest time, brought wage increases while older forms of protest such as rick burning and letting sheep into the cornfields of stubborn farmers continued.
Farmers fought back. In addition to reducing ‘slack period’ wages after the harvest “trouble-makers” were sacked. Given that farm labourers lived in tied cottages, dismissal equalled homelessness and being forced to leave their village. The Master & Servant Act which made breaches of contract by employees a criminal offence, while breaches by the employer were merely a civil matter, was much employed. Repeal of this Act, was a major goal of NALU. In one well publicised case an old woman had her parish relief withdrawn for the crime of having a son in the union.
Meanwhile  farmers  formed Farmers Defence Associations binding members not to employ trade unionists or concede wage rises. By a combination of lock-outs, mechanisation, selective pay rises for non-unionists the farmers were able to claim victory in 1874.. Like many unions, the NALU supported emigration schemes assuming this would raise wages for the remaining workers. This benefitted workers who went to Canada or New Zealand but removing trade unionists did not help building class solidarity. Internal squabbles did not enhance the appeal of the union to the demoralised labourers. Although NALU did not finally give up the ghost until 1896 membership fell from 86,000 members in 1874 to 20,000 in 1880.  
One remaining stronghold was Norfolk. In 1885 Joseph Arch was elected as MP for the county’s North-West seat, the first agricultural worker to do so. Elected on the “Liberal and labouring class interest” he was defeated the next year by only twenty votes by the Tory son of a local landlord. He was returned at the 1892 election, retiring in 1900. In the 1900 ‘Khaki election’, which was won by the Tories, the six rural Norfolk seats returned five Radical MPs and only one Tory. 
Arch was not particularly radical. He opposed land nationalisation and was proud of being the MP of the Prince of Wales whose Sandringham estates were in his constituency. After the defeats of 1874 farm workers’ hopes focused on extending the franchise. Once the vote was won the rural working class vote had to be wooed. The Liberals had to come up with policies which appealed to both farmers and their employees. They found one in Joseph Chamberlain’s ‘Three Acres and a Cow” policy which would allow local authorities to purchase land to provide cheap allotments for farm labourers. This helped gain the 1885 Liberal victory at little cost: any allotments would be purchased from landowners. Keeping both employers and employed happy was a difficult balancing act for the Liberals.  
 Shortly after the 1906 Liberal landslide the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers’ & Small Holders Union was formed. While the founding meeting was attended by working men, a Liberal MP was elected Treasurer. It might seem odd for a bourgeois political party to actually support the formation of a  union, but they were anxious to avoid losing support to Labour which had gained 29 MPs. A long unsuccessful strike involving about 80 farm labourers ended when the Liberals wound up the strike on the grounds that strike funds were running low rather than broaden it as the Norwich branch of the ILP had demanded. Such a move would have alienated other Liberal voting and funding farmers. At the AGM after the strike the Liberal leadership was replaced by ILP supporters. This comparatively small dispute was one of many where workers became disillusioned by the Liberal Party. 

Afterwards

 Labour and agricultural trade unionism did not have an easy ride in the countryside after the First World War. Of the 203 rural Parliamentary Constituencies only 45 had a District Labour party in 1921. At a by-election in Shropshire local activists, against the wishes of Party HQ contested the election. In addition to losing their deposit canvassers were pelted with dung by farm workers who either had never heard of Labour or thought they would nationalise women. 
In Norfolk a NALU stalwart, George Edwards, was twice elected for Norfolk South (which included Burston) in 1920 and 1923, but his tenuous hold on the seat demonstrates how weak rural Labour was. In Norfolk North the Noel Buxton who was the Liberal MP from 1910 to 1918 regained it in 1922 in the Labour interest. “Remember the Ballot is Secret” was a necessary warning on Labour Party cards until the 1930s. Hiring halls, which were owned by farmers was out of the question. On election day polling stations were often decorated with the Union Jack, the same symbol used by the Tories. 
Eventually Labour made a breakthrough in the countryside. The 1945 landslide was the start. But cannot be said that agricultural trade unionism is in a good shape these days. The mechanisation of agriculture in the post-war era has greatly reduced the numbers working on the land and their independent unions are now merely sections of the giants that dominate the TUC today.