Talk of a General Strike? It’s the act of a movement all at sea

In 1919, the Triple Alliance of miners’, railway workers’ and transport workers’ trade unions, fashioned before the outbreak of the First World War, threatened a mass strike. It would have wrought seismic damage to a British economy weakened by blood-letting on an industrial scale.

The workers represented sectors on which the whole of society depended: coal, railways, and crucially the importation of food from across the Empire. The dockers, it will be recalled, had won a strike against the Port of London in 1889.

In 1919, once the war-time suspension of industrial disputes had ended, the Triple Alliance flexed its muscles. Lloyd George, by then the most popular public figure in Britain, met them eyeball to eyeball, and according to George Dangerfield, said to them:

“Gentlemen, you have fashioned in the Triple Alliance of the unions represented by you, a most powerful instrument. I feel bound to tell you that in our opinion we are at your mercy. The Army is disaffected and cannot be relied upon… If you carry out your threat to strike, then you will defeat us… If you do so, have you weighed the consequences… if a force arises in the State which is stronger than the State itself, then it must be ready to take on the functions of the state, or withdraw and accept the authority of the State. Gentlemen, have you conferred and if you have, are you ready?”

And with that, the union leaders crumbled like Communion wafers.

It stands as a fine example of brinkmanship. The claim that the unions would have won is doubtful. The larger, more widespread ‘general strike’ in 1926 was defeated in nine days, thanks to vacillation by the TUC general council, and (whether we like it or not) a massive response from non-unionised workers and students to volunteer to drive the busses and patrol the streets.

But it also serves as a reminder of the ineffectual nature of the political strike in Britain. Even when union membership was the norm amongst industrial workers, who in turn represented the majority of the workforce, the unions were defeated.

Today, when only six million people belong to a trade union (half what it was in 1979), the majority in the public sector, the capacity of the TUC to mobilise a ‘general strike’ is laughable. Even if it enjoyed widespread support, if it lasted more than a fortnight, it would impact only on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society: the people reliant on council services, welfare payments and the NHS. The offices and factories of Britain would carry on working, newspapers would appear, food would remain in the shops and the lights would stay on. If it didn’t work in 1926, it certainly won’t work in 2012.

So if a ‘general strike’ is a non-starter, why should the TUC this week in Brighton allow such nonsense to be discussed, even in the heavily toned-down language of the motion?

Partly it is an expression of frustration with the Coalition government’s programme of cuts. The people voting for the ‘general strike’ are the same as those who will be the backbone of the TUC ‘A Future That Works’ demonstration on Saturday 20th October. They will be joined by hundreds of thousands of others (including me) to express their dissent against the government’s programme. It’s an understandable emotion to feel, faced with the closure of your Sure Starts, libraries and police stations.

Partly it’s an expression of the romanticism of the far-left. The ‘general strike’, like the burning brazier, factory occupation or hand-painted placard, belongs to the romantic imagery of the revolutionary and syndicalist left, which only seems to exist inside the TUC and the NUS. For a moment or two by the English Channel, delegates get to pretend to be Rosa Luxembourg or Che Guevara, before returning to the staff room or town hall.  

But mostly, it’s the act of a movement all at sea. The real danger is not that the TUC is viewed as a hotbed of revolution, with its ‘Ding Dong Thatcher’s Gone’ party packs, and its barracking of Balls. That, naturally, is what David Cameron would want. It allows Downing St to brief, as it did the Daily Mail this week, that ministers are meeting with service chiefs to plan deploying the army, like it did during the Olympics.

The real danger is that the TUC leadership looks, not powerful, but toothless; not dangerous, but irrelevant, like an ancient prize fighter crippled by arthritis. Toothless irrelevance. Ladies and Gentlemen, have you conferred, and if you have, are you ready?