Is Britain a Democracy?

 At the Trade Unions Conference this week the delegates voted overwhelmingly for a motion to have a one day of co-ordinated strike action. No sooner was this motion passed than the Government announced it would use the armed forces to take over the jobs for the duration of the industrial action of the workers. This may include tube trains, metro trains, the overground and national rail trains being driven by members of the armed forces with very little training involved.  

 Is it not the role of the armed forces to protect Queen and country from any threat to destroy the British democracy?  The armed forces are not meant to be used for a political dogma. Is Britain again heading for a confrontation between the legitimate right for workers to strike and is this being quashed by a Tory-led coalition government using the forces of the state such as the police and the armed forces? Prime Minister David Cameron openly admits and said so in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions: “I am proud to be a son of Thatcher”.  Will this lead to a repetition of the scenes during the miner’s strike of the 1980’s when Prime Minister Margaret “the milk snatcher” Thatcher used the police, the army and the intelligence services, (MI5 etc.)  to fight the miners with unprecedented violence and intimidation.

Is it possible there will be a repeat of the Peterloo Massacre at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester on the 16^th August 1819 when the Militia, ( not full time military untrained or partially trained used often in times of an emergency) Cavalry and the Hussars were ordered to attack the protesters gathered together to demand the reform of parliamentary representation? The attack cumulated in the death of 18 people including women and children and over 700 being injured by the sabre cut as the cavalry and  the Hussars charged at the gallop with their sabres flashing and slashing into the unarmed demonstrators and many being trampled under the hoofs of the horses. It is reported that many more later died from the injuries sustained in the attack   

It was called Peterloo as many of the militia, cavalry and Hussars were involved in the Battle of Waterloo.

Can anyone who saw it forget the charge by mounted police against the demonstrators at a British Steel coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire, (known as the Battle of Orgreave), in 1984 when 50 – 60 mounted police charged the peaceful demonstrators this included an attack by 58 police dogs. (In 1991, Sth. Yorkshire Police were forced to pay out over ½ million pounds to 39 miners who were falsely arrested and incarcerated at the “Battle of Orgreave”).      

Will the self declared “son of Thatcher” and his millionaire cronies on the Government front bench (with the support of the Liberal Democrats), repeat the suppression of the people’s right to take industrial action, voice their opinion and protest through peaceful demonstration as the then Prime Minister Margret Thatcher gleefully did during her reign from 1979 - 1990?

This will be the first General Strike since 1926. It is not only the trade unions who support the General Strike. The Youth Fight for Jobs and Education, (YFJE) has long been an advocate of a general strike arguing that it will begin a mass movement against the austerity measures being forced upon the most vulnerable people in Britain: the elderly, the sick, the poor, the homeless, women and single parents.

This in the same week that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat M.P., announced plans for it to become easier for employers to sack workers and limit the amount that can be paid out for an unfair dismissal.

One other Question

Why is it that an economic depression brought about by the Capitalist Bankers and so called Leaders of Industry, and inept politicians such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer past and present, CAUSE THE WORKERS, THE SICK, ELDERLY, WOMEN, CHILDREN, THE HOMELESS AND THE POOREST TO SUFFER AND PAY FOR IT?

 McTaggart