Billy Hayes, CWU General Secretary, speech at Stockwell Community Resource Centre

Billy Hayes, CWU General Secretary

Billy Hayes gave a speech at a meeting organised by Kate Hoey at the Stockwell Community Resource Centre on Thursday 28 October 2004. Below are details of his speech taken from his web site billyhayes.co.uk, where Billy keeps a 'blog' up-to-date with his activities.

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

We are a few months away from a General Election.

Even within the audience in this room tonight, I would bet that there are many different assessments on the work of the Labour Government so far.

Without for a moment ignoring important and justifiable criticisms of the Government, I have to stress that the General Election will offer only one route for me.

That is to fight for the return of a Labour Government. I say this both as an individual socialist and as General Secretary of the CWU.

Let us take as an issue the future of Royal Mail.

At the Party’s National Policy Forum in July, we debated this issue with Ministers. We came to an agreement on the Manifesto that would register the fact that the Government had no plans to privatise the Post Office, and that the Government has an ambition to see Royal Mail as a successful publicly owned body.

Now, a General Election is above all about forming a Government. So I am only going to compare this commitment to the policies of parties which could form a national government, that is either the Tories or the Liberal Democrats.

Kate Hoey and Billy Hayes

The Tories did try to privatise the Post Office last time they were in government. We all well remember ‘Tarzan’ Heseltine leading the fight on behalf of his Party.

The Union at the time organised a very effective opposition to the Government. We created an extra-Parliamentary alliance that involved the TUC, business organisations, voluntary organisations, etc. This alliance reached into the heart of Tory Constituencies.

As a consequence, sufficient votes were split away inside the Party to prevent privatisation. It was a notable victory, and we well remember the invaluable support gained from the public.

We don’t believe for a moment that the Tories have changed. Michael Howard, John Redwood and all the others were behind Heseltine then. If they got their greedy hands on government, I am sure they would do the same again.

So it’s vital that we defeat the Tories if we are going to protect Royal Mail from privatisation.

What about the Liberal Democrats?

The Liberal Democrats are a right-wing party who will say some almost leftist things in pursuit of a vote. But considering that they have refused to rule out a coalition with the Tories, we really ought to have the measure of them.

Billy Hayes 'the Liberal Democrats are a right wing party'

However, should any of you be in any doubt about their inclinations, let me remind you that recently the Liberal Democrats were going to propose privatisation in their Manifesto. This was first floated in a Liberal Democrat policy paper in September 2003. Recently, Malcolm Bruce, the Party’s Trade & Industry Spokesperson, proposed privatisation for inclusion in the Manifesto.

Charles Kennedy vetoed the proposal. He looked in the mirror and both the faces that stared back at him told him it was a vote loser.

So, for reasons of pure political expediency the Liberal Democrats are not proposing in their Manifesto to privatise the Post Office. But given a chance, i.e. a sniff of power, they’ll do it.

It’s a simple question then of which of the potential governing parties offer the best prospect for Royal Mail. I believe it is entirely clear - only the Labour Party offers a chance of promoting Royal Mail as a public sector success story.

I am becoming used to being accused of naivety at this point. Haven’t I understood that there are those in the Labour Government who want to privatise Royal Mail? Haven’t I understood that Postcom was introduced by a Labour Government, and that Postcom want to introduce private competition?

And so on, and so on.

Well, yes I have understood these points, but I have also understood that the whole of the history of the labour movement, indeed the whole of history, has been one of struggle.

We get concessions from a Labour Government because we organise large numbers of people to put pressure upon Government.

That’s what socialists do. We don’t wait for gifts from any Government. We use our organisation to educate people on key issues.

We have a pressure point upon Government through our Union link to the Party. Those people who dismiss the Labour Government have no other pressure point. For us as a Union an inch of real progress is worth much more than a mountain of good intentions.

So I believe it is crucial to keep active in the Party and in the labour movement.

We have a big agenda for the next term from Labour. We want a Labour Government to implement the Warwick agreement. That’s just for starters.

Our ambitions for a Labour Government are to press it to take action to raise living standards in Britain, overcome all the institutionalised discrimination that plagues our society, and act as a force for peace and poverty reduction in the world.

Small ambitions? Obviously not – but Labour’s success depends on people like you fighting for progress. Keep active – because together we can lift any obstacle.

Thank you for listening.

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