The government's change of tack on coal closures in the past
week has not been a complete U-turn. Even though only 10 pits are now to shut
at once, with the fate of the other 21 pits originally earmarked for closure
to be reviewed, the government's intention remains to implement the whole
closure programme as soon as it can.
Nothing that Mr Heseltine has said this week has even
approached an admission that the root of the coal crisis lies in the idiotic
blunder of electricity privatisation. All that he offered on Monday was a
moratorium on two-thirds of the pit closures, pending examination of the competitiveness
of individual pits in prevailing market conditions. He explicitly ruled out
any review of the energy policy that has created those market conditions.
By Tuesday, the government had backed down in the face of
continued criticism from its backbenchers. The review is now going to take in
the question of Britain's strategic energy needs. John Major agrees with Labour
that the Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry should be given a key
role in examining the closure programme.
Labour has not got everything that it wanted. The government
has pointedly refused to think again about the 10 pits which it still wants to
shut at once. But with British Coal forced by the courts to keep even these
pits open until mid-January, the party can afford to be pleased with the first
stage of its campaign against the pit closures. It has played an honourable
part in winning time for the case to be made against the Government's plans.
The question now is what it does with that time. Part of Labour's effort must,
of course, be to pursue in Parliament the case against the closures and for a
coherent energy policy for Britain.
Labour can hammer the government for the disaster of
electricity privatisation, with its protection for nuclear power and its de
facto encouragement of the "dash for gas" by the electricity distribution
companies. It can press home its insistence that the Government conduct a
thorough examination of the long-term future of the coal industry and take account
of the social and economic costs of pit closures. But a wide-ranging assault on
the government in Parliament is not enough. Labour must also do all it can to
mobilise opposition to the pit closures outside the corridors of Westminster.
The change in popular mood since the pit closures
announcement is tangible even in Fleet Street and the Tory home counties. Those
who were prepared to give the Tories the benefit of the doubt after "Black
Wednesday” a month ago, thankful that interest rates had not, after all, gone
up to 15 per cent, have turned against them. For thousands of British people,
the destruction of the coal mining industry is the last straw. The government
has lost its credibility.
It is crucial that Labour articulates this change of mood,
not just in Parliament but throughout the country. This Sunday's demonstration
in London against the pit closures should be a stepping stone towards a massive
campaign of popular mobilisation, with Labour taking the lead, against the government's
whole economic strategy.
People demonstrating in the streets will not remove Mr Major
from Number Ten but, with the government drifting and its Commons majority
vulnerable to back-bench rebellion, there is a real possibility that a
sustained show of popular anger could force a genuine U-turn.
