“It is a terrific honour for me to be here today and I thank the dockers. Their struggle has been described, and it is a word that should be banned, as the struggle of dinosaurs. This is the most modern, contemporary, relevant struggle of working people in this country and one of the most contemporary in the world. The dockers should know they are doing everything right. They should not be downhearted. Their followers should not be downhearted.
The Daily Mirror has discovered the dispute. Congratulations to the “people’s paper” even if it took you two years, even if you described them as “old Labour” which they’re not. They are newer, more relevant than this Labour Government in office at the moment.
I think what we should understand about the dockers’ struggle is its significance, and I can’t emphasise that enough. There is a struggle all over the world against something that goes by the jargon name of “globalisation”. It is the new form of oppression. It is in every country. It is in the United States where workers are getting less than £4 per hour, where they are being laid off, where casualisation is like a disease. That disease has spread to this country. It is in South Africa where they are struggling for a Docks Labour Scheme. It is in Australia where the same thing is happening. In the Third World it means virtually slave wages. In this country it means unemployment. All the things the great dockers’ strike of the last century was meant to eradicate.
Liverpool is at the forefront of the most important struggle in this country at the moment, that is the struggle of working people to reclaim their birthright, the struggle of working people to have the right to work, the right to look after their families, the right to a decent secure life. The Liverpool dockers are at the vanguard of that fight and I think we should acknowledge that.
We’ve had a lot lately in the media about royalty. There has been a lot of apparent acts of mourning. Yes, mourning was certainly due. There has been a lot of waffle about a new Britain, a softer gentler Britain, led by Tony Blair. Let me tell you in my experience of 30 odd years as a journalist around the world and reporting from this country, the best of Britain are the Liverpool dockers and their families.
I call on my own colleagues, journalists, to drop this nonsense about dinosaurs, to tell the real story of the dockers, to tell the story of the betrayal of the dockers by their union, by their General Secretary and the collaboration of the Transport and General Workers Union hierarchy with the present Government and the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. Tell the story of why the dockers were locked out, why the Torside workers weren’t told about an offer right at the beginning. There is a scandal here. These men should not be here today. They should be working. A trap was set for them just as a trap has been set for workers all over the world. I call on journalists to print the story. Stop writing sentimental stuff about white haired men (and there are a few white haired men and why not) and write the political story, write the factual story. This is such an important dispute. I salute the dockers”.