don, where we had been talking to a The leaders of the banner. ayall! march started again.
three police vans were stoppped. The coach all drew their truncheons and Their purpose, he said, 17 were arrested.
drawn. They did 17 or so more.
It was bloody disgusting - and preleaders amongst the 80 marchers. It was just the same in the nirties -they broke up the unemployment We came down the ramp to reassemble outside the site at staples corner. hen delegation of stewards about the march. John Deason, the march organiser, told us to form up. We were in pairs as we had been all through the march. I was holding marches then.' "The inspector said to Deason: 'You're changing your route'. Next thing I knew I felt a blow on the side of my head and my glasses flew off and smashed on the floor. As I bent down to pick up what was left of them the banner was wrenched from my hand, I was belted in the back of the knees and fell face first on the floor 'As I rolled over I saw the same policeman usine une banner pole to lash into tut rest of the demonstration. An inspector told nim to cool it out at inat moment a police coach pulled across the rest of the road. The cops poured out and kneed into the lads. I was kicked in the chest Eventually we formed up again, bar four or five who had been arrested and Mike Lynch who'd been knocked out. The inspector shouted at Deason. "You're under arrest", but John was in fact appealing for everyone to cool it to get the We went across a roundabout, but 200 yards further up the coad outside Smiths Industries the same coach and police were lined on either side of the road. As soon as we drew level with the laid in to get Deason. About another *We ran into Smiths and threw the gates shut behind us. We formed up and marched out. Another 400 yards up the road ne police came out ot the coach again with no helmets on and truncheons "We'd been on the road three weeks.
meditated. They knocked off nine out of the eleven speakers for the Albert Hall Rally and virtually all the group thirties - FRANK JONES, an unemployed wood machinist from Liverpool.
MICK GOSLING reports:
The brutal assault by police on the Right to Work March in North London last Friday. must not go unanswered in the labour movement.
The 80 marchers had walked 300 miles from Manchester, attempting to spread the message of the fight for jobs, when they were set about by police literally on the doorstep of Hendon police Ston. As ommy Douras Irom LIve! pool told the press conference: Do you think we'd have picked on a busload of coppers outside a police station when we were only a mile from the end of the dav's march. Come off it. You know what happened. They picked on us.
in the samona non orkama men's canteen at Willesden on Friday night, I was told dozens of harrowing StorIeS Dy te remale marcuers about what had happened to their comrades.
Like Colin Calvert from Manchester. He had his right arm stamped on by police. The pain was terrible. Because cols rigat arm is only a stump lost the rest in a machine six years ago.
Like vike svnch aot zn miner Tom untermine woo was draged into Hendon police station unconscious. The march first aid person Joe Cronshaw was arrested when he went to attend him.
Like Paul Bryden from Bristol, who has a bad cartilage and walks with a limp. He told me how he hobbled over towards John Deason when the police seized him. He was kicked and batoned to me ground. And despite mis pieas. a policeman broke Paul's walking stick over mis cnee The National Assembly on Unemployment must pass a resolution condemning the police attack, demanding that Home Secretary Roy Jenkins mstruct te ponce to drop all charges, and calling on all delegates, and sponsorme bodies • - including te 40 Labour MPS Scanlon, Buckton and 'lesser' union leaders - to wage a campaign in defence of the 44 arrested, including a trade union inquiry into the whole affair.
Responsibility for this attack doesn't simply rest with the police. It also rests with those misleaders who have failed to wage any fight in the workers movement alamst Labour s mass unempiov ment policies. Obviously the police want to intimidate the unemployed from fighting for the right to work - but only the enforced separation of the job less from the trade union movement due to the policies of its leaders makes that possible.
Red Weekly has several times criticised the international Socialists for mas querading behind the banner of the Rank and Flle Organising Committee, in prac tice counterposing it to the National Assembly on Unemplovment This has meant two things: firstly there was no clear call to de nose rorces conn mitted to action against the polices of the Labour Government to organise the march; secondly, the Communist Party (which denounced the march) and the Labour lefts have been let off the hook because their useless policies have not been contronted through linking the march to the fighting programme for Toos mar necas to come our or ens Assembly.
But the labour movement as a whole and militants at the Assembly must not let the sectarian practices of the IS allow the CP to enforce its own brand of Stalinist sectarianism at the Assembly. new must uncone tomay cerend me arrested and campaign for the dropping of all charges.
Help defend the 44! All monies to: Right to Work Campaign Defence Fund Treasurer, to tuce ceorge Koad, Lon GOD NO
The Assembly on 27 March will almost certainly be the Red Weekly 25 March 1976 MOVEMENT programme of opposition to the Mac Donald leadership. The second