Back to main newsCommunist Party congress: We're ready to break bad laws, vows POA leader
Tue 27 May 2008
Author: ANN DOUGLASCommunist Party congress: "WHEN a government suppresses you and takes away your freedom, the only thing is to break bad laws," Prison Officers Association general secretary Brian Caton told the Communist Party of Britain national congress at the weekend.
"We will continue to challenge bad laws," he added.
Mr Caton detailed the attempts by successive governments to deny his members their union rights.
These ranged from former Tory home secretary Michael Howard claiming that the POA had never been a union and that its members were part of the armed forces to current Justice Minister Jack Straw's statement that disrupting work in prison is a criminal offence.
The POA leader highlighted Tony Blair's broken pledge to restore his members' rights, stating that many of his members were "moving away from Labour and looking at other parties.
"For myself, as an active leaflet-er for the Labour Party since the age of eight, I shall never ever trust them again," he said.
Thanking the Communist Party for the support shown to the POA during the bad times, he added: "There'll be more, there'll be more."
Delegates debate wind farm cash
Communist Party congress: DAVE Stavris (Oxfordshire) sought the removal of a reference in the domestic motion to "massive but dubious incentives for onshore wind farms."
He told congress that he was part of a non-profit collective behind a small wind farm in Oxfordshire, which was committed to alternative energy sources.
Martin Levy (Newcastle & Gateshead) said that transnational energy firms were pushing for onshore wind farms as the most profitable way to meet the government's instructions on "green" energy.
He said that companies could pay landowners up to £800,000 a year to site the facilities on their land, which "seems like a 'massive and dubious incentive' to me."
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