I remember attending a meeting in
Manchester shortly before the two hundredth anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre
in Manchester in August 1819. There were some people at the meeting who didn't
want to give the then Labour MP, Chris Williamson, a platform and the right to
speak at the Peterloo event in Manchester in August 2019. Williamson had been
suspended by the Labour Party for comments that he had made. The meeting agreed
to invite Chris Williamson and the North West TUC then withdrew their support
for the Peterloo event.
What those people were fighting for at Peterloo, was to have a democratic voice and the vote for men of a certain age. If democracy means anything then it means the right to be able to protest and the right to exercise free speech. The workers at Peterloo were denied this and some were killed and many injured fighting for this. The Peterloo Massacre was class war.
Although Chris Williamson got to speak at that the bicentennial event, there were some people in the labour movement, including some of the organisers of this event, who wanted to no platform him, and they could see no inconsistency in doing so, and supporting this commemorative Peterloo event.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment