MSF LEADERSHIP STILL LIES IN THE POLITICAL GUTTER

The launch of Amicus, the peculiar name for the outfit formed by merger with the AEEU, will not alter the status of the MSF bureaucracy as the most malevolent and incompetent group of people ever to head a major trade union. The unfinished business of the old regime includes the continuing witch-hunt against the London Regional Council. Three former officers of the Council have now been suspended under investigation for well over two years, while a fourth is in the middle of a three-year ban from office inflicted on non-existent grounds. Meanwhile, the thieves and liars who infest the upper reaches of the union have got away with their crimes after nearly £1 million was spent in covering them up.

The witch-hunt has been pursued with immense personal vindictiveness, but its roots lie in politics. The issues concern the control freakery of the Labour Party over transport and local government in London and the even more demented desire of the MSF leadership to exercise dominance in the union.

The Regional Council campaigned consistently against Blair's plan for an elected mayor in London and for the retention of London Underground wholly in the public sector. We foresaw, correctly, that the mayoral device was essential a democratic fraud, intended to leave control of London's affairs in the hands of central government, while creating the illusion of devolution. We were also steadily building an alliance with the RMT and other organisations in defence of London Underground. All the evidence shows that these policies commanded wide support among MSF members in London whose outlook was no different from the city's workers at large.

Far from providing any assistance to our campaigns, MSF General Secretary Roger Lyons conspired with the Labour Party leadership to disrupt us at every turn. Political tension rose with permanent threats of disciplinary action against the Regional Council officers. Eventually Lyons saw an opportunity over the question of the Council's affiliation to the Greater London Labour Party to secure the suspension of the three principal officers by the NEC. This took place in November 1999 when the Labour Party was gearing up to choose it mayoral candidate. The events also featured an unsuccessful court action by some London MSF members against the Labour Party over our participation in the election process.

As is well known, the outcome of the London elections in 2000 were a fiasco for the Labour Party. Livingstone was driven out of the Party but became mayor, Labour came third in the mayoral election and formed only a minority of the London Assembly. The mayor has been shown to have very little power viv-a-vis the central government while the Assembly has had no impact at all. Meanwhile, badly needed improvements to the transport system are held up by the government's determination to sell off bits of the Tube, a policy wanted by hardly anyone except those who hope to make money out of it.

Little wonder then that some vestiges of an exit strategy have recently appeared as Labour estimates the damage and begins to make some effort to limit it, no doubt hoping to avoid a similar disaster in the next election.

No such glimmers of intelligence have been apparent in MSF. In the face of huge unpopularity, the cases against the three suspended officers plod on with inflexible malice and are still a long way short of resolution. While the investigators are determined to get a conviction, they are unable to formulate even remotely credible charges.

The three officers, Susan Michie, ex-president, David Beaumont, ex-treasurer, and myself, ex-secretary, have pursued somewhat different strategies in defending ourselves.

David has counter-attacked by running a web-site www.rogerlyons.com which chronicles Lyons' misconduct. Lyons is a serial abuser of the union's funds and property not to mention our members and staff and our rules and policies. He has managed to survive only because of the utter feebleness of the NEC and shows no sign of altering his behaviour if recent reports are to be believed of his staggering around the House of Commons looking for a meeting of the MSF Parliamentary Committee. When he does finally admit himself to The Priory, we must make sure that he picks up his own bills.

So David has had a lot of rich material to publish and has really managed to get under Lyon's skin. Every effort has been made to rubbish the web-site, including a bizarre, completely unfounded slur of racism against it. Now the NEC is proposing to investigate whether the web-site is against the interests of the union. That is the mentality – it is OK to steal from the union but not OK to blow the whistle on theft. This investigation could blow up in the NEC's face as all the allegations against Lyons will get publicly recycled when all they want to do is brush them under the carpet.

Susan decided to take her case to the Certification Officer, complaining of the many irregularities with which her investigation was conducted. In truth, all that this confirmed, in conjunction with other cases, is that the Certification Officer is no friend of rank and file trades unionists or even of minimal standards of decency in public life. However, arising from all this there will be an Employment Tribunal case in 2002 which will give a further airing to all the squalor. This may, however, come too late to save Susan from a long ban as the NEC may trundle into action in her particular case. She was elected to the NEC shortly after her suspension and has been kept off her seat ever since. She would add a cutting edge to the Left's efforts and this is undoubtedly an added motive for keeping her suspended.

I have kept my powder dry over the past two years but will start legal proceedings if I think there is a reasonable chance of winning. My preference, rather than take the union to court, is to start proceedings against selected individuals in ways where they can't be indemnified against costs. But I'm not sure if that is going to be possible. More recently, I have been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Rather than take the opportunity to wind up the investigation, the NEC has decided to hold it in abeyance in case I recover. Well, most of them are too dumb to recognise the political gutter even when they are lying in it. It is no surprise that I have taken to describing them as "the cancer without."

That is the state of play in MSF as it approaches its unlamented demise. Every form of abuse flourishes at national level while honest trades unionists are persecuted for attempting to defend the interests of the members. It is a tribute to the regard that MSF is held in by its active members that few will regret its passing even at the price of being subsumed into the AEEU.

Hugh MacGrillen

December 2001