A T U Network
by
To understand the creation
of the ATU we must first understand the background that led to its creation.
Those of us in the Gazette who ran and partly financed Derek Simpson’s election
campaign were of the view that Derek held many if not all of the views of the
Gazette.
It is now clear to me that
Derek viewed things differently and, in my view, saw the Gazette as purely a
means to get elected. Very quickly after his election he became increasingly
frustrated with the organisation itself.
The Gazette is at times a
frustrating organisation, that much is true, but there is more to recommend it
than condemn it.
It now seems clear that many
issues led to the General Secretary’s disillusion with the Gazette, Wembley and
the expulsion of the SWP aligned EC members being the obvious highlight, but
the lack of more strident support for Jerry Hicks, the increasing isolation of
On 26th November 2004, I
attended a meeting in the General Secretary’s office at
When we had sat down with
our various drinks, the forthcoming creation of the ATU was put to me by Les Bayliss, it was obvious to me from his body language and of
Steve Davison and Chris Weldon, that they had some prior knowledge of this
subject as they did not seem alarmed at what was being said. The ATU was sold
to me as “Gazette Light”, in other words it would be a half-way house for those
who didn’t understand the Gazette’s position, in this
half-way house these individuals could be educated and persuaded in the ways of
the Gazette and then passed over to the Gazette.
The Regional Secretaries Cath Speight and Kevin Coyne were identified to me as the
prime movers in the ATU and I was requested as the Chairman of the Gazette to meet
with both of them. It was further put to
me that I should be a co-signatory of a letter together with Steve Davison
which would express our tacit approval of the creation of ATU.
On the 6th January of 2005
all of the Officer’s of Amicus were called to a meeting by the General
Secretary at the Birmingham NEC. It has been confirmed to me that at this
meeting Les Bayliss wandered around the room handing out ATU information and
application forms. This you might say is fair enough, but why were officers of
the
On February 1st 2005 I
attended another meeting with the General Secretary in his King Street office
and I put it to him that if myself as Chair of the Gazette, or any other
leading Gazette supporter, had done in Birmingham what the Assistant General
Secretary Bayliss had done i.e. had been openly campaigning politically, then I
would have been charged under rule and quite possibly dismissed. He retorted
that that was correct but he further confirmed that he did not want the events
in
Some of you in the Gazette
will recall that I gave a report of the original meeting at the next Gazette
meeting, Sat 5th February 2005. In my
report I apologised to the meeting and I said that I believed that Steve, Chris
and myself had been deceived, or shall we say misled.
At the time of me making this statement Steve Davison pointedly left the
meeting. Had he remained I would have given him floor to explain his version
and what he believed the purpose of ATU Network was. When I gave my report, it went uncontested by
any of the other two individuals involved.
On the 7th
February at the Grovesnor House hotel in
On the 8th February at Wortley Hall, 10am, Kevin Coyne, Chris Weldon, Graham
Goddard and I met. Kevin Coyne talked
about the ATU encouraging politically unaligned members to join a ‘Gazette
light’ organisation and asked for Gazette support. I said this would never happen and the
meeting continued after lunch without me.
I wish everyone who reads
this to clearly understand that I am not attacking anyone in the content of
what I have written and no one regrets more than me that the relationship
between the Gazette and the General Secretary is not what it should have been
under the old leadership.
The protection by the Chair
of the Gazette of all the disparate forces that make up the Gazette is fundamental
to its health and wellbeing. Removal of
those we disagree with, witch hunting or any form of attack is to miss the
point. I remember someone writing in their election address “we will not
replace a right wing dictatorship with any other form of dictatorship”, I for
one believed that then and I still believe it now.
Gazette Chair 2001-2006
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