ONE hundred and eighty years ago, George Loveless penned the words “We will, we will, we will be free”  while languishing in prison. His crime? Organising his fellow workers against exploitation and poverty pay.

For this, he and his five brothers in their new union were deported to Australia, prompting — as we know — a mass outpouring of public anger and the eventual pardon of the men.

Their bravery and determination is what you celebrate this weekend. These men lit the torch of liberty and justice which has passed from generation to generation in our movement.

From the Match Girls to the Ford machinists, from the Shrewsbury 24 to those men and women today who continue to fight against blacklisting, our people stand as one to defeat injustice.

Sad to say, the centuries have not dimmed the bosses’ appetite for exploitation. Nor have they delivered us a government of and for the people. Certainly there were no ordinary people sitting at the table when David Cameron wined and dined the global super elite now setting his party’s priorities earlier this month.

Our labour movement can never rest. Indeed we must now ready ourselves for the fight of our lives.  In 10 months’ time a full-blown Conservative government could be picking up the keys to Number 10, and in so doing set about dismantling what remains of our rights and once proud public services.

Beware, then, of those who toast Cameron’s recent reshuffle as a PR coup. 

The team he wishes us to believe “represents Britain” is still 96 per cent white, 74 per cent male and 75 per cent privately educated.

And whatever the window dressing, this is still at its heart a hard-right government.   

Swept aside are those with respect for fundamental rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act. Staying in place, in these dog whistle days, is the grotesquely incompetent Iain Duncan Smith because his zeal for attacking benefits suits the Tories.

Rightwingers like Priti Patel have been elevated. Now ensconced in the Treasury, Ms Patel famously described British workers as “the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor. Whereas Indian children aspire to be doctors or businessmen, the British are more interested in football and pop music.”

An ally of the brutal Bahraini government, Ms Patel has been an outrider for the Tories’ anti-union, anti-worker policies, calling for unions to be “investigated” and impugning workers who take strike action as “skipping work.”  

She can be relied upon to spread distortions to and divisions between working people, pursuing an agenda that must bewilder her constituents in Witham for whom job losses at Morrisons may be a more pressing concern.

In seeking to address his “women” problem, Cameron has promoted a woman who has problems with the NHS (she voted to sell it off), the disabled (she voted to keep their benefits down), Scotland (she regards it as a drain on public spending) and the vulnerable (she supports the bedroom tax).

This gives us a glimpse at what a full-Tory government could look like if voted in next year. Having assaulted pay so that wage growth is at the lowest rate since 2001, attacked access to justice by pricing workers out of tribunals and presided over the most significant rise in self-employment (and with it a rights-free labour force) the Tories in 2015 will want to complete the task they have set themselves through the shackling of those who oppose their extremist free-marketeering — the unions.

That is why the Carr Review is so critical to their mission. Bruce Carr, the tame QC, has been appointed to head up the sort of naked stunt that would shame Evel Kinevel — to pave the way for further Tory assaults on the right to protest and on unions’ ability to stand up against unethical employers.

The nonsense proposal for ballot thresholds, when not one member of the Cabinet would clear the hurdle and the government refuses to contemplate modernisation of balloting so unions can engage their members, is a foretaste of things to come.

Cameron is laying his foundations.  A future Tory government will bulldoze its way through our rights.

It is not just women Cameron has a problem with, it is working people, vulnerable people, our public services and our NHS. Most of all it is us, the trade union movement that he and his party detest and fear.

Friends, when you gather this week to commemorate the bravery of Loveless and his union brothers, draw from their memory.  Remember that we are the people who stand up for what is good and decent in our society — for justice, fairness and true freedom.

Remember this, and celebrate. Then come home and prepare to do battle because we now face the fight of our lives.

Len McCluskey is general secretary of Unite.