THE Tory government has been described by numerous commentators as “the most right-wing government of recent times,” advocating savage and brutal cuts to welfare, privatisation of the NHS, the fire-sale of national assets and the most vindictive attack on workers’ rights in three decades in the guise of the now infamous Trade Union Bill.

The Bill represents a severe threat to trade unionism in Britain, seeking to allow strikes to be undermined by bosses shipping in agency workers to render any industrial action ineffectual — a practice which has been banned since 1973.

The government claims that the Bill will “modernise” the way that unions operate by imposing regulations not used in 42 years.

If the Bill’s intention really was to bring union activity into the 21st century, as the Tories claim, a form of electronic balloting should be introduced for strike ballots, which would mirror both the internal practice of the Tory Party itself and the recent Labour leadership election.

Instead of this, the Trade Union Bill will impose thresholds on ballots for industrial action which, if applied to the recent general election, would see only 56 of the current 326 Tory MPs lawfully elected.

If this startling hypocrisy were not enough, the Bill also makes a series of completely unnecessary and alarmingly Orwellian demands on pickets, including the appointment of “picket supervisors,” identified by armbands to be worn at all times, who must supply police with their personal details.

In a dystopian twist, trade unionists will also be required to harness the power of a clairvoyant to gaze into the future and outline exactly what will be posted on social media 14 days in advance of the commencement of any strike action.

The level of bureaucracy involved with holding a lawful strike is designed to shatter the right to withdraw labour and render workers completely impotent while bestowing even greater powers upon the bosses shipping in scab labour from agencies.

Failure to comply with the new regulations could see individual union members subject to new criminal offences, such as “intimidatory picketing,” with their union facing huge financial penalties.

The attempt to cloak this ideological attack in the veil of “modernising” is a complete fallacy when you consider that the new Bill drags workers’ rights back through the bleaker days of trade union history.

Following the General Strike of 1926, the TUC was taken to court and found liable for huge fines from employers who had been affected.

The so-called Astbury judgement also gave the government the ability to confiscate union funds.

The Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act of 1927 hammered the point home by outlawing mass picketing and solidarity action.

As can be seen, far from bringing unions into the 21st century, the threat of financial penalties, strikes being deemed illegal and the tightening of picket regulations is simply a throwback to an Act of Parliament which is almost 100 years old.

The new Trade Union Bill borrows further from the 1927 Act by attacking the “opt-out” system of political funds and replaces it with an “opt-in” process “for the political fund element of trade union subscriptions.”

The attack upon union political funds is a clear, ideologically driven assault designed to remove any political element from trade unions while undermining the funding of the Labour Party, which affiliated trade union members can choose to contribute towards.

The 1927 Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act brought in the implementation of the “opt-in” system, resulting in a drop in Labour Party funds of 20 per cent.

Alongside the Con-Dem government’s Lobbying Act, the Tories are intent upon stripping ordinary people of their political voices, simultaneously limiting the campaigning power of charities, non-party-political organisations and trade unions while removing the important funding stream of the party established to give the working class a voice in the Commons.

It is with some irony then that the Tories have chosen Manchester as the venue for their 2015 conference, under the banner “for hardworking people.”

The Manchester International Convention Centre, where the old Etonians, Bullingdon Boys and hangers-on will meet in October, is just yards from the site of the Peterloo Massacre, in a city that gave rise to some of the most important struggles of the labour movement, stretching from the weavers’ strikes of the 1800s through to the success of the Anti-Corn Law League, the Chartists, the Women’s Social and Political Union, and more recently, the repeal of Section 28.

Manchester is often cited as the birthplace of the TUC, which held its founding meeting in the Mechanics’ Institute in 1868 — however the city’s history of collective action is much older.

In his classic The Making of the Working Class in England, EP Thompson describes the “great Manchester cotton spinners’ strike” of 1818 as “the first impressive attempt at general unionism” in industrial north-west England.

The tradition of colourful banners, music and conviviality in defence of workers’ rights was ignited in Manchester during the weavers’ strikes, with Thompson’s account declaring that “the morale of each individual weaver was higher from the reassurance of numbers, the pageantry, the rhetoric.”

Anyone who attended the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival this year — the first under a majority Tory government since 1996 — will recognise this description, as it still resonates with trade union gatherings of modern times.

Class confrontation in Manchester has had a profound effect on British history, most famously at Peterloo, which galvanised the fledgling labour movement as news spread of the atrocity.

People and press were mobilised in condemning the violence against a peaceful gathering — the Establishment of the time had meant the use of force to have the opposite effect.

The labour movement has a long history of resistance in the face of threats and attacks.

This July at Tolpuddle, a local resident explained to me that he was shocked at the number of attendees, having assumed that trade unionists would be too despondent under the Tory government to turn up in any great numbers. Instead, the parade was the largest in memory. The TUC has called upon trade unionists and supporters to carry that flame of defiance and hope into Manchester on October 4 and march upon the Tory Party conference in an act of solidarity — highlighting opposition to the Trade Union Bill and continued austerity.

It is vitally important to attend in large numbers to show this government that workers’ rights are human rights, which will be defended.

In describing the weavers’ strikes in the city, EP Thompson states: “If the open organisation of the people had continued on this scale, it would have been impossible to govern.”

It is this open organisation which must be harnessed to defeat the Trade Union Bill.

The Tories are trying to drag trade unions back through time by shackling their activities and revoking hard-fought gains — however history teaches us that the labour movement won many successes through organisation, agitation and protest.

Manchester has borne witness to the most pivotal moments in labour movement history, and it is this “Manchester spirit” that must be reclaimed in the fight to stop the Tories hauling us back to the 19th century when workers were treated as resources to be exhausted to feed the capitalist cause.

Aneurin Bevan, writing about the power of the organised labour movement in his book In Place of Fear, remarked: “Silent pain evokes no response. The social reforms of the 20th century are a consequence of the democratic power of the masses.”

It is imperative that trade unionists do not recoil against this government in solitude, in “silent pain.”

We must be heard, and we will be — in Manchester, on Sunday October 4 2015.