Steve Nally
This interview was conducted over video call, so the audio is not quite as high quality or stable as the other recordings.
Tom Sankey: This is Tom Sankey with the British Left Oral History Project. It is forty past four on the 13th of August 2025. Could you say your full name of the recording, please?
Steve Nally: Steven Paul Nally.
Sankey: Brilliant, so let’s jump into it. What was your first introduction to politics?
Nally: Well, I grew up in a small Irish community near the Oval cricket ground. My dad was involved in the Postal Workers Union, and he was on strike in 1970, '71 for eight weeks over that winter. So that kind of got me involved in thinking about trade unionism and politics, and there was a lot of building work in the road, and a lot of them were involved in the battle against the lump, which a lot of workers weren’t, didn't pay tax on national insurance. Many Irish workers on the building sites across London and elsewhere, and these building workers, some were Communist Party members, got involved in fighting against the lump and trying to get people onto paying tax and national insurance, so that if injuries happened at work, their families wouldn't go without. And so, they were involved in the running battle for some time, including the, I think, haling work at the Barbican Building back in the day. And my dad was obviously heavily involved in his trade union branch and you know, I was in a family where politics always discussed, my dad was against the Vietnam War. He bleeding rights of women, you know, bleeding women had the right to abortion, all that kind of stuff.
Nally: But Mum was more involved in like, Irish side of politics, you know, following the events in Ireland and I wouldn't say she was Republican, but her fam, my great grandfather had fought in the uprising in 1916, and my grandmother was very much a Republican. My mother was probably a quiet Republican, but there was a lot of politics discuss as we were growing up in that, in our household, in our community, and so that introduced me to the world of politics and I’ve seen that the world is wider than just being a little kid, and playing football and playing cricket, that there’s a bigger world out there.
Nally: And obviously, where we live wasn't very good accommodation, it was damp, it was an outside toilet, no bathroom, like most of the people around there, and things only improved when we got moved to council flats in the 1970s. So, although we had a really good childhood, we grew up in conditions that really, by that stage, only 10% of Londoners were living in, although my dad was a postal worker and was getting a decent income, really compared to many other workers, but it was a good childhood, bit kind of it was a lot of politics from a very young age. That was my introduction to it, and obviously, through my own experiences, you know it’s a, you know.
Sankey: You said you met some Communist Party people. Do you remember how they were? Do you remember what it was like interacting with them?
Nally: Well, I was a child, so they were just like neighbours. But one was called Jack Henry, and I was very, quite friendly with his sons, his four sons, and Jack Henry is one of the leading, became a leading member of UCAT, the building workers union, back in the day, but he was heavily involved in the battles against the lump in London. I mean, they had to fight their way on to building sites to kind of unionise them. It wasn't, they couldn't walk on, not in those days, had no right to walk on. So literally he had to win fights, then unionise and bit by bit they were doing it across London and elsewhere. And he was in the Communist Party, I don't remember ever talking to him about politics, but I remember he had lots of books by Lenin and various other people, you know, and he'd been to Russia and stuff like that, so I was quite fascinated by the idea.
Nally: I mean, the other thing really pulled me as well as I grew up was the punk scene, the Rock Against Racism, stuff like that, that significant in, in my development politically, in terms of the world around me, the wider world around me, the very wide world around me, and the issues that were blowing up in a 1970s and, you know, late 1970s. So, it wasn't like I, I knew these people to talk to who were just around in the background, but they were like people you kind of admired and respected. And obviously, my dad was a very involved with the Postal Workers Union. We went for a lot of privation, at strike and the winter of 1970, So they got no money or benefit… Ooh, unstable connection, I'm going to start moving around… Yeah, that's okay now.
Nally: So I got, um, so I got, you know, my dad was the introduction, really, but then the household had a lot of politics discussed and the relatives discussed politics all the time. But it was a lot of politics, a lot of activities, a lot of things taking place in 1970, liberation movements, to Vietnam War, massive strike waves in 1970s. The events in Ireland, et cetera, so it's quite a lively time politically, and that impacted on me and even my brother, who went to university to study politics, but there's just not really involved in politics, but I became more and more involved as I got older in things, in demonstration, stuff like that.
Sankey: Do you remember the first demonstration you went to sort of separate from your family?
Nally: First one would probably be a Rock Against Racism thing (Sankey: Yeah?) back in the 70s, and quite a few marches. I honestly can't, I know I went on some of them, but they're just a distant memory now. So really went on them because at the end you're going to hear The Clash play or X-Ray Spex or something like that. Although you agreed with Rock Against Racism, you also went because you knew there'd be a big, a bit of a festival atmosphere at the end, because I was only young, a teenager, but me and my brother went on them and other people I know went on them.
Nally: So that's my first introduction and then really, I suppose in the early 1980s, I started going all demonstrations in South London and elsewhere as I got more directly involved in the Militant, Militant Tendency and the Labour Party, et cera. But I did go to some Labour Party events in when I was the teenager, but I wasn't particularly impressed by the Labour Party (Sankey: No?) at all, they're not going to achieve anything. I sadly have been proven correct over the last four years, but that's the way it goes, you know? Can you hear?
Sankey: Yeah, I can hear you.
Nally: You still see me, I'm wandering about the place because it says the connection is weak.
Sankey: Yeah. I'll turn off my video because that might be affecting the, but I can still, I can still hear you, I'll let you know if I can't. So, you mentioned Militant. When, tell me about how you came across them?
Nally: Well when I left home and, I went to kind of college and studied and that, and I was looking around more and more for you know, that there has to be a better way to run society, a better way, more equal way, cause all I could see when Thatcher got to power was cuts and people losing, swimming pools being closed, youth clubs being closed. And I was quite, I suppose, an angry young man looking for a way out, and I started when I moved to Brixton with some friends going to various meetings in and around the Brixton area, and then a friend of mine, whose name I won't mention, but he introduced me to a meeting. He said, "These people are, aren't like all the other lefts. They seem more grounded, seem more like us, Steve, you know? So, I went into a meeting and I joined it, and then I said I got involved, a bit by a bit in the Militant Tendency, and I joined the Labour Party.
Nally: But what appealed to me was the fact that I could discuss, there were more grounded that, and I was involved in my trade union at work then on, British Rail, so it appealed to me more, but also, there was a couple of questions I'd have around, you know, Ireland and stuff like that, which I've really wanted to resolve and I wasn't happy with this position of just, just aimlessly supporting terrorism and sectional, which I didn't really support, but I thought that's an alternative, and I had a lot of discussions around that, but really it was a fact that, you know, there was a lot of going on at a time and I wanted to fight back and like a lot of young people and the Militant would the ones for me at that moment in time and all these years on I’m still involved in the Socialist Party. So, you know, that's how, that's how it got involved, really. I was just really, what a lot of young people just really fuming at Thatcher and what the Tories were doing to Britain in the early days. I mean, I was made unemployed, you know, just about three or four million people unemployed, you know, and my brother couldn't get work. He went off to Australia for a bit to see, get work there and then eventually emigrated.
Nally: So, there's a lot of turmoil around that time and, you know, I was looking for, looking for a way, a serious political organisation to join and was committed to fundamentally transform society, unlike the Labour Party was, you know? But I did try I did [unintelligible], but they were the best meetings.
Sankey: Yeah, Could you explain what it was like to be a member of militant? Like what was the, what was the day-to-day like?
Nally: Well, a member of the Militant back in the 80s in Lambeth, you attend weekly meetings and during the course of a week, you'd obviously you do public activity, leafletting, your papers, chatting to people on the streets, but you’d obviously get involved in local campaigns, local struggles, strike action, and give support to national stuff as well, you know, the miners’ strike we raised quite a lot of money, all kinds of things like that.
Nally: So that, it wasn't, you know, it was, it was a real, and obviously I was active in the Labour Party till I got expelled in ‘92 putting forward, you know, a socialist position, really, to be honest, that’s the honest truth about it in a Labour Party, you know, where. So, it was a kind of like very active political life, but, but obviously enjoyable. It was fun, despite hard work, and sometimes stress, it was fun. And I think that, you know, there's a lot going on in Lambeth that time around rate capping issues like that, issues like Liverpool City Council, which a Militant was leading up in Liverpool. And the miners’ strike, steel workers’ strike, then the printers’ strike in the 1980s. So, and then there was the riots in Brixton in ‘81 and '85 so there's a lot of things going on. So, we were involved in a lot of political scene in Lambeth and London and elsewhere, because of that. So that was the life, really, there’d be one, just be one meeting a week. It's all voluntary and then during the course a week, you'd be involved in political activity or attending meetings or organising events, organising marches and stuff like that.
Nally: So, it was quite a, quite a full on, it could be what you wanted to be. You could have a full on or you could dip in and out, but, you know, I wanted it fundamentally change things and still do. So, I got, I got fully involved and ended up like, you know, doing a lot of, doing a lot of work for the Militant in South London. So, which, you know, I don't, I enjoyed every second. I don't regret a second, and I still feel the same way. I feel more angry these days as I did then, actually, because I see what's really happened over forty years. (Sankey: Sure.) You know, I saw the beginning and now I see, you know, what it’s like.
Sankey: So what was the community like within Militant? Did you get to know your co-Militants that well? Or was it more of a work thing?
Nally: Yeah, you got to know. Yeah, you made lifelong friendships, you got to know each other, et cetera. It was, it was a political party, like any political party. People, you know, get involved in it and they get to know the people in it and you get to build up a, a camaraderie, I suppose, a serious camaraderie because you're involved lots of different scenes, but someone might be more involved in a trade union, someone more involved in the Labour Party, some more involved on the ground the Militant, building it. But, you know, once a week you'd come together and you'd have these political discussions about different subjects and you'd discuss the week's work, which would be a range of different things, and what you could do, you, you, what you couldn't do, you couldn't get to your working stuff like that. So, it's like there's a lot to do, but there's a lot going on.
Sankey: And what did your family think about your involvement with Militant?
Nally: They never understood it really. I think, I mean, my dad, who was very active in the union and when on strike and when he's a young man in Dublin he’d been on a massively long strike for six or seven months, against the Vietnam War, etc. He said, I don't know where to get all this Militant stuff from. I thought, well, you know, is it you and your mates? So that's, so really, I don't think they ever really understood, but I don't, I mean, when do you join us socialist organisation as serious socialist outfit that is doing things and starting to achieve things and growing and building and having impact, you know, in society and in politics, not everyone understands that the level of commitment, you have to give, and I understand that as well, because they are only half a step behind you.
Nally: So, my family never really got it, I suppose, but as I, as I got older and got involved in more things like the poll tax and that, I think the pennies started to drop the Steve's involved in a serious political party, serious about his politics. He's trying to achieve things, et cetera. So I felt by the time, we got to late 80s, early 90s. My family were a lot more understanding, although still were like, why, why can't you do normal things like other people? That was their attitude but that's fine, I love them to pieces, I still love them to pieces and you know, one of my brothers in Australia, he's coming over as soon and we'll have a great time and, you know, he understands it, he understands it more than anyone else really, why I got involved, and he was quite politically minded himself.
Sankey: Did you notice much tension between Militant and another socialist groups at the time?
Nally: It's always competition. I don't think, I didn't feel friction myself because I've always, always say stick on the high ground. Stick on the high ground and get involved in struggles and the battles and the campaigns. Don't worry about what other people are doing, you know, you can't, you know, if in your life, you worry about other people doing this, what a drain. So, but there was, I don't want to say tensions, there was competition.
Nally: You know, occasion it would be in some campaigns, a bit of tension about the way forward, but I never felt that there was.., I felt in Lambeth, there was a lot a left wingers in Lambeth, a lot of actual trade unionists, it's a very mixed bag, but generally we kind of worked together, especially when the miners’ strike came along, a big events like that. You had no option but to work together. You know, when the, like when that bomber came to Brixton, we had to organise a demonstration. You're kind of working with other people, you do lots of different things to get them because people are going to get involved anyway. But I didn't, I mean, some people felt the tension, I just felt like there's a competition and we have to get stuck in, but I never personally ever worried about other left groups because I was in a group I was happy to be in. So, I accepted other people would be in other groups, you learned that quite quickly so you have to be mature about it and not be get too upset about other people do otherwise, you spend your life worrying about others. You know, generally, you know, anyway. Did that answer the question?
Sankey: Yeah, yeah. And how about at work? Was there much of a division between the socialist, Militant types and the others?
Nally: No, not really. I mean, really, when you at work, you're all together in one place, aren’t you, working together and you're all getting the same crap off managers and still the same working conditions and wages and that kind of stuff. So, you know, it cuts across a lot of divides that from people with more kinds of background. So, where I worked at British Rails, I was in the white-collar union, Transport Salaried Staff Association. So, it's a very general white-collar union, but it wasn't much tension there. There' different characters involved, including me and other people from the Militant at Waterloo.
Nally: But, you know, there was a few people get upset if we took initiative sometimes, but beyond names, you've just got on with things, because you had to do had to go around and collect the dues in those days, get the money in, people, pay out the Labour Party fund that people didn't want to pay. So, it was trade unionists that didn't want to pay to the Labour Party. You had to join up people, to talk to people, so it was quite involved and, you know, if you're going to be serious, you couldn't just, you know, you couldn't grind axes with people because you had to build that union branch and keep it strong so you could, you know, you could support other rail workers in strike and also to defend yourselves as and when, you know. So, it was a bit like that really. So, I, I didn't know as much tension. In fact, some of the people involved in that branch, I saw on and off for decades afterwards, who got older and older, and some of them were like probably older Communist Party members who’ve left the Communists in the 1956 over Hungary, but although still, you know, I still used to meet them occasionally, they’re nice people, working class people.
Nally: So, you know, you might have agreed on some things, but in the end, we were running a union branch, you just had to get on with stuff a lot of the time. Yes, you have a debate and discussion, but you still have to get the dues and speak to people to sign them up for the union, you know? Can't avoid that.
Sankey: Yeah, yeah. You went over the, you mentioned the miners’ strike earlier. Could you go over how you got involved in that yourself, how you, what you got up to at that time?
Nally: Well by then I was, I was heavily involved in the Militant, and the miners’ strike kicked off in early March, I think, 1984 and it was quite clear from the beginning that it was going to be a big battle, obviously became an historic battle against Thatcherism, which was in the end was defeated, but it was a big battle, and early on, you realised that their communities, the miner communities in particular, especially the families, were starting to suffer because they weren't allowed any benefits. They would been occupied by the police, their villages and all towns, and they were starting to come to London. looking for money, looking for food, looking for resources, to keep themselves going in the strike.
Nally: So quite early on, you started fundraising, meet miners, you'd take them to various workplaces, you'd take them to various meetings, meet other trade unionists, go on the streets and various parts of South London, raising money, and you put miners up, you kind of like, it was quite full on and it was a very, very busy time for anyone involved in Left politics, but in particular, those involved in the Militant, it was an extremely busy time, in terms of fundraising, et cera. And also meeting minors and looking after them in London and meeting, I mean, I met, I met, I mean, I met one time, I met this, this woman who came from a small pit village in the northeast of England.
Nally: And they were having major problems in their small community with getting enough food, nourishment, malnutrition, to get by, because a number of women who had, this is really sad, but it's true, who were having, who were pregnant, were losing their children, because of malnutrition. (Sankey: God.) They came to London, so we had to, like, raise a load of money for them and stuff like that and you know, some people came to London, we just used to go around, get tins of food from the estates, from the supermarkets, people would come by and put money in or tins in. So, a lot of these communities initially were very desperate because they were being battered by the Tories and being ignored by the state in terms of general support. So quite reliant, you know, on the people in the Militant and other political organisations, the trade unions in particular, to raise money for them at a ground level is what, is what we did. Again, it's no choice. You couldn't say, you could discuss and debate the miners’ strike, tactics and strategy, but in the end, you know, people needed to go back with money in their pocket and a car boot full of food, basically, you know?
Sankey: Yes, yeah. So moving, moving around a little bit. When the big battle in Liverpool took place, where did you find yourself then? Were you campaigning for the Militants in Liverpool Council or were you more passive in that regard?
Nally: Yeah, yeah, well obviously we were Lambeth at the time, but obviously the Lambeth was also battling against rate capping and the leadership of the council, the Labour leadership was led by Ted Knight then. And it's quite, I suppose, a left council, a pretty working class bunch of councillors, postal workers, building workers, and they were making a stand against Thatcherism in terms that they didn't want to cut the wage, et cetera. But they took a different road to Liverpool, but in the end, we were also battling to support the trade unions and the council in Lambeth, you know, because they were also up against the Tories. All the other council leaders, capitulated, David Blunkett, Margaret Hodge, a whole range of people who were darlings of the left bottled it basically when it came to the crunch, and the only people who went forward in the kind of battle, the serious battle, was Liverpool, led by the Militant, and the Labour council in Lambeth, who ended up getting surcharged twice, but that was a big battle in Lambeth. Big strike action, demonstrations.
Nally: So we were very heavily involved in supporting that, while at the same time, advocating the battle in Liverpool City Council. And I went up to Liverpool a couple of times, myself, and sort of demonstration and things like that. and I was quite impressed, but the bulk of my work was done in Lambeth and South London, in terms of around Liverpool and stuff like that, raising the, raising the profile on Liverpool, but also if you live in the borough of Lambeth, you had to be supportive of the struggle and battle that was taking place in Lambeth as well, you couldn't ignore that. You know, it was very important for the community.
Sankey: Yeah, just checking my notes. Yeah, so how did you feel when the Labour Party, led by Neil Kinnnock started to crack down on Militant in the party?
Nally: Whenever it was, I didn't, well, I didn't feel, I didn't feel like... You don't get angry, or upset, you just think, this is what's happening now. I mean, clearly, you know, they didn't like our politics, clearly didn't like, a lot of Labour MPs didn't like being held to account by the local parties and we were involved in that. A lot of councillors didn't like been held to account, the view is that if you're election in a public position in the Labour movement with the trade union position or public civil position, you are accountable to those people elected you. You're not better than them, you're the same as them, and therefore, you have to stand up for them. If you're not there to stand up for them, get out the way and let other people who are going to stand up for the working-class communities and trade unionists and people in the workplace. So, they didn't like that, and that was our position. And our three MPs in Parliament, Dave Nellist, Patt Wall and Terry Fields in Liverpool, We went to jail for the poll tax, not paying the poll tax. All three of them lived on the average wage of workers and their area and donated the rest back into the labour and trade union movement. So, we were demanding that across the Labour Party.
Nally: So, we were thought in their side, and we were growing thorn in their side, and obviously we, we played a leading role in Labour Party Young Socialists as well, which again they didn't like. So, some stage, you know, they were going to attempt to witch hunt and obviously when they did, we said, what if they go for us, they'll end up going for everyone and they won't stalk and eventually that's what they did. But they came for us first in Blackburn.
Nally: I mean, Lambeth were left for quite late because it was the left-wing Labour Party, but by the early '90s they, after a poll tax campaign, you know, we've got blame for corrupting the local authorities and all this sort of rubbish like that, which we didn't, because we won the campaign they bankrupted them. So they weren't prepared to fight back, we were. So I wasn't, I mean it it's not nice being witch hunted. It's not nice having to stand up in front of people who've never done anything to fight back in their lives and explain, you know, who you are in your position and that. But in the end, it happened. You just have to get on with it and you have to kind of expose them. But a lot of people fell by the wayside, wouldn't support us.
Nally: Not so much in Lambeth, quite a few people supported our comrades, who were expelled, right to the end afterwards, but, but they just, you know, but we said they'll get you next and in the end there was a big witch hunt and there were a lot of people who left the Labour Party, a lot rejoined under Corbyn by the way. So loads left in the early 90s. Some went back under Blairism, but a lot of people I know personally rejoined the Labour Party when Corbyn came to power, but they'd been out of it since the early '90s. In some cases, primarily because of the witch hunt, which hadn't affected them personally, that they were sick to death of the way Kinnock was leading the party, and the way he was selling out, because he sold out the miners, for sure, as did the TUC leadership, so unfortunately, so.
Sankey: Did you ever come across any of the Militant leadership yourself? Taafe or Grant or anyone?
Nally: Yeah, I went to meetings they spoke at. You know, I did a lot of work for the Militant. I go to meetings they were at, I've met them, you know, they spoke at Lambeth, at the meetings, they spoke in London at meetings I organise. So, I got to know them by, you know, by just political activity, really. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, it wasn't like that. It wasn’t like “oh, there’s a leader, wow”. It's like, we’re all in the same project really, got different roles to play. (Sankey: Sure.) You know, we're not better than anyone else, so you just get on with it really. It's not like, you know, you know, you realise you pick a party as an elective leadership, it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like elected Labour MPs who go around booted and suited and suited and booted and all that kind of pretending they’re important and become pompous, well fed and sleek or some word, I think sleek.
Nally: You know, it wasn't like that. These were political leaders of the serious small revolutionary party and we were part of that, so we were all in it together, you know, so I did come across them. It was decent bunch of people, but you know, you just got on with things, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't the political party as you, in bourgeois terms, you know? (Sankey: Yeah.) You know, like you got the Tories and Labour, yeah you know.
Sankey: So moving a bit later, how did you get involved as the secretary of the anti-poll tax movement?
Nally: Well, I, well, look it was coming down the line when the Tories got elected in ’87, and their sheer arrogance and misunderstanding of the situation thought they could bring a tax on everyone, and I got involved in the local campaign and via, and obviously the Militant across the whole country in Scotland, Wales and England. They didn't have the poll tax in Northland Ireland because at that stage, had a fairly well armed population. So, the bailiff would be able to get very far. So, I mean that's the truth of it. They didn't, they’ve already in the rest of the country. Scotland is an experiment in ‘89, which was useful for the rest of the country, because we saw in Scotland they had mass non-payment by the summer of 1989 and realised this campaign of mass non-payment was a big goer.
Nally: I got involved via my local anti-poll tax union, the campaign in Lambeth, and across London, we’d been round London setting up borough-wide campaigns. There quite a lot of boroughs were sleepy, really, politically, so we had to go over and organise meeting to get campaigns going. We knew that we could build a big campaign, but also knew we'd have to defend people who weren't prepared to pay the poll tax. So, it was serious work from day one, and that's how I got more and more involved in it, and that's how I mean, I was proposed, obviously by Militant supporters and others to be the National Secretary and as a, a conference in Manchester, in November ‘89, I was elected then and I was re-elected one single time afterwards.
Nally: So, but I mean, I was in a very privileged position, obviously, because I was involved heavily in that campaign at the front. But to be honest, it wouldn't have happened if eighteen million people by the summer of 1990, hadn't paid the poll tax, and if tens and tens of thousands of people haven't become active across the country.
Nally: I mean, Lambeth had 1980 poll tax unions, we had about almost one and a half thousand anti-poll tax unions, trade unions, campaign student unions, et cetera, affiliated to Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation, you know, it's a big campaign.
Sankey: Yeah. So what kind of tactics did you guys use?
Nally: Well, we realised from day one, if you're going to advocate mass non-payment, you've got to defend people who aren't going to pay, because they're going to come for people, the local authorities, in particular. And we obviously have big lobbies when they're setting the rate for the whole tax across the whole country in Scotland, they had big mass demonstrations as well, tens of thousands, We had a big demo in March 1990, but I mean, a lot of the work was long term work. People think one big demo dealt with it. It didn't really, that gets all the headlines, but the reality is was, we had the lobbies, then we had to set up information to get out tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of leaflets of people explaining their rights We had to, when they started taking people court, go attend the court, bring the lawyers with us, bring the law student to revitalise a Mackenzie's friend idea, where someone could represent him in court, to train people up for that, amongst ourselves and amongst a wider campaigns.
Nally: And then the next thing came the bailiffs, the bailiff busting squads all over the country in Scotland the sheriff busting squads to keep the bailiffs and sheriffs away from communities, so they couldn't go in and take things. In Scotland they could go in in this country, bailiffs had no legal or right of entry. So, in England and Wales it’s about getting people getting that message across as many times as we could again and again and again, if they knock on your door, just tell him to go away. There's nothing they can do legally. Cause it just bailiffs, they're not county court bailiffs, they're just bailiffs. [unintelligible].
Nally: And so, we did that and then there was a question of, obviously, we went, you know, there's people facing jail at one stage as well, so we had to deal with that as, later on. But the early days, I mean, the big test from south of the border, we knew in Scotland, they had success, in the first case we had to deal with and court cases with the Isle of Wight in July 1990 and the Isle of Wight is a very sleepy, well it's got rich communist battling history from the 1926 general strike. But it's a very sleepy when over there. But we had people on the island who set up a decent campaign, get good turnouts and meetings and on the day of the court cases, we went to Newport, on the Isle of Wight. It was thousands turned up to contest the cases, and the end, it broke down in a day. We realised then, that we clogged the courts up with hundreds of people turning up, so they could test their case, they have to take case by case, the system would start to break down. and we did across the country.
Nally: And if we could work on the Isle of Wight, the sleepy Isle of Wight, it could certainly work in Liverpool, Manchester, London, all the other big conurbations, where, Cardiff, Swansea, where we could turn literally thousands and hundreds of thousands of people challenging a decision for them to pay the poll tax, you know, and challenging the summons against them. And that worked, that was a brilliant tactic, because it clogged up the court. and then with the bailiffs, we brought home to them to their own offices and that in many cases, you know, what it was like to be invaded by the bailiff, although we weren't bailiffs, were campaigners. And obviously we, we involved lot of actions that brought home to people in power, like MP's and counsellors in a very friendly way, fraternal way. This is what happens when you send the bailiffs in, this is what happens to people, you know, and so we bring across the people in power that, you know, we're not having this.
Nally: But the main thing was defending people, non-payers and there’s eighteen million non-payers in the summer of 1990. At the end of the whole poll tax campaign, county poll tax campaign, in the fourteen million people had never paid a penny or they started paying to stop paying. and it's incredible. (Sankey: Wow.) Fourteen million adults households, which said, get lost, we’re not paying or we’re stopping paying. And that's what brought it down, it wasn't, we had a brilliant campaign, excellent strategy and tactics around mass non-payment and the courts and the bailiffs, and the poll tax [unintelligible]. But in the end, it was the mass non-payment that brought it down, but we could defend people really well, and a very high-profile way, and that was the key thing, because you know there’s no point leading people up, leading them into battle and leaving them on their own. You have to defend people and do it properly and do it effectively and do it to give people confidence and give yourselves confidence that what you're doing is absolutely right, one hundred percent, and that's how we operated in the anti-poll tax campaign.
Sankey: Were you ever arrested or in court yourself?
Nally: Well, I was summoned to Lambeth council, but it was a farce because they got the address wrong, the whole area I lived in, and I didn't even notice it anyway, I turned up and I didn't realise they’d got my address wrong. One of my neighbours said “oh, Steve, we got them, got them , they got they addresses wrong for a whole area”, I thought “oh, they have, haven't they?” And we had a Mackenzie's friend and there called Graham Lewis who was a Militant comrade, really, really sharp person court, really, really learnt the law really well and could put it across, and he pointed out. So, my case and all the other cases locally were throwing out, and I did, I did have to do...
Nally: I was picked up by a police a couple of times coming home from meetings and driven round of the van, and you get a load of verbal abuse, et cetera, et cetera, but just have to say, look, you know, I'm going to report you and I don't know, that happened a few times, but I wasn't, I wasn't that bothered really. And after the demonstration, they sent a letter to the federation, I think the police, the Metropolitan Police, or someone, claiming that we owed them one and a half million pounds for the cost of the demonstration on March of 31st, 1990. which we just laughed at. But we had to go, I had to go with some other people. We had to go to Scotland Yard or something and just, because they were just trying to, they're trying to trap you into, they can arrest you, but there's so many people involved in a campaign that in the end, they were almost powerless to do anything against, you know, people because there was too many people involved.
Sankey: Sure.
Nally: And when people got jailed it became overwhelming for them, you know, the first [unintelligible] had jailed in Kent, Ramsgate in Kent. You know, she was sent to Holloway, I visited Holloway, which was wasn't a very nice place there. And we said, we're going to have mass demonstration outside on the Saturday. the police said, you won't and we said, we will, and then she was put to an open prison in Kent, then sent home to her family because the prison governors didn't want demonstrations outside the prisons. So, there's a lot of people who were jailed released early or just moved to places where, you know, they were much freer. It was a bit, it was a mass campaign. You know, it was a mass campaign. And at any stage, thousands, if not tens of thousands of people were active in it, so it wasn't that they could do something in a small little place like the Forest of Dean without everyone noticing, you know?
Sankey: Right.
Nally: So that's the reality of it. It was so big that anything that popped up, we just went boom, straight on it, you know what I mean? We didn't mess around, you know? (Sankey: Yeah.) But we educated. We put, we put out millions of leaflets and, and they all explained the law and people's rights and I think that reassured vast amounts of nonpayers that, yeah, they weren't on their own, and secondly, this was the law, so they didn't have to do this that and the other and that was it. But we got accused of all kinds of things by Labour politicians and that, but, you know, you had to win it, because for example, if you were in a house on in Lamberth, the average rates there was about three hundred and fifty pounds a month for a household, but the average household of three people in it, the poll tax meant that the average rate would become then a thousand pounds a year, sorry, a thousand pounds a year.
Nally: So overnight, families or groups of friends had to find three times the money they're already paying. And some communities, a lot more people, adults are living in the houses, so you might have sometimes eight or nine adults living in a house. You got extended families on that, and there'd be paying eight, nine times what they paid previously. So, you know, it's unaffordable , the tax, for millions of people. So, it was right to fight it, it was right to defend people, as best we could, which is what we did.
Sankey: Is there anything about the campaign that you think could have gone better, you could have done better in any way?
Sankey: No, not really. I don't think, we did out level best. And if we won. If win, you know, it's like, like asking a footballer, what more could you have done to, at Wembley, to win the game? It doesn't matter. You won didn’t you? (Sankey: Yeah.) You score more goals. Or went over the line, that's it. You know, I mean, some parts of the country the campaign was weak. I mean, know that some of them communities suffered a bit. I mean, I went to Burnley, which was a Labour council run by lay magistrates, who I think were Labour party types, or trade union types, and they were jailing people left right and centre. So we had to get a lawyers involved and stuff like that. But the reality was that, you know, there was some areas which didn't have a strong campaign, but then we would turn up and galvanise a campaigning basically.
Nally: And so we could, even areas which we do about that were weak, could be attacked, we would send people along, you know, from the campaign, not necessarily being people locally, get things moving. And once you've got things moving, you started to put the councils and the authorities on the back foot because they realise that that the federation's arrived and they're quite well organised and they're going to get things moving. And I went to lots of small places where there are just vast amounts of people at lobbies and at meetings and stuff like that, and they weren’t paying, you know, and that's what happened in the end. It’s mass nonpayment that brought it down, brought it to knees and then got rid of Thatcher and it played a key role in that, the key role.
Sankey: So moving more broadly, was there any particular politician or writer or activist that inspired you in the period?
Nally: In the 80s?
Sankey: 80s and 90s.
Nally: Well obviously I was inspired by my own comrades and what we were doing.
Sankey: Yeah.
Nally: in this country and elsewhere, very much so. Outside of that, I suppose, I mean, obviously, you look forward to Arthur Scargill, who was a very good speaker, and obviously, you know, led that historic strike, and it is a historic strike. I mean, you kind of wanted to hear what he had to say. It's not about admiring people. You know, it's about saying, who's there at that moment in time and what are they saying? And Scargill was some listened to, Tony Benn was someone that listened to, MP. They were two people when they were on television or when they spoke at meeting in your area, you certainly wanted to be there. had to say about the strike or about the battle was going on, but obviously we had our own comrades, we had Terry Fields, we had Pat Wall, we had Dennis, Peter Taafe, we had people who were quite, quite well known in the 80s, speaking of events to meetings, so, but you know, I didn't, it wasn't about to look up for them. They were just in the struggle with you, but there’s certain people, you wanted to hear how to say, and if they're the first two to come to mind in terms of what they have to say about the present situation, but it wasn't many people in the Labour Party you really wanted to hear, and its, there wasn't many trade union leaders you really wanted to hear.
Sankey: And Neil Kinnock. I went to [unintelligible] one one strike, and it was a big demonstration for a small place like Stockton, and in a massive rally at the end, you know, a good few hundred people, probably five hundred, seven hundred people, and all the speakers spoke that the main speaker was Neil Kinnock. And he stood on the stage to speak and everyone walked away. They went to the pub. You know, and I stayed to hear what he had to say, but's about ten who stayed to listen to what he had to say. So really, if you'd had Tony Benn, people would have listened to every single syllable. But Kinnock, who cared what Kinnock thought? (Sankey: Sure.) You betrayed the miners’ strike, it's as simple as that.
Sankey: Sure. Okay, moving internationally now. Was there anything that happened globally that you felt affected you much at home in the UK? I'm thinking things like the fall of the Soviet Union.
Nally: Yeah, I mean the collapse of the Soviet Union was, it was, it was a setback really for working-class people internationally because the Soviet Union had come from the Bolshevik Revolution. It had been a successful revolution, it won, got the ball over the line. Obviously, it kind of degenerated because of the, because of the, it was isolated, I mean, in the image of the internationalists, you should say, you can’t have socialism in one country, you have to have it internationally, and there were revolutions in Hungary, Germany, Spain, elsewhere which then were defeated, so the Soviet Union went it in on itself because it didn't work, have any democracy of any kind, it kind of slowly but surely ground to halt but it was a step forward for humanity because it meant that the capitalist class, the bourgeois, the landlords could be defeated decisively and you could then start to develop a society for everyone else to a much higher level, begin that process. So that was something always inspired me historically.
Nally: And that's the events in China as well. That was a pretty big move, historic event, you know, Chinese workers and peasantry in particular, taking control of China from the landlords and the medieval types, you know what I mean? So that would have been a set forward. And I suppose in the 60s, I looked towards, obviously Che Guevara was a bit of a hero for us kids, sort a little. And there's a lot of moments in the 70s, you know, big liberation movements, you know, the big battles in South Africa in the 80s, for example, against apartheid, were utterly inspiring.
Nally: I mean, we were, we were going to marches. They were getting shot dead on demonstrations. It was completely different ball game, we were fighting back against apartheid in South Africa. And it was like, they were utterly aspiring, and that was a big thing campaigned around a lot because, you know, in the end, it was a mass movement of the working class in South Africa have brought down the apartheid, you know. And so, things like that were inspiring, you know.
Sankey: Yeah.
Nally: What else? Well, no, there's lots of things going on at the time, but the collapse of Soviet Union did have an effect, that it, the capitalists were cock a hoop at the time, were crowing about it. This one guy called it, said it's the end of history, which was a stupid thing to say anyway, because history keeps on going. But he said that, and obviously for a period of time it stunned people globally, it's stunned people in the movement in here to a certain extent, but we always said that in the end, there's a massive working class in Russia and around the globe and they will still have to fight to change things eventually and. So, yes, it will be a setback, but it won't be like that forever. And all those people who said it’d be like that forever, had no perspective and no political vision. You have to have some vision and some perspective for the future that you know, in the end, you know, the vast majority of human beings in the world are subjugated to capitalists, the living, poor housing, low wages, exploitation, brutality, war, et cetera. And there has to be a different way of doing things.
Nally: So, collapse of the Soviet Union was a setback, but it didn't change what needed doing in long term, you know, so I didn't feel not that right person. I just felt, that's happened. There's reasons what happened and oh, we have to keep going. You can't give up now, because of that, you know. The capitalists always, any victory they have, they crow about again and again and again, you know, to kind of demoralise working class people and activists. So, you just had to guard against that, through politics and discussion and things like that. And being involved in a serious revolution party where you can discuss these things out, you know, the ups and downs of struggles and politics.
Sankey: Do you think there was a general stigma in society against being a socialist?
Nally: Well sometimes we, people will pass on the street, sometimes and said go back to Russia, or weren't very happy to take a leaflet of us. But other times, in the anti-poll tax campaign, we were having the leaflets ripped out our hand. During the miners’ strike, leaflets ripped out of our hand. So, you know, you, is there, only a, I don't, if I never felt any stigma about it, I thought it was the right thing to do. I think it's the right thing to do, to be a socialist. But I never felt any stigma about it, although you do get, you got branded loony left and red this, red that and all that, but again, it's, you know, that's what they have to do to denigrate you and look, look what they at Corbyn and look, he sets up Your Party and its so, so set up poorly and its not very good, but there’s already seven hundred thousand people signed up for information.
Nally: So clearly people want to fight back and clearly, socialism now is not a dirty word. It never has been a dirty word, because in the end, when you want to picket up someone, or organise a meeting or have a meeting or a demonstration, you know, or fighting against fascists or building an anti-poll tax union, you know, or collecting money for the miners, you know, but what, you know, it, you're a socialist and there's no stigma to that. People are pleased to see you. People will be part of what you are. So, I'm not, I never bought into that. I know it was, they always try and ridicule the left in this country in comedy and elsewhere, but again, that, that's a sign of weakness, really. On their part, they have got the spectrum or real vision to see that, you know, the world needs to be, it doesn't have to be like this, what we're living in now. It does not have to be like this. There's enough resources and wealth and intelligence and motivation on the planet for everyone to have a far better human life than what they're living now. And, but we're not allowed that because of a capitalist class want to accumulate all the wealth and resources, and we'll us to be an attendant to them, which we don't have to be.
Sankey: I mean when you go in the morning and turn your light on. It's not's not a hedge fund manager that's running the electricity station, is it? (Sankey: [laughs] No.) When you go down the tube, it's not in a lord-of-the-manor, driving the tube train, is it? When you go into work where you're working, all your colleagues they haven't, they’re not part of the landed bourgeois gentry, are they or rich bourgeois? You know what I mean? They’re just people like you. And so, we do all the work. We do everything. They do nothing, but we should be running the show. We run the show anyway, basically. We have run the show.
Sankey: Did you notice much of a change in people's reactions to you as a socialist from the start of the 80s to the end of the 90s or even the present.
Nally: Well, I mean, I, I mean, there are ideas, I agree. I'm a socialist, and a Marxist, I suppose, a Trotskyist, whatever label you want to put me, but a socialist first and foremost. And I, and I stuck to that, but clearly some people didn't understand that. Some people didn't like the fact that you might have become an active socialist with some kind of profile for a short period of time, et cetera. And so, some people, you know, would avoid you, some people would talk to you, some people ignore you, but, you know, it didn't really bother me because I knew when push come to shove that those very people would be turning up to anti-poll tax union meeting. I didn't know it in the 80s, but by the early 90s, these are people who thought you were a socialist, this, that and the other, but suddenly wanted to know about the anti-poll tax campaign. So, you know, people change all the time, you know, and, and we change as well. I've changed, but the point is you don't give up on your ideas. It's ideas in the end it's not necessarily about nonstop successes, but having the ideas and say, what we need to do, this is what's necessary to save, to have a better world to live in, because at the moment, the capitalist class are destroying it. And that's obvious to see, for a day like today. It's the 10 degrees as, it's 10 degrees warm, it should be for this time of year. That's not natural. That's climate change. That's a capitalist class. You know, blaming everyone else. It's their, it's their industry, their oil. It's their system. There's creating this problem. So one day, someone's against you, next day, someone's marching alongside you. That's how I see it.
Sankey: So, going back to Militant as the organisation, it's, it went through some kind of schism and then transformed into the Socialist Party. Do you remember when and why that happened?
Nally: It was the early '90s. I mean, fundamentally, Militant and many other left people have been expelled from Labour Party, so therefore, the question is posed, what do you set up to oppose the right wing in Labour to offer a serious socialist alternative to trade unions and working class people and young people, and there was a long discussion inside the Militant, and some comrades who wished to stay inside the Labour Party, but the majority of comrades decided we need to break free to, for want of a better phrase, to set up the Socialist Party from, from Militant Labour to Socialist Party, and that's what we did. You know, we felt that being the Labour Party, you were, you weren't going to, we weren't allowed to be involved in it. And the reality is that the way Labour's gone the last four decades, more and more, it’s clear we need a new working party of the working classes, you know, a party of the socialist and we were some of the early ones to break away from that and draw that correct conclusion for other people drawn that conclusion.
Nally: Now, many people on the left via Corbyn and various other people have drawn a conclusion that perhaps we have to have some kind of alternative to Labour now. But we drew that conclusion in 1990s, they’re drawing it now, but it's good that people are drawing that conclusion, even if it's taken them sometimes to arrive at that point in time. You know, that's a good thing, I'll support that. But yeah, does that answer your question?
Sankey: Yes, yeah, yeah. So we're just coming up towards the hour now. Is there any final thoughts you want to leave us with?
Nally: Thank you for... (Sankey: Sorry, go on.) Let me to speak, you know, because I've always since, I've always, although we are still here, although we're building our party, although we have a platform, you know, history is written by the capitalists, and a lot of people, not just me, but many, many, many people, tens, hundreds of thousands are involved in struggles over the last forty years, our voice is never really heard, only occasionally. It's good you have a project which allows working-class socialists and trade unionists to leave their voice for posterity, if nothing else, but also to explain that to younger generations, to newer generations that we fought in the past, you're going to have to fight now.
Nally: Because the same things that were have been visited upon our heads are going, especially amongst the youth now, been visited on you big time. And the youth will fight back. I mean, look at a Black Lives Matter movement in Britain, massive demonstrations, predominantly young working-class people, you know, look at the other, look at the Corbyn movement, look at all the strikes that took place. Vast amounts of young people taking strike action before the Tories went down. You know, in defence of conditions and their jobs and stuff like that, and wages. So, you know, it doesn't change, but it's good to leave a record. So thank you for that.
Sankey: And obviously, I suppose in the end, you know, me joining the Militant was transformative in my life and it's been transformative in many other people's lives and it, you know, it's moved me from being a very angry young man to being someone who understood the world, and was given the opportunity and privilege of, you know, fighting back and trying to change things, and hopefully I'll one day see a brighter, I see a socialist future, not the future, maybe, a socialist beginning where working class people make the decisions. And it's based on what people's needs are, not the greed of the capitalist class and hedge fund managers and people like that who just take all the money now all the wealth going up. We want the wealth coming down, and we want to use the, all the wonderful resources that working class people have to build a new world, new socialist world. It's all there for the taking. We've just got to realise it then do it. It's a simple as that.
Sankey: Well, thank you very much, Steve. I'll end the recording now.