THE annual Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival was this year of necessity held virtually, like much but not all labour movement and radical activity since March.

Yet many of the lessons to be drawn from the men of Tolpuddle apply just as much to the virtual world of politics and organising as they do to the physical one.

I agree with the historian Tom Scriven that the Martyrs had a significant back story. 

They appeared after several years of campaigning and protests amongst Dorsetshire labourers, in which one of the Martyrs, George Loveless, had been involved. 

Victories over wages had been won and then clawed back by employers.

A lesson was drawn that a more permanent form of organisation and structure was needed. 

The model came perhaps from several already existing local trade union branches but also from organisers in Robert Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trade Union who provided a template for the Tolpuddle activists on how to set up a union.

Of course this was all done person to person but in 2020 it can as easily be done virtually via a Zoom or Teams meeting online.

The Martyrs met in secret and took an oath to try and protect the integrity of what they were doing from hostile employers and authorities. It didn’t ultimately work — they were betrayed by a spy.

The relevance to 2020 remains strong though. Certainly the idea of conspiratorial meetings is not one in the traditions of the modern labour movement. 

However an understanding of the need to keep attempts to organise a union away from attempts by employers to disrupt it by sacking and blacklisting activists is.

Again this can be either physically or virtually. In either case who attends a meeting can be checked. That won’t stop spies, whether from an employer or from the authorities, but it gives some element of control while organisation is built.

The Martyrs were the victims of highly prejudicial and doubtfully legally based court proceedings in Dorchester. 

When workers organising threatens the efforts of employers to exploit them for profit, the law can be bent in the latter’s favour, whether in Dorset in the 1830s or Shrewsbury in the 1970s.

That’s when solidarity and publicity come to play a key role. Here again both the virtual and physical worlds have strengths and weaknesses.

The cause of the Martyrs saw huge working-class demonstrations in London and a continuing campaign in their support which saw them returned to Britain from Australia just a few years after they were transported there.

The physical demonstration has a lot to be said for it, of course. It’s here that a key difference between the physical and virtual worlds appears and was a key difference with Tolpuddle 2020.

Certainly the meetings and discussions and the music can take place online. 

But the informal chats, the bumping into comrades, the building of friendships and links is much more difficult.

On the other hand many Star readers will know that virtual meetings can attract a massive audience at short notice, way beyond the number that in most cases would appear in person after a lot of hard slog of leafleting and campaigning. 

They can also include speakers and activists from around the world who would rarely be seen in person in Britain.

Tolpuddle 2020 reminded us of a world we have, hopefully to a large extent only temporarily lost. 

However, it also drew our attention to a significant new world that we have gained.

The aim as ever, however, remains to educate, agitate and organise however and wherever we can.