“Inside Britain there is a parallel threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians too. Small in number, those anti-democratic forces have gained great power through the trades union movement. Just to state that fact is to be accused of 'union-bashing'—often by people who know it to be true. Such people are to be found in the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties. Their politics may be different but such people share the morality of Laval and Pétain…they are willing not only to tolerate evil, but to excuse it…and to profit by so doing…Both Jim Prior and Keith Joseph know that George Ward and Grunwick are not perfect, nor was Czechoslovakia perfect in 1938. But if Ward and Grunwick are destroyed by the red fascists, then, as in 1938, we will have to ask, whose turn is it next? Yes, it is like 1938. We can all see the evil, but the doctrine of appeasement is still to be heard.”

Speech in Chingford on the Grunwick dispute (12 September, 1977).
Tebbit, pp. 194-5.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Inside Britain there is a parallel threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians too. Small in number, those anti-…" by Norman Tebbit?

Norman Tebbit29

English politician 1931

Related quotes

“Those who suffer from this monopoly should form a libertarian anti-labour union movement of workers directed against what has long become a deceptive farce favouring an elite that has gained dominance in a party wrongly claiming to represent the interest of all workers. Once it is recognized that the unions prevent people from getting jobs, such a movement may readily spread.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

"Jobs: the basic truths we have cast aside", The Times (7 August 1984), p. 10
1980s and later

“People must learn more and more that the strength of this country is the democratic power of the trade union movement”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

The Morning Star (1976).
1970s

“When Britain leaves the European Union, free movement of labour and people will then come to an end.”

John McDonnell (1951) British politician (born 1951)

Source: EU referendum result must be respected, says John McDonnell https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36680463 BBC News (1 July 2016)

“The root objection to the pact is the nature of the Labour Party. It is not liberal. It is not becoming more liberal. The social democrats remain ineffective, or sneak off, after preaching equality to everyone else, to some of the highest-paid jobs open to the British. As a final spectacle of degradation, they are to be seen intimidating the Grunwick workers…The Labour Party remains without principle, clinging to office, paid by the trades unions, and with an anti-democratic Marxist wing. The pact, I fear, is having no effect on the nature of that party.”

Jo Grimond (1913–1993) British soldier, politician and academic

The Daily Mail (28 November, 1977).

“It is an indisputable historical fact…that Marxism has, from the earliest days, always been openly accepted by the party as one of many sources of inspiration within our movement, along with—though much less influential than—Christian Socialism, Fabianism, Owenism, trade unionism, or even radical Liberalism. Marxism is not synonymous with communism and it is not true that there is growing up in the Labour Party a dominant group which believes in violent revolution, the one-party state and suppression of democratic rights.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Statement for Labour's National Executive Committee in defence of Andy Bevan, a Marxist who had been appointed Labour's National Youth Officer, quoted in The Times (16 December 1976), p. 14
1970s

“The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

From The Tyranny of Control, an episode of the PBS Free to Choose television series (1980, vol. 2 transcript) http://www.freetochoosemedia.org/freetochoose/detail_ftc1980_transcript.php?page=2

“The Conservative Party is the parent of trade unionism, just as it is the author of the Factory Acts. At every stage in the history of the nineteenth century it is to Toryism that trade unionism has looked for help and support against the oppressions of the Manchester School of liberalism, which cared nothing for the interests of the state, and regarded men as brute beasts whose labour could be bought and sold at the cheapest price, irrespective of all other considerations.”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Introduction to H. Hills and M. Woods, Industrial Unrest: A Practical Solution (1914)

“Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thoughts http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2004/02/25/random_thoughts/page/full, Feb 25, 2004 <br class="br">2000s

“Trade unions up to a certain point have been recognised now as organs for good. They are the only means by which workmen can protect themselves from the tyranny of those who employ them. But the moment that trade unions become tyrants in their turn, they are engines for evil: they have no right to prevent people from working on any terms that they choose.”

Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley (1828–1921) English judge

Lyons & Sons v. Wilkins (1896), 74 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 364. Compare Mogul Steamship Co. v. MacGregor, Gow, & Co., 66 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 1; Temperton v. Russell and others, 69 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 78.

“The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Interview with Brian Lamb, In Depth Book TV (2000)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Norman Tebbit29

Related quotes

Related topics