[Summary by site editor:]
The gist of the statement was that Keith Joseph and Jim Prior were equally right, but that since Jim Prior’s position was closer to established party policy, he was the more right of the two.
Norman Tebbit the previous evening had made remarks which helped to keep the dispute story alive, accusing Tory ‘doves’ on the union question of being collaborators, people with “the morality of Laval and Pétain - they are willing not only to tolerate evil but to excuse it and to profit by doing so.”
Butler’s statement said that “ Mrs Thatcher has clearly stated that we don't intend to outlaw the closed shop. We support some important changes with regard to individuals caught up in a closed shop.”
This would include compensation for people sacked because they were not in the right union, and protection for non-union employees who had worked a long time for the same firm. After a certain number of years' service they could not be sacked, whether they were in a union or not.
“I expect that Sir Keith and James Prior are looking at the same problem with different experience,” Butler said. “Sir Keith feels very strongly, as we all do, about matters of individual liberty, and looks at that first. James Prior is very experienced in industrial relations, and looks at it from that point of view.
“A continuing dialogue has been blown up. There is going to be a full debate at the conference. Some people would look at it from the standpoint of individual rights - there are others who are practised in these matters and will explain the situation as it exists in real life on the shop floor.”