A BOLTON socialist has announced he will be fighting for Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party in the Wigan by-election. Billy Kelly, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers Lancashire Area, has issued his challenge to New Labour two years after his disappointment in the last General Election. The SLP candidate had stood for the Bolton North-east seat in the 1997 General Election but came last with only 676 votes.

But Mr Kelly, of Devon Street, Farnworth, who is leading a fight to get compensation for mineworkers suffering from industrial diseases, is adamant he will woo Labour voters to his party.

He said: "There is great disappointment in the former mining communities over the Government's handling of mineworkers compensation. "Mr Prescott stated at the Durham miners gala that money taken from the Miners pension Scheme by the Tory government is to be used to pay injured mineworkers - this is disgraceful.

"Pension funds are for pensioners and should only be used for that purpose. A New Labour government exploiting pension funds for such purposes is intolerable and opens the way for other employees to do the same."

Mr Kelly was employed in the mining industry for 40 years until he was made redundant at Parkside Colliery, the last of the area's deep mines. His wife, Dorothy, is also an active member of the SLP and she also stood in the last General Election.

The SLP wants to see coalmining and other manufacturing industries rebuilt under a socialist system to provide wealth and security for the many. It also calls for what it terms Labour's 'war on welfare' and wants to see a "reinstatement of the value of pensions."

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