The first few weeks of March will be a time of deep reflection for hundreds of thousands of people across the UK and here in Wales who will recall what they were doing when the 1984/85 coal miners’ strike began and ended. On this day, the UK Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 ended in defeat for Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers when miners reluctantly and bitterly voted to return to work, after just two days short of a year on strike in what was Britain’s longest and largest industrial dispute.In what was a turning point for the working class in Britain, after an iconic but bitter strike that came to define the decade.
The National Coal Board’s (NCB) announcement in March, 1984, of the imminent closure of Cortonwood colliery, Yorkshire, and Polmaise colliery, Scotland, together with 20 other planned pit closures and the loss of 20,000 jobs led to a swift response from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).NUM national president, Arthur Scargill said the plan would lead to 80,000 job losses. Scargill's prediction proved to be was correct
Yorkshire and Scottish miners came out on strike,
swiftly followed by Durham and Kent. On March 8, ,
Arthur Scargill, announced that the strikes were official under Rule 41
of the union’s constitution and called on the other NUM Area coalfields
to support the action.
Support in Wales was initially confused with the Executive Committee (EC) of the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers (SWNUM) recommending strike action during their conference of March 9, and local NUM lodges in South Wales voting 18 to 13 to stay in while respecting any picket lines, by 12th March, half of Britain’s 187,000 miners had downed tools becoming one of the most inspiring but bitter class struggles in British history.
But Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – riding high from her victory in the Falklands – had secretly and cynically prepared for battle by stockpiling two years’ worth of coal before announcing the closures. And she was hellbent on defeating “the enemy within” by any means necessary, even if it meant turning the full force of the state against its own people. For the first time in a postwar national strike, British police were openly used as a political weapon.Paramilitary riot police placed mining communities under total siege. A scab workforce was organised to break the strike, and billions were spent to keep the power stations running without coal. The full weight of the courts was used to sequestrate the funds of the miners' union and break its resolve. Civil liberties were forgotten as miners were beaten and arrested even when standing still. Agent provocateurs and spies were deployed. State benefits were withheld in order to starve the miners back to work. And the media was used to churn out a Niagara of lies against the miners.What had begun as an industrial dispute degenerated into a clash of ideologies and civil class war.
For twelve months, the miners and their families held out against unprecedented onslaughts and unimaginable hardships in order to save jobs and preserve communities.The South Wales miners alone would prove to be obdurate, solid and immovable throughout the long year of hardship and deprivation. Their heroism, determination and courage alongside striking miners across the UK astonished the world, and would charge and inspire the political consciousness of hundreds of thousands of people, as it did for me, aged 16 and a half at the start of the strike as they demonstrated their unconquerable will to fight.
Miners on picket lines were brutalised and attacked by baton-wielding police in full riot gear. For me at the time this was to be a year of great awakenings, seeing their fight, I started to see connections with other peoples struggles. The plight of the poor and unemployed, Nicuragua and Apartheid South Africa, people being daily attacked by Margaret Thatchers rabid Government. I decided to take sides with with those who decided to take on the right wing policies of Thatchers government.
The rights and wrongs of whether the miners should have had a national ballot has been widely discussed, but like many others at the time I believed that once the miners were out, it was our duty to support and work for them. Within weeks of the strike starting 80% of miners supported the strike, standing against what they saw as the unjustifiable attacks on their right to existence and resistance.
Later at Orgreave it became apparent, of the true intentions of Thatchers government, with the full collusion of the police ,it was noticed that they had no intention of finding reconciliation or settlement to this industrial dispute. The sole intention was an ideological one, to mortally wound the National Union of Mineworkers, to defeat it with military force and with naked violence ,by any means necessary.
As the miners attempted to blockade the Orgreave coking plant. The police showed the lengths they would go to break the strike with violent attacks, mass arrests and deliberate but fortunately unsuccessful attempts to fabricate evidence and frame miners. The insult was added to by the BBC reversing footage of miners defending themselves from police attacks to try and make out that the police were attacked first.
It was one of the most brutal attacks by the state on its own citizens of the last 20th Century.It saw the police going berserk under state orders, repeatedly attacking individuals wherever they sought refuge, as they fled into a nearby Wheatfield and into the community of Orgreave, where the police carried on their pursuit through the streets. A scene of ugliness, fear and menace, as all concepts of Law and order that the constabulary were supposed to withhold abandoned all its basic principles.
At the end the day over 100 people were arrested, for no crime whatever, with many more being injured along with the Miners leader Arthur Scargill. Following Orgreave, the police conducted a deliberate and co-ordinated attempt to frame arrested miners for one of the most serious events on the statute book - the offence of Riot. No police officer has ever been prosecuted or even disciplined for their role in the terrible events that occurred.Campaigners have long been calling for a public inquiry into the horrendous events that occurred on 18 June 1984, simply asking for an apology to the victims who suffered in this bloody confrontation. More details here .https://otjc.org.uk/
Despite increasing hardships the miners fought on with determination and bravery. During the course of the strike over 6,000 were arrested, with over 20,000 miners being injured in acts of state violence.
Throughout the strike I would witness, how the right wing media was used to vilify and undermine. The media being used to lie, and used as a political weapon to crush the miners resiliance, the media also enabling to misrepresent, and divide the movement, churning out a Niagra of lies against the miners .The propoganda part of Thatchers assault, was being pushed out everyday. At her so called enemy within.
Psychological pressure was also used, with the police encouraged to wave wads of cash at pickets, designed to undermine and demoralise, the use of scabs increased, bussing them through picket lines in a determined effort to break the will of the striking miners.
Throughout the country, groups emerged, either as individuals or part of miners support groups, raising money and awareness, standing in solidarity. Disparate groups found common ground, from the Unemployed, the Peace Movement, students, other Trade Unions, all standing firmly behind the miners in their great struggle. The women from the mining communities in particular acted as bulmarks of strength, organising welfare and support, collecting food and money and giving much needed moral energy. Lesbian and Gay support groups also played a vital role and consequently the NUM led the pride demonstration in London in 1985.The chant of the miners’ support groups was: “The miners united will never be defeated”. It was an energising time, new friends were made, the camerardie that emerged was simply amazing.
Sadly eventually some miners started drifting back there will broken, and the increasing hardsgips they faced, but it should be noted that 63% of the miners stayed out to the bitter end.
Sadly despite the strikers being pitted against the full force of the ruling class, they were betrayed by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party’s refusal to mobilise support, especially their spineless leader Welsh 'windbag' and class traitor Neil Kinnock, who refused to attend picket lines or events supporting the miners, in effect helping Thatchers dirty war of attrition. In fairness the Party rank and file were with the miners. Labour Party activists, premises and equipment were involved in the miners' strike to a degree probably not seen in any dispute since the 1920s. The National Executive Committee backed the miners and called for a levy to support them. Conference condemned police violence and defied Kinnock's request to condemn pickets' violence.
But what most people saw, courtesy of TV, was the public weaseling of Kinnock, Hattersley and others. We should not underestimate the role played by this in dampening the spirits of the labour movement.
On 3rd March 1985, an NUM delegate conference narrowly voted to end the strike. The miners marched back to work together, brokenhearted but their heads held high in defiance. Thatcher was graceless in victory. “There is no such thing as society,” she infamously declared. Her neo-liberal blueprint would result not only in the selling off and selling out of the coal industry, but also the decimation of Britain’s manufacturing industry, the subjugation of all trade unions, and the doubling of unemployment and inflation.
Though the heroic struggle ended in defeat, the proud and dignified nature of the return to work, like the Maerdy miners of South Wales who marched back to work behind colliery bands and banners who thus robbed Thatcher of the "total" victory she and her class sought. Nevertheless, the Tory government subsequently closed over 100 pits and more than 100,000 were made redundant. The pit closure programme was carried through remorselessly. It tore the guts out of the industry and out of the mining communities. The mining industry was decimated.
The strike may have been defeated but years later I remember the courage and sacrifice made during this bitter struggle and the spirit of revolt they unleashed, and those who remained defiant to the end, and acknowledge the miners who were arrested and locked up on trumped up charges.The communities that never fully recovered from the financial blow of the strike. Those who fought for the survival of a humane society here in Wales and across Britain, and a vile government who used the powers of the state in almost all its entirety to defeat the miners and to teach the whole working class a lesson.
Miners and their families will remember those miners and their strike supporters who will have passed away since, and in particular those who were killed either by reckless lorry drivers at picket lines at the time or from the “death by malice” of someone hurling a brick at a striking miner, as was the case with David Jones outside Thorseby Colliery in the Nottingham coalfield and Joe Green who was killed on the picket line.
Passions remain unwaned, and I feel the miners strike has left us with a legacy that we should be proud of, of a people and community standing together in solidarity in the face of adversity. The fighting spirit of the miners lives on , It has left behind a tradition of courageous struggle, which can still be seen among us today with people fighting for their lives and what they believe in, today as then solidarity is needed more than ever, as we continue our own for jobs, social justice and welfare. in our opposition to the current Tory Government, who are carrying on where Thatcher left off.
Test Department and the South Wales Miners Striking Choir - Comrades in Arms
Support in Wales was initially confused with the Executive Committee (EC) of the South Wales National Union of Mineworkers (SWNUM) recommending strike action during their conference of March 9, and local NUM lodges in South Wales voting 18 to 13 to stay in while respecting any picket lines, by 12th March, half of Britain’s 187,000 miners had downed tools becoming one of the most inspiring but bitter class struggles in British history.
But Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – riding high from her victory in the Falklands – had secretly and cynically prepared for battle by stockpiling two years’ worth of coal before announcing the closures. And she was hellbent on defeating “the enemy within” by any means necessary, even if it meant turning the full force of the state against its own people. For the first time in a postwar national strike, British police were openly used as a political weapon.Paramilitary riot police placed mining communities under total siege. A scab workforce was organised to break the strike, and billions were spent to keep the power stations running without coal. The full weight of the courts was used to sequestrate the funds of the miners' union and break its resolve. Civil liberties were forgotten as miners were beaten and arrested even when standing still. Agent provocateurs and spies were deployed. State benefits were withheld in order to starve the miners back to work. And the media was used to churn out a Niagara of lies against the miners.What had begun as an industrial dispute degenerated into a clash of ideologies and civil class war.
For twelve months, the miners and their families held out against unprecedented onslaughts and unimaginable hardships in order to save jobs and preserve communities.The South Wales miners alone would prove to be obdurate, solid and immovable throughout the long year of hardship and deprivation. Their heroism, determination and courage alongside striking miners across the UK astonished the world, and would charge and inspire the political consciousness of hundreds of thousands of people, as it did for me, aged 16 and a half at the start of the strike as they demonstrated their unconquerable will to fight.
Miners on picket lines were brutalised and attacked by baton-wielding police in full riot gear. For me at the time this was to be a year of great awakenings, seeing their fight, I started to see connections with other peoples struggles. The plight of the poor and unemployed, Nicuragua and Apartheid South Africa, people being daily attacked by Margaret Thatchers rabid Government. I decided to take sides with with those who decided to take on the right wing policies of Thatchers government.
The rights and wrongs of whether the miners should have had a national ballot has been widely discussed, but like many others at the time I believed that once the miners were out, it was our duty to support and work for them. Within weeks of the strike starting 80% of miners supported the strike, standing against what they saw as the unjustifiable attacks on their right to existence and resistance.
Later at Orgreave it became apparent, of the true intentions of Thatchers government, with the full collusion of the police ,it was noticed that they had no intention of finding reconciliation or settlement to this industrial dispute. The sole intention was an ideological one, to mortally wound the National Union of Mineworkers, to defeat it with military force and with naked violence ,by any means necessary.
As the miners attempted to blockade the Orgreave coking plant. The police showed the lengths they would go to break the strike with violent attacks, mass arrests and deliberate but fortunately unsuccessful attempts to fabricate evidence and frame miners. The insult was added to by the BBC reversing footage of miners defending themselves from police attacks to try and make out that the police were attacked first.
It was one of the most brutal attacks by the state on its own citizens of the last 20th Century.It saw the police going berserk under state orders, repeatedly attacking individuals wherever they sought refuge, as they fled into a nearby Wheatfield and into the community of Orgreave, where the police carried on their pursuit through the streets. A scene of ugliness, fear and menace, as all concepts of Law and order that the constabulary were supposed to withhold abandoned all its basic principles.
At the end the day over 100 people were arrested, for no crime whatever, with many more being injured along with the Miners leader Arthur Scargill. Following Orgreave, the police conducted a deliberate and co-ordinated attempt to frame arrested miners for one of the most serious events on the statute book - the offence of Riot. No police officer has ever been prosecuted or even disciplined for their role in the terrible events that occurred.Campaigners have long been calling for a public inquiry into the horrendous events that occurred on 18 June 1984, simply asking for an apology to the victims who suffered in this bloody confrontation. More details here .https://otjc.org.uk/
Despite increasing hardships the miners fought on with determination and bravery. During the course of the strike over 6,000 were arrested, with over 20,000 miners being injured in acts of state violence.
Throughout the strike I would witness, how the right wing media was used to vilify and undermine. The media being used to lie, and used as a political weapon to crush the miners resiliance, the media also enabling to misrepresent, and divide the movement, churning out a Niagra of lies against the miners .The propoganda part of Thatchers assault, was being pushed out everyday. At her so called enemy within.
Psychological pressure was also used, with the police encouraged to wave wads of cash at pickets, designed to undermine and demoralise, the use of scabs increased, bussing them through picket lines in a determined effort to break the will of the striking miners.
Throughout the country, groups emerged, either as individuals or part of miners support groups, raising money and awareness, standing in solidarity. Disparate groups found common ground, from the Unemployed, the Peace Movement, students, other Trade Unions, all standing firmly behind the miners in their great struggle. The women from the mining communities in particular acted as bulmarks of strength, organising welfare and support, collecting food and money and giving much needed moral energy. Lesbian and Gay support groups also played a vital role and consequently the NUM led the pride demonstration in London in 1985.The chant of the miners’ support groups was: “The miners united will never be defeated”. It was an energising time, new friends were made, the camerardie that emerged was simply amazing.
Sadly eventually some miners started drifting back there will broken, and the increasing hardsgips they faced, but it should be noted that 63% of the miners stayed out to the bitter end.
Sadly despite the strikers being pitted against the full force of the ruling class, they were betrayed by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party’s refusal to mobilise support, especially their spineless leader Welsh 'windbag' and class traitor Neil Kinnock, who refused to attend picket lines or events supporting the miners, in effect helping Thatchers dirty war of attrition. In fairness the Party rank and file were with the miners. Labour Party activists, premises and equipment were involved in the miners' strike to a degree probably not seen in any dispute since the 1920s. The National Executive Committee backed the miners and called for a levy to support them. Conference condemned police violence and defied Kinnock's request to condemn pickets' violence.
But what most people saw, courtesy of TV, was the public weaseling of Kinnock, Hattersley and others. We should not underestimate the role played by this in dampening the spirits of the labour movement.
On 3rd March 1985, an NUM delegate conference narrowly voted to end the strike. The miners marched back to work together, brokenhearted but their heads held high in defiance. Thatcher was graceless in victory. “There is no such thing as society,” she infamously declared. Her neo-liberal blueprint would result not only in the selling off and selling out of the coal industry, but also the decimation of Britain’s manufacturing industry, the subjugation of all trade unions, and the doubling of unemployment and inflation.
Though the heroic struggle ended in defeat, the proud and dignified nature of the return to work, like the Maerdy miners of South Wales who marched back to work behind colliery bands and banners who thus robbed Thatcher of the "total" victory she and her class sought. Nevertheless, the Tory government subsequently closed over 100 pits and more than 100,000 were made redundant. The pit closure programme was carried through remorselessly. It tore the guts out of the industry and out of the mining communities. The mining industry was decimated.
The strike may have been defeated but years later I remember the courage and sacrifice made during this bitter struggle and the spirit of revolt they unleashed, and those who remained defiant to the end, and acknowledge the miners who were arrested and locked up on trumped up charges.The communities that never fully recovered from the financial blow of the strike. Those who fought for the survival of a humane society here in Wales and across Britain, and a vile government who used the powers of the state in almost all its entirety to defeat the miners and to teach the whole working class a lesson.
Miners and their families will remember those miners and their strike supporters who will have passed away since, and in particular those who were killed either by reckless lorry drivers at picket lines at the time or from the “death by malice” of someone hurling a brick at a striking miner, as was the case with David Jones outside Thorseby Colliery in the Nottingham coalfield and Joe Green who was killed on the picket line.
Passions remain unwaned, and I feel the miners strike has left us with a legacy that we should be proud of, of a people and community standing together in solidarity in the face of adversity. The fighting spirit of the miners lives on , It has left behind a tradition of courageous struggle, which can still be seen among us today with people fighting for their lives and what they believe in, today as then solidarity is needed more than ever, as we continue our own for jobs, social justice and welfare. in our opposition to the current Tory Government, who are carrying on where Thatcher left off.
Test Department and the South Wales Miners Striking Choir - Comrades in Arms
