The Tory leaders eagerness to brand not only miners leaders but the Labour party as enemies of democracy was a measure of her extremism and determination for class revenge. opinion regarding the strike remains deeply divided. Recherche parmi 277 000+ dissertations. And the trade unions believed the government had a long-term strategy to close more than 70 pits. The 7 longest serving British Prime Ministers, 12 'commoners' who had ceremonial state funerals, Winters of discontent: 6 of the worst winters in British history, 'Just print more money': History's worst cases of hyperinflation, Everything you need to know about William Shatner, Da de Muertos: The history of Day of the Dead, 'She was an amazing lady': Michele Dotrice on playing Queen Victoria in 'Royal Mob', The Hesse Sisters: Queen Victoria's favourite granddaughters, The life of Prince Albert: Queen Victoria's ambitious consort, The comeback kids: 6 British Prime Ministers who returned to office. How did the miners strike end in 1972? Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013: How she bashed miners and the unions but backed yuppies After Baroness Thatcher's death at 87 , we look back at the strikes, riots and yuppie boom Image: John Harris) Demonstrating that trade union power could not be used to defeat the government. It wasnt just the militarised police occupation of the coalfields; the 11,000 arrests, deaths, police assaults, mass jailings and sackings; the roadblocks, fitups and false prosecutions most infamously at the Orgreave coking plant where an orgy of police violence in June 1984 was followed by a failed attempt to prosecute 95 miners for riot on the basis of false evidence. The miners, their families and their communities deserved better than that. As the strike dragged on, Thatchers government held firm. By 1994, when the coal mining industry was finally privatized, Britain had just 15 collieries; when Thatcher died in 2013, only three remained. He was 85. In the first half of the 20th century the UK had more than 1,000 collieries - but by 1984 there were just 173. Thatcher was told by the then cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, there was nothing he could do about it. Thatcher immediately set out to turn the economic situation around, according to her firm belief in the independence of the individual from the state and limited government interference in the economy. It had all been for nothing. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. The miners' strike was seen at least through the eyes of the news media as a fight to the finish between Arthur Scargill and Margaret Thatcher. Everybody knew the stakes were political miners had effectively brought down Ted Heaths government ten years before, and union militancy had crippled the Callaghan Labour government in its last months. 82 votes, 15 comments. A decade after the strike, I called the book I wrote about that secret war against the miners The Enemy Within, because the phrase turned out to have multiple layers of meaning. 3 key Thatcher policies to end the Miners Strike of 1984-85 Build up ample coal stocks, In some parts of the country, miners kept working, causing tensions with picketing workers who branded them as scabs.. To do this, Thatcher focused on privatizing state-owned industriessuch as steel and coalthat relied heavily on government subsidies, as well as curbing the power of Britains trade unions. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.". The. And their coal seams were relativel. Mr Redwood told me: I was very much against using the army. In the first half of the 20th century the UK had more than 1,000 collieries - but by . HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The final vote by the National Union of Mineworkers national executive was 98 to 91 for a return to work. The Thatcher factor First, the miners were divided. Targeted by the state - The 1984 British miners' strike BY FERN LANE Twenty years ago this month, on 5 March 1984, the National Union of Mineworkers, together with the communities from which it drew its membership, embarked on an epic confrontation with the Thatcher government. It was only as a result of the IRA bomb attack on her Brighton hotel that she was prevailed upon to drop the line as too divisive. McGregors approach to the mining industry was the same as it had been towards steel close unprofitable pits and drastically reduce the workforce. He determined that at least twenty unprofitable pits must be closed immediately for economic reasons, which was met with great suspicion by the National Union of Mineworkers, in particular the unions leader, the firebrand Arthur Scargill. In that time, Thatcher's battle with the unions would continue, most notably during the 1984-1985 miners' strike. By March 5 1984 miners went on strike across Yorkshire, Durham, Scotland and Wales. What did Margaret Thatcher do to miners? The villagers, many of them in tears, cheered and clapped as the men of Grimethorpe Colliery marched back to work accompanied by the villages world-famous brass band. The chilling catchphrase embodied her governments scorched earth onslaught on Britains mining communities and gave the green light for the entire state to treat the miners union as outlaws. As far as he was concerned, there was no such thing as an unprofitable pit, and he saw McGregors proposed closures as a way for Thatcher to weaken the NUM, close down far more pits than McGregor was claiming and lead the way to privatisation. This led to violent clashes between the police and pickets, most notoriously at the Battle of Orgreave, where 5,000 miners faced a similar force of police officers. March 5 Yorkshire miners' strike begins. This meant that, unlike in 1972 and 1974, there would be no power cuts and no forcing the governments hand to come to the negotiating table. In February 1981, the government announced plans to close 23 pits across the country but the threat of a national strike was enough to force a back down. Much of the story has come out in memoirs. At first, this was not a problem as local union branches had deep pockets and could pay miners at least some of money they were no longer receiving from the NCB. The miners' strike was the beginning of an era that proved time and again Welsh difference from Britain and alienation from the English. It was the secret state and those who wielded it against people defending their livelihoods across Britain. The outcome of the dispute brought us to where we are today: the deregulated, outsourced, zero-hours world of David Camerons Britain. But was it a good thing for the country that the miners lost their last battle? Thatcher began the meeting defending the scientific community. Learn faster with spaced repetition. Margaret Thatcher. One of the major reasons so many mines closed was the strikes. It was a political strike". As Margaret Thatcher took office as Britains first female prime minister in May 1979, she confronted a nation mired in economic recession. By The Newsroom 26th Nov 2017, 3:36pm - 3 . Against the power of the Unions and Arthur Scargill in particular, the union leader. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of theTerms and Conditions. British mines were largely shaft based deep mines, which are totally uncompetitive with open cast mining. Mrs Thatchers annotation of the documents shows her considering a payment of 35,000 per man for those who would take redundancy. Mrs Thatcher planned to shut down 20 more, which caused the mass miners' strike of 1984-85. That's sort of true, with a few asterisks. With her rhetoric of the 'enemy within', Thatcher's position was hardly hidden. Replacement jobs failed to materialize, businesses closed down and young people got used to the idea of either moving away or wasting the best years of their lives on the dole. The miners had defeated the ruling class twice, once in 1972 when their strike drove a coach and horses through the pay policy of the day, and then again in 1974 when Tory prime minister Ted Heath . Scargill used this as an opportunity to call a nationwide strike against the planned pit closures. The task facing the left today is almost exactly analogous to the one Ridley was set in 1977. For other inquiries, Contact Us. Explain Like I'm Five is the best forum and archive on the internet for Sir Ian was given by Margaret. During the first few days of the strike, on 14 March 1984, ministers pressed Home Secretary Leon Brittan to get chief constables to adopt a more vigorous interpretation of their duties. Scargill used this as an excuse to call for a nationwide strike. Mrs Thatcher's careful preparation before confronting the miners led to an overwhelming victory, vindicating her policy of mine closures and privatisation. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Confrontation between riot police and miners at the Orgreave coke works in South Yorkshire, June 1984. Signs of strikers read "Save the Pits!" It was a challenge to the destructive market and corporate-driven reconstruction of the economy that gave us the crash of 2008. Documents declassified in 2014 revealed that Thatcher considered calling out the military to transport food and coal, and even declaring a state of emergency in order to strengthen her governments position. The stakes were high on both sides: Scargill compared the strike to. The main disagreement at the origin of the miners strike in 1985 was the will of Thatcher's government to introduce new policies regarding colliery closures in Great Britain. Subscribe to Iconic: http://bit.ly/zVEuIYMargaret Thatcher speaking about what she calls the recalcitrant minority of the miners union. Get this The Guardian page for free from Friday, May 17, 1985 iday May 17 1985 ESS Stephen Cook oh the main proposals in the public order white paper. Within hours, 1000 extra police had been thrown into Nottinghamshire against the picketing miners. But the remarks also reflect her governments systematic resort to anti-democratic measures to break the resistance of Britains most powerful union: from the use of the police and security services to infiltrate and undermine the miners union to the manipulation of the courts and media to discredit and tie the hands of its leaders. Businesses were failing, and inflation and unemployment were rising. The documents show the Conservative government was, in the middle of the miners strike, facing defeat. And in some of the other documentation I demonstrated there were groups involved in the miners strike who had a wider political purpose. Scargill refused to entertain the idea of any pit closures save for those that posed safety risks. And, as the large-scale malpractices of police undercover units have driven home in the past couple of years, their successors are still at it today. This would lead to bitter tussles between miners who carried on working throughout the strike and pickets who were quick to label strikebreakers scabs. In a speech in 1984 she said: "We had to fight the enemy without the Falklands. Paul Symonds, a miner at Frickley Colliery during the strike, says: One lesson is this: they were much better organised than we were. Was it a good thing that the miners lost? Its that under the prime ministers guidance, MI5, police Special Branch, GCHQ and the NSA were mobilised not only to spy on the NUM on an industrial scale, but to employ agents provocateurs at the highest level of the union, dirty tricks, slush funds, false allegations, forgeries, phoney cash deposits and multiple secretly sponsored legal actions to break the defence of the mining communities. Shes scribbled: 13 RoRo, 1,000 tons a day, 50 lorries a day. In 1972 and 1974, strikes shut down every coal mine in Britain, and a combination of solidarity strikes by the steel and railway unions and targeted picketing of coking works, ports and industrial sites brought the country to a standstill. Coal stocks would last only six weeks, after which Britain would shut down and people would demand concessions. provoked the miners' strike of 1984-5 out of a desire for revenge for these defeats. The miners' strike of 1984-1985 was a major industrial action which saw the British coal industry shut down. In a powerfully worded, single-copy letter, Redwood warned Thatcher that the far left was engaged in a revolutionary strategy to destroy the government. These will bring together those former miners and their support groups who fought for their jobs in the late 1970s and early eighties, culminating in the Great Miners' Strike of 1984/85.
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