STATEMENT PREFACING SPEECH (A. SCARGILL) - preface to text of the speech made at Dodworth Miners' Welfare, Yorkshire, 2/3/2024
Israel – Slaughter of the Innocent
The slaughter of 30,000 innocent people including children and the unborn in Gaza is nothing less than genocide. The perpetrators should be arrested and jailed for life.
It is terrible that the fascist state of Israel has continuously bombed and shelled Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem for nearly five months.
These territories are the land of Palestine which Israel has unlawfully occupied since 1967, and unless Israel withdraws, the United States should force it back.
If the United States and United Kingdom can unlawfully invade Grenada, Iraq and Libya then they should drive Israel from the occupied territories of Palestine.
Arthur Scargill
2 March 2024
The Miners’ Strike, 1984/85
Today, I’m here to honour miners and their families who in 1984/5 fought the greatest worker’ fight since the days of the Chartists and the Tolpuddle Martyrs: to save pits, jobs and our communities.
That includes our young miners who were in every sense fighting for the future – and the magnificent Women Against Pit Closures who were at the forefront of our struggle.
I refer in particular to women in Barnsley who played a leading role in helping establish a national organisation: Ann Hunter, Anne Scargill, Jean McCrindle, Maureen Exley, Betty Cook, Marsha Marshall, Ann Musgrave and Pat Charlton (wife of Jackie), to name only a few.
Who can forget that amazing day, 12 May 1984, when more than 12,000 women from mining communities around the British Coalfields came to Barnsley to stage a historic march and rallyin support of the NUM’s fight against pit closures?
Remember that our right to take strike action was and is governed by United Nations and International Labour Organisation Conventions No. 87 and 98.
The miners’ strike of 1984/85 brought our Union unprecedented support from workers around the world.
I for one never forget the French CGT miners led by my comrade Alain Simon coming across the Channel and into the coalfields at Christmas 1984 driving lorry-loads full of food, provisions and gifts for our families, especially our children and provisions for our communities. Their reason for doing so was simple:
Forty years ago, the Tory Government led by Margaret Thatcher declared war on the National Union of Mineworkers.
The Tories had been preparing for a showdown with the NUM since before the 1979 General Election. They could not forget the victorious miners’ strikes of 1969, 1972 and 1974.
In the Spring of 1982, I was handed a copy of a secret Government plan prepared by NCB chiefs earmarking 95 pits for closure, with the loss of 100,000 miners’ jobs.
It became clear in the following period that the Union would have to take action that would win maximum support and have a unifying effect.
A special conference was held on 21 October, 1983, and delegates from all NUM Areas were given a detailed report so that they could vote on what action – if any – should be taken.
Conference voted unanimously for a national full overtime ban which over the next four months, had an extraordinary impact. Government statistics confirm that it succeeded in reducing coal output by 30 percent, or 12 million tonnes.
It cut national coal stocks to about the same level as they had been during the miners’ unofficial strike in 1981.
On 1 March, 1984, NCB Directors in four Areas announced the immediate closure of five pits: Cortonwood and Bullcliffe Wood in Yorkshire, Herrington in Durham, Snowdown in Kent and Polmaise in Scotland.
On Tuesday, 6 March, Coal Board Chairman Ian MacGregor announced that a further 20 would be closed during the coming year, with the loss of over 20,000 jobs.
At a National Executive Committee meeting on 8 March, two days later, Scotland and Yorkshire sought endorsement from the NEC for strike action in their Areas. They were given authorization in accordance with National Rule 41, and the NEC confirmed that any Area could if they wished adopt the same policy.
I’m fed up of reading or listening to critics saying we “picked the wrong time of year” for a strike. The industrial action started in November 1983: an appropriate time for miners to start industrial action.
On 12 March 1984, Area strikes began.
At a Special National Delegate Conference on 19 April, 1984, delegates rejected a call for a national strike ballot and voted to support and strengthen the 180,000, or 80% of Britain’s miners who were already on strike on an Area basis in accordance with National Rule 41.
I was convinced that the steel industry should be the Areas’ main picketing target –in particular, Scunthorpe, Ravenscraig in Scotland and Port Talbot in South Wales but it was not until May that my view was accepted.
In 1984, steel plants were the Government’s weakest point, with only three weeks’ supply of coke in stock -a fact confirmed in the later memoirs of Margaret Thatcher and her Energy Secretary Peter Walker.
The scene was set for the battle of Orgreave.
Orgreave Coking Plant in South Yorkshire was a crucial target for mass picketing. Its coke supplies could be cut off as had been the case in shutting the Saltley coke depot in Birmingham during the 1972 miners’ strike.
Picketing started on 26 May 1984, and by 30 May police tactics had turned vicious with substantial attacks and arrests of pickets (including me). It was a signal that the Union’s members and the trade union movement had to meet this illegal State force with mass picketing, as they had in Birmingham at Saltley in February 1972 and in London at the mass picket in July 1972 which freed the Pentonville Five.
On 18 June 10,000 pickets faced 8,500 riot police in a scene reminiscent of a battle in England’s 17th Century Civil War. That day, over a hundred were arrested and beaten, 95 of whom were charged with riot, unlawful assembly and violent disorder, and dozens were hospitalized (including me).
Police brutality, deliberate provocation and lies were later exposed in Sheffield Crown Court, and the charges were dismissed, with some compensation eventually paid to the victims.
What is ignored, or forgotten is that on 18 June, at the end of the day, British Steel’s Chairman sent a telex closing down Orgreave - on a temporary basis because our presence had been so effective -exactly like the first closure of Saltley Coke Depot 12 years before.
The fundamental difference between Saltley in 1972 and Orgreave in 1984 was that following the first closure at Saltley, picketing was increased the following day.
At Orgreave, the pickets were withdrawn the next day by NUM Area leaders, despite my desperate urging that picketing should be stepped up.
From my hospital bed on 18 June, I contacted NUM Area leaders and urged that the picketing should be increased, as it had been at Saltley.
Had picketing at Orgreave been increased on 19 June 1984, I have no doubt that Orgreave – and then Scunthorpe – would have faced immediate closure, forcing the Government to settle the strike.
For 40 years, I have been accused of refusing to negotiate a settlement with the NCB, and of ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’. This was and is a lie.
The NUM settled the strike with the NCB on five separate occasions in 1984: on 8 June, 8 July, 18 July, 10 September, and 12 October –only to have the NCB renege on these settlements due to what we now know was Government instruction.
The most important ‘settlement terms’ were agreed between the leaders of the pit deputies’ union NACODS and the NUM on 12 October 1984.
NACODS had just conducted an individual ballot and obtained an 82% vote for strike action.
Following the NACODS result, the conciliation service ACAS invited the NCB, NUM and NACODS in to see if there could be a negotiated settlement.
After futile discussions with the NCB, the NUM and NACODS held a joint meeting in which on behalf of the NUM I drafted the following proposal:
“That the NCB withdraw its pit closure plan, give an undertaking that the five collieries earmarked for immediate closure would be kept open, and guarantee that no pit would be closed unless by joint agreement it was deemed to be exhausted or unsafe.”
This proposal was accepted by NACODS and acceptable to the conciliation service ACAS. It was then submitted to the NCB. It was emphasized that if the NCB did not accept this joint proposal, the NACODS strike would go ahead.
On the eve of reconvened discussions at ACAS, I learned that the NACODS leadership had inexplicably reneged on its agreement with the NUM and had instead reached an agreement with the NCB for an amended colliery review procedure.
No explanation has ever been given by NACODS for this u-turn, or sell-out, which had terrible historical consequences, leading as it did to the destruction of Britain’s deep coal mining industry.
Over the years, I have repeatedly said: We didn’t “come close” to total victory in October, 1984 – we had it, and at the very point of victory we were betrayed.
On 21 February 1985, we held a Special Delegate Conference at which the NEC called upon the trade union movement not to leave the NUM isolated.
The NEC called upon all our members to stand firm and those not yet involved to support our Union against the Government’s attempt to destroy us. This was carried unanimously.
Inexplicably, by 28 February, one week later, five Areas had asked for a recall Conference to agree an immediate return to work without a settlement.
That Conference took place on 3 March 1985. The NEC’s position was for continuation of the strike, as instructed by Conference on 21 February.
The resolution to call off the strike and return to work was proposed by the South Wales Area and seconded by Durham. The vote to return to work was carried by 98 votes to 91.
The three National Officials, Mick McGahey, Peter Heathfield and myself, advocated and supported continuation of the strike – as did the Yorkshire Delegation.
The Miners’ Strike of 1984/85 remains not only an inspiration for workers but a reminder to today’s trade union leaders of their responsibility to their members, and the need to come together in direct action to challenge Government and employers against all forms of injustice, inequality and exploitation.
It is a privilege to be here today with all of you who took strike action in 1984 and you who
supported our strike:
You marched into history, and entered the pantheon of working class heroes and heroines.
Arthur Scargill
March 2024
Arthur Scargill speech at Dodworth Miners' Welfare, 40th Anniversary of Miners' Strike - 02.03.2024
STOP PRESS: Watch the full meeting here:
