",email_success: "Message Sent",bulk_noitems_advice: "No items were selected. [32] The documentary suggests that the claims against Scargill were untrue. However, many people argue that there was a lot of support for the strike so therefore it couldnt have been such an important factor in its failure in 1985. The Enemy Within: The Secret War against the Miners. London: Pan Books, an Imprint of Pan Macmillan, 2017. Authors: Scargill, Arthur; Kahn, Peggy: Publisher: Leeds [u.a.] The Guardian. The myth of workers' control: We are fighting for the survival of our culture: Selected Co-authors Countries and Regions of . However, they have conflicting views on to what extent these preparations were made in order to bring down the unions. National Archives: Margaret Thatcher Wanted to Crush Power of Trade Unions.. Page 317. [51] Scargill criticised Poland's Solidarity calling it an "anti-socialist organisation which desires the overthrow of a socialist state", which Scargill saw as deformed but reformable. Exciting, witty Arthur Scargill brought coalmining to a close in Britain far faster than would have happened had the NUM been led by some prevaricating, dreary old-style union hack. Tony Benn. Wikipedia. The view that the failure to call a National Ballot, by Scargill, cost him valuable support is advocated by Shirley Letwin; Nor did he bother to abide by his own unions rules which required that a strike shall be entered upon as the result of a ballot vote of the members.[1] This led to the miners losing the support of many, including Labour Partys- Neil Kinnock, who felt emotionally disposed to support the miners but aware that it would be political suicide to do so[2]. Therefore, the fact that Scargill didnt call a National Ballot was irrelevant[11] as Tony Benn says, but the fact that Scargill authorised violent tactics that reduced public sympathy and misjudged situations may have been a factor in the failure of the miners strike. [9] At the subsequent enquiry, he used notebooks of underground working from the 19th century, retrieved from the Institute of Geological Sciences in Leeds, to argue that the National Coal Board could have prevented the disaster had they acted on the information available. The 84/5 miners strike brought great hardship, but achieved nothing. The same nationalism explains why Arthur Scargill, alongside his industrial militancy, supports a not-at-all-militant programme of import controls, withdrawal from the EEC, and siege economy. [9] This performance strengthened his popularity with the Yorkshire miners. ", Gildart, Keith. His nationalist backwardness on Brexit (and immigration, to judge by a letter published in the Guardian on 29 August 2017) cannot be forgiven. Accessed September 16, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. "Goodbye to all that? [22] Milne, Seumas. Joining the NUM at the age of 19 in 1957, Scargill was one of its leading activists by the late 1960s. Change the settings back to the previous configuration (before you selected Default). Articles like the above, years later are actually a compliment to Arthur. (1998), The third way : the promise of industrial democracy, Lawrence, Dennis, He lost on both occasions, winning 2.4% of the vote in Hartlepool at the 2001 general election. EconBiz.Logger.logPageView(); ",viewBookBag: "View clipboard",addBookBag: "Add to clipboard",removeBookBag: "Remove from clipboard",itemsAddBag: "item(s) added to your clipboard",itemsInBag: "item(s) are either already in your clipboard or could not be added",bookbagMax: "100",bookbagFull: "Your clipboard is Full",bookbagStatusFull: "Full",no_tags: "No Tags"}; [8] Beckett, Francis, and David Hencke. Accessed October 12, 2018. Page 341. Seumas Milne argues that the miners had sued the police for assault, wrongful arrest, malicious persecution and false imprisonment and then went on to describe the battle of Orgreaves as an 8,000 riot police staged medieval-style mounted charges of unprecedented ferocity[33]. [26], There is a prevailing view that Arthur Scargill, the NUM National President, called the strike. March 07, 2009. Many of us started in the 1950s in the Young Communist League. [56], In July 2021 he spoke at the Rebel Town Festival in Jarrow. Arthur Scargill emerged from semi-retirement from politics to speak at a meeting of the Communist Party of Britains wretched little pro-Brexit front organisation Leave Fight Transform (LeFT) in Brighton on 11 September, alongside Eddie Dempsey (the man who said Tommy Robinson supporters were right to hate the liberal left) and other assorted xenophobes, nationalists and social conservatives. In May 2009, he was a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party for one of London's seats in the European Parliament. "Two Kinds of Reform: Left Leadership in the British National Union of Mineworkers and the United Mineworkers of America, 19821990. Carrying the Fire in The Road T he dystopian world of Cormac McCarthy's The Road is best summarized by the following lines from the novella: "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. # End WordPress. Strike: When Britain Went to War. In Defence of Marxism. [4] He joined the Young Communist League in 1955, becoming its Yorkshire District Chair in 1956 and shortly after a member of its National Executive Committee. you only have to look at the current state of our country after Cov19torealise that we have noindustry left! The Myth of Workers' Control Arthur Scargill Snippet view - 1980. [20] Ridley, Nicholas. London: Vintage, 2008. Page 317. Scargill, Arthur (1938- ) English trade union leader. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. There are those on the would-be left who will willingly attempt to defend people accused of rape, individuals who beat their partners, those who think there is vast Jewish conspiracy against Corbyn, and elements that think trans people are mentally ill. Scargill seems to have almost no one to advocate for him. (The Yorkshire Left had already decided to stand him as their candidate even before the strike.) At the risk of paraphrasing, Karl Marx once wrote that the great figures of history appear first as tragedy and then as farce. Yet he still gives credit to Thatcher and her government for their actions during the strike which legitimises his view. My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years. The coal stocks at power stations held out[20]. During this time, he earned the esteem of significant sections of the left and the British working class, who saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare,[12] and he was also respected for improving the administration of the compensation agent's post. Scargill led the union in the 19841985 miners' strike. [45], For years the NUM had been paying 34,000 annual rent for the flat on Scargill's instructions, without the knowledge of NUM members or many senior officials; Scargill claimed the NUM should continue funding his flat for the rest of his life, and thereafter for any widow who survived him. The Anatomy of Thatcherism. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; the executive was described as dominated by "Gormley's rotten boroughs", since every region even quite small ones had one delegate, and the larger regions had only a few more (Scotland and South Wales had two delegates each, Yorkshire had three). He then went on to say: The deep disillusion of the mining communitywas spontaneous and genuine. July 31, 2013. All work is written to order. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. On platforms that enforce case-sensitivity example and Example are not the same locations. If not, correct the error or revert back to the previous version until your site works again. his position on freedom movements In communist states such as Poland, was unforgivable He is rightly labelled a Stalinist, along with Corbyn. (1988), Trade unions and politics : thatchers assault on the unions ; the unions response, Kahn, Peggy, [16] One branch of the NUM, at Annesley in Nottinghamshire, put forward a vote of no confidence in Scargill in autumn 1983 following his comments on these matters, but Scargill defeated this at a December meeting and won a vote of confidence instead. He cannot resist pointing out parallels in all times and places. Yet Arthur Scargill clearly sees class struggle as just British workers versus British bosses. [22][23], Many found Scargill inspiring; many others found him frankly scary. An example of this is the NACODs strike whereby Ian McGregor ordered colliery overmen to cross violent picket lines if they were to get paid. The judge Sir Sydney Templeman held that it was unlawful that union members were disciplined by the NUM disciplinary panel, which Scargill chaired, for appearing as witnesses testifying against Scargill in a libel case. Many people blame him for the failure of Miners Strike due to his poor leadership skills and bad judgement. It is reported that the police were getting between 600 and 1000 a week and many people believed that there just arent that many police available to move about. Scargill was often accompanied by his then wife Anne Harper to speak at picket lines and to media appearances; Harper was simultaneously involved in founding and leading the National Women Against Pit Closures movement. However, the people that argue this are clear Thatcherites such as Shirley Letwin, John Campbell and even Thatcher herself who blamed Scargill for the violence at the picket line mass pickets led by Arthur Scargill forced the closure of the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham[44] contradicting this, Seumas Milne who takes a clear Marxist view that the standard fairy tale, still routinely recycled by media and politicians alike, has it that Scargill called the action in spring in a classic example of his poor generalship and tactical sense[45]. Scargill admitted there was 'bad blood' between him and the NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen, who said, "I honestly do believe that Arthur, in his own world, believes that the NUM is here to afford him the lifestyle that he's become accustomed to. However, it can be argued that government preparations werent sufficient enough in order to bring down the miners. This is unfair as after the NCB accidently announced pit closures, the strike gained momentum very quickly forcing Scargill to just go along with it. On March 6, 1984, the National Coal Board announced its plan to cut the nation's coal output by 4 million tons, in an effort to stem a $340 million annual loss. [36] Thatcher, Margaret. The Alliance for Workers' Liberty is an organisation fighting as part of the labour movement for a socialist alternative to both capitalism and Stalinism, based on common ownership and democracy. His comments followed a question in the Commons from Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who said the miners and their families deserved an apology for the mine closures. He claimed that the government had a long-term strategy to destroy the industry by closing unprofitable pits, and that it listed pits it wanted to close each year. Arrow, 1994. In March 2014, ex-miner John Cunningham attended the memorial meeting for the two Yorkshire miners killed in the strike, Davy Jones and Joe Green. If anyone of them has any cause for complaint they are simply showing the door because they have no unions to speak for to stand up for the rights of any working man or woman in this country. Accessed October 12, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn. [21] Ridley, Nicholas. His father, Harold, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. After looking at the evidence, I believe that the Marxist view is more valid than the Mainstream media view in the fact that it is clear that Thatcher and her government went above and beyond in order to bring down Scargill and the miners. The End of an Era Diaries 1980-90. Lawson also takes the mainstream media view that everything Thatcher did during the strike was to maintain law and order. Scargill had the ability to do great things; Pity he got in the way of his own opportunities, and could not see Communism as a failed ideology that blighted every country in which it held sway. If this doesn't work, you may need to edit your .htaccess file directly. Absolute nonsense on all accords above. (1978), CONTESTING THE MARKET: PAY EQUITY AND THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING, Eigart, Deborah M., Routledge, 1997. [4] UK | Politics | Head to Head: The Miners Strike. BBC News. UK | Politics | Head to Head: The Miners Strike. BBC News. London: Corgi Books, 1993. A miner and a member of the mining communitywas spontaneous and genuine claims against Scargill untrue. 1950S in the British National union of Mineworkers and the United Mineworkers of America 19821990... To edit your.htaccess file directly to say: the Miners compliment to Arthur Communist League in 2021. Margaret Thatcher Wanted to Crush Power of Trade unions [ 9 ] performance... 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