David Kaplan, Camden and Haringey Socialist Party
I was 18 during the miners’ strike in 1984-85. I was already a supporter of Militant, the forerunner of the Socialist Party. The documentary, Strike: An Uncivil War, reminded me of that time and showed so clearly how the Tory government of the day, under Margaret Thatcher, had provoked the strike in order to teach the working class a lesson. It showed the role of the state (the police and the judiciary) and the media in supporting the ruling capitalist class.
At the time, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was, in terms of its industrial muscle, the strongest union in the UK, with 187,000 members. Union membership was much higher then, with 10.6 million members compared to 6.2 million today.
The backdrop to the 1984-85 miners’ strike over jobs was the successful strike by mineworkers in 1972 over pay. Then, the strike lasted seven weeks. A turning point in that strike was the mass picket at the Saltley Gate coking plant in Birmingham, which supplied fuel to power stations. Thousands of trade unionists blockaded the works, preventing lorries from transporting the coke (refined coal) around the country. The police were utterly outnumbered and were forced to shut the gates to the plant. It was a massive victory for workers, which paved the way for the defeat of the Tory government in 1974, and for future struggles by workers in the 1970s.
Orgreave coking plant, near Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was just down the road from where I used to live. Arthur Scargill, president of the NUM, hoping for a repeat of the 1972 blockade at Saltley, put out a call for a mass picket of the plant on 18 June (I wasn’t able to go there on the day).
At Saltley, in 1972, 15,000 workers faced 800 police officers. At Orgreave, twelve years later, 5,000 miners faced 6,000 police.
The documentary focuses on the events of the day: on the hopes of the mineworkers leading up to the event and on the brutal reality that they faced on the day. 18 different police forces from around the country converged on Orgreave. The pickets gathered in a field overlooking the coke works; police equipped with long riot shields were positioned at the bottom of the field; on one side of the field was a road which allowed mounted police to be rapidly deployed; at the top of the field was a railway cutting, which made it difficult and dangerous for pickets to retreat. When the pickets surged forward at the arrival of the first lorries, mounted police charged and dispersed the pickets, without discrimination. Time and again, mounted police charged the pickets, followed by snatch squads of police officers with batons and short shields who battered individual mineworkers. Miraculously, no one was killed on the day.
The BBC evening news portrayed the police as the victims at Orgreave. It showed footage of the events of the day, from police surveillance cameras, but not in the order in which they had occurred. The message that they wanted to get across was that police were defending themselves against violent protesters: the police were not the instigators – the picketing miners were. There are other examples given in the documentary of the relentless barrage of propaganda against the mineworkers.
Time and again, Thatcher said that the government would not intervene in the strike. However, behind the scenes, that was exactly what it was doing. The documentary reveals the existence of a manual, approved by the Home Office in 1983 but not discussed by parliament, for use by Chief Police Officers. The manual, on ‘police tactical options’, outlined how to deal with public disorder in a paramilitary way.
Over 90 arrests were made on the day, including charges of riot, which carried a life sentence if held up by a court, and unlawful assembly.
The documentary interviewed a former police officer on duty at Orgreave on the day. He confirmed that the statements in relation to arrests he had made on the day, had been changed by his seniors, and testified to more serious charges. In the event, all charges against those arrested were dropped: the establishment were frightened of the Chief Police Officers’ manual coming to light.
The documentary talks a little bit about the international support that miners received, or about the ‘Women Against Pit Closures’ movement, predominantly miners’ wives, who built a support network to ensure families of striking miners did not go hungry. It doesn’t talk about the despicable role of the leaders of the Trades Union Congress, which had countless opportunities to call for a 24-hour general strike of all workers to defend miners’ jobs and mining communities. As one of the miners recounts: “I was young and I believed the working class could rise up against the system.” But it’s one thing to be right and another to win.
In 2016, David Cameron’s Tory government ruled out a public enquiry into policing at Orgreave. 40 years on, the mineworkers are still searching for justice.
