In fact, other factors such as the governments intense preparations came into play. [53] He was not attending any of the events to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the 1984 strike at the NUM. the myth of workers' control arthur scargill the myth of workers' control arthur scargill on October 1, 2021 on October 1, 2021 Therefore, Thatcher and her governments actions could have caused the failure of the strike but to what extent these actions can be justified is still widely argued. In 2012, the flat was valued at 1,500,000, and had 24/7 access to concierge services. Year of publication: 1980. [8] Nigel Lawson, who takes a clear mainstream media view on the Miners strike and even admits the left-wing majority on the NUM executive insisted, however dubiously, that Rule 43 of the union allowed for a strike without a ballot[9] showing that although many people didnt agree with it, including him, it was actually permissible. He also represented the Barnsley Co-op at Cooperative congresses. Scargill, Arthur (1938- ) English trade union leader. In May 2009, he was a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party for one of London's seats in the European Parliament. Nicholas Ridley conveys the mainstream media view that the failure of the strike was due to sufficient preparations for the strike by the government and out rightly says He might have won at Orgreave if it hadnt been for the preparations that the Government had made. Arrow, 1994. If being ignored is the ultimate retribution forscargill, then he is a lucky man, for if he had espoused his views in some of the countrieswith which he wanted to align us, his best outcome would have been breaking rocks but more likely he would have disappeared never to be heard of again. In 1974, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that led Prime Minister Edward Heath to call a February general election.[13]. This is given credence by striking miner, Arthur Wakefield; This time the police go berserk and the Riot Squad charge up the field with the Calvary they turn to where we are standing peacefully picketing and start hitting whoever they come across[34]. The editor of the Daily Mirror at the time, Roy Greenslade, wrote an article in The Guardian in May 2002 to apologise to Scargill for the false claims about paying off the mortgage and for putting too much trust in Roger Windsor, who at the time had still not repaid the 29,500 that he had taken from the Miners' Welfare Fund and that the Lightman Report had asked that he repay. [33] Milne, Seumas. Arrow, 1994. The movement faced a huge confrontation from the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, and the union was eventually defeated. Brexit: Labour movement debate, not talk with Tories! But Rule 43 said that a national strike can only be called if there was a ballot. [36] In September 1990, the Certification Officer brought criminal charges against Scargill and Heathfield for wilfully neglecting to perform the union's duty to keep proper accounting records. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. The Guardian. National Archives: Margaret Thatcher Wanted to Crush Power of Trade Unions.. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. Thereafter Scargill led the NUM through the 19841985 miners' strike. On platforms that enforce case-sensitivity example and Example are not the same locations. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. March 07, 2009. [14] The section under "staff procedures" details how Scargill monitored head office staff: Mr. Scargill's vendetta against Head Office staff has at times descended to the most puerile and paranoic [sic] levels. This was to begin the argument of whether the actions of Thatcher and the state during the strike led to its failure. [52], The Guardian in February 2014 said that Scargill had become a recluse. However, Kenneth OMorgan may be overemphasising the amount of support that the miners had as we know that Thatcher continuously demonised the miners in the media calling them the enemy within and this reduced a lot of public support for the strike. [34] Scargill accepted Lightman's statement that many of his actions suffered from a lack of professional advice, which he was unwilling to be bound by. Lawson takes an objective view of the events as his book was published in 1993 after a very public dispute with Thatcher where he eventually resigned. This sparked an individual ballot of members, in the autumn of 1984, whereby the ballot obtained an 80% plus vote for strike action, a decision which, if implemented, would have been sufficient to save pits and jobs, and win the dispute which had been brought by the National Coal Board[35]. This lack of support can be blamed on the leadership of Arthur Scargill; therefore, the leadership of Arthur Scargill is a more important factor in the failure of the miners strike in 1985. [14], The vast majority of head-office staff took redundancy rather than move to Sheffield. The Miners Strike Day by Day: The Illustrated 1984-85 Diary of Yorkshire Miner Arthur Wakefield. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/37592/How the Miners Strike could have won. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3815426/. Shirley Letwin takes the mainstream media view that Arthur Scargills incompetence as a leader caused the miners strike to fail. Page 342. . [41], In 1993, Scargill tried to use Thatcher's flagship Right to Buy scheme to buy a flat on the Barbican estate in central London. [11] Benn, Tony. Chris Kitchen said: "I would say it's time to walk away, Mr Scargill. Some scholars have concluded that Scargill's decisive tactical error was to substitute his famous flying picket for the holding of a national strike ballot. The strike became a symbolic struggle, as the NUM was one of the strongest unions in the country, viewed by many, including Conservatives in power, as having brought down the Heath government in the union's 1974 strike. 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. (1978), CONTESTING THE MARKET: PAY EQUITY AND THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING, Eigart, Deborah M., ", Gildart, Keith. Many people also argue that the police werent as brutal as some other accounts made them out to be and that they were just doing their jobs in maintaining law and order. RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] Yet he still gives credit to Thatcher and her government for their actions during the strike which legitimises his view. [6] In 1970, he was elected a member of the regional committee of the Co-operative Retail Services in Barnsley and a delegate to its national conference. His one man mission to bring down the elected government, for a second time, and destroy Thatcherism was not only not accomplished ,it only served to strengthen the Conservative Government and Thatchers dominance of the political landscape for over a decade. [14] Benn, Tony. Page 70. However, it can be argued that government preparations werent sufficient enough in order to bring down the miners. This view is supported to some extent by Labour minister Tony Benn, one of Thatchers fiercest critics, and historian, Seumas Milne who argued that the governments extensive preparations and actions during the strike led to its failure in 1984. Scargill's first mistake was refusing to call a National Ballot . : S.n., 1996. BATTLE FOR BRITAIN; on the 25th Anniversary of the Miners Strike, NORMAN TEBBIT, Reveals Why He Believes Defeat Would Have Been the Death of Democracy.. [19] Morgan, Kenneth O.Britain since 1945: The Peoples Peace. The strike was called under Rule 41 of the NUM rule book, which said that local strikes can be made official by the National Executive without a ballot. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! I suggest to this Conference that we have coal mines with us but they did something about this problem: they closed them down. He then went on to say: The deep disillusion of the mining communitywas spontaneous and genuine. The Socialist Labour Party ( SLP) is a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. Strike: When Britain Went to War. In Defence of Marxism. However, Margaret Thatchers intentions in this source have to be questioned as this book was published in 1993 after Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister in 1990, therefore she may have been trying to justify her actions and downplay the use of police in the miners strike. These preparations included the Ridley Plan, stockpiling coal, the appointment of Ian McGregor as head of NCB, the involvement of MI5 and MI6 and the introduction of the new trade union laws. Add the following snippet of code to the top of your .htaccess file: # BEGIN WordPress ", R.R. By not calling a National Ballot the strike rapidly gained support. 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. Page 317. Yet he was a decisive figure in the great strike of 1984-85. Therefore, without support from key groups such as the Nottinghamshire miners and the dock workers, the striking miners were isolated which may have led to the failure of the strike itself. There was some controversy in February 1985 when Times journalist Paul Routledge engaged the Queen in discussion on the strike, and the Queen said that the strike was "all about one man", which Routledge objected to. Edit the file on your computer and upload it to the server via FTP. London: Verso, 2014. Somerset: Routledge, 2018. Joining the NUM at the age of 19 in 1957, Scargill was one of its leading activists by the late 1960s. I really do not care what you think of Mr Scargill today, where elseis a man supposed to go after he was betrayed by the system and vilified by the media to agullible population, a media that was run by the government of the day. Scargill was involved in a High Court case in 1978 that set a precedent in UK labour law, known as Roebuck v NUM (Yorkshire Area) No 2. This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here. London: Fontana, 1992. of the other candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare. Arthur Scargill: We Could Surrender or Stand and Fight. The Guardian. We may criticise some of the tactics he used in the 1984-5 miners strike, but we cannot dispute that he gave real leadership and was serious about wanting to defeat the Tories. September 09, 2018. London: Constable, 2009. A History of Modern Britain. Yet he was a trade union leader who helped lead a strike that brought down a Tory government (1974) and correctly understood that Thatcher was out to smash the unions and that they needed to fight back. However, Letwin also blames Scargill for the timing of the strike; Scargill, for his part, had timed his attack poorly, attacking in the spring when the demand for coal was decreasing. Having examined a range of factors which led to the failure of the miners strike in 1984, it has become clear that it was easy to just blame the leadership of Arthur Scargill as the ultimate factor that led to the strikes failure. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! [21] Ridley, Nicholas. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. "Two Kinds of Reform: Left Leadership in the British National Union of Mineworkers and the United Mineworkers of America, 19821990. The easiest way to edit a .htaccess file for most people is through the File Manager in cPanel. He is looking for socialism in one country, and since that is impossible he ends up with a recipe of capitalism in one country. One of the main planks of his platform was to give more power to union conferences than to executive meetings, on the grounds that the former were more democratic. Arguably, one of the most important factors in the failure of the Miners Strike in 1984 was the leadership of the head of NUM, Arthur Scargill. By 1984 however the police were ready and neutralized the tactic with superior force. Riddled with Stalinist politics and practice and some of the worst sectarianism imaginable, it has no meaningful existence today. Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. Kim Howells discusses how Neil Kinnock argued that real power lay at the ballot box[4]. Without them the power stations, even with the mix of nuclear and oil and the careful stockpiling, might have begun to run short and the government would have been in deep trouble[43] Therefore, showing that the lack of support from the Nottinghamshire miners was a more important factor in the failure of the Miners strike than government preparations. [37] Scargill reached an agreement to repay money to the NUM shortly after this. [33], In July 1990, the NUM executive voted unanimously to sue Scargill and general secretary Peter Heathfield. 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. He also stated regarding Brexit that "we should just invoke the first clause of Article 50 and that means we could leave the EU tomorrow". He was succeeded by Ian Lavery. His post-1985 decision to try and build a political organisation the so-called Socialist Labour Party turned out to be a disaster and created nothing more than a pathetic, personal bandwagon which spluttered briefly before the wheels fell off. [30] Lawson, Nigel. This article, far from being full of lies, hit the nail, well and truly, on the head. [24] Letwin, Shirley Robin. Somerset: Routledge, 2018. In 1965 he was elected Branch Delegate from Woolley to the Yorkshire NUM Area Council, and in 1969 was elected a member of the Yorkshire NUM Area Executive Committee. A secret record is kept of the time at which all workers arrive and leave each day. The students, lesbian and gay rights movements also supported the miners as they could relate to their struggle. S.l. [17] Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. Notice that the CaSe is important in this example. Routledge, 1997. Many of us started in the 1950s in the Young Communist League. Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales. "It was Thatcher's legislation, actually giving council tenants the right to buy their own houses. [1] Letwin, Shirley Robin. Test your website to make sure your changes were successfully saved. To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please: Our academic writing and marking services can help you! Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2002. (1988), Trade unions and politics : thatchers assault on the unions ; the unions response, Kahn, Peggy, 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. Ridley may have been trying to take credit for the failure of the strike by saying that the strike failed due to the governments preparations that included the plan he came up with. Page 340. Margaret Thatcher began a media campaign in order to win over the public and demonise the miners. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984-85), a major event in the history of the British labour movement. 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