The Miners' Strike 1984/85

In Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure, there is a strange, affecting scene, in which the butchering of a hand-raised pig is described. It is told with great sympathy and empathy from the pig’s point of view. (Parables for Socialists-5) Reared close to the family, as was common in nineteen century England, the pig is well-treated, mothered like a pet and fed on tit-bits — all the better to fatten it up so that it could at the right moment be turned into as much pork and bacon as possible. The pig is happy and contented, not knowing his place in the human scheme of things. Then one day the...

Throughout the strike, pit villages were twinned with the labour movements in towns and cities throughout the country, and there was a constant flow of activists between the two. One of the towns the North Notts strikers were twinned with was Basingstoke, and Paul and his comrades spent a lot of time with socialists and activists from there. Alan Fraser, who had himself been sacked for union activity in the local post office, was then chair of Basingstoke Labour Party and a supporter of Socialist Organiser. In my eyes Paul was a working class intellectual, a Marxist and unswerving fighter for...

Paul Whetton wrote this as a delegate to Labour Party conference in September 1984 Mrs Thatcher is tough, nasty, brutal, spiteful, single-minded and very hostile to the labour movement — but a good, tough, committed fighter for her own cause and capable of being an inspiring leader for her own side. Mrs Thatcher knows how to lead. There is no double-talk from Thatcher about the miners’ strike. She is out to beat us down and crush the NUM. She leaves her supporters in no doubt about that. When Thatcher denounced “violence” she doesn't feel obliged to be “impartial” and denounce the police as...

Jean Lane, a Women’s Fightback organiser during the miners’ strike, remembers how Paul Whetton responded to women organising. The need for the organisation of working class women to change society, became common parlance for men and women throughout the strike, changing forever how many women saw themselves and how men viewed them. Wife into comrade, women changed their role from housekeeper to picket, speaker, traveller, poet. Paul, from the beginning, was very clear on the importance of the role of Women Against Pit Closures. They were what kept Notts, and arguably the strike itself, going...

On Friday 3 March Paul Whetton, miner, trade union militant, socialist and Workers’ Liberty collaborator, died aged 66. It was the 21st anniversary of the end of the great miners’ strike of 1984-85. John Bloxam remembers him. On 3 March 1985, the National Union of Mineworkers delegate conference voted 98 to 91 to return to work without a settlement, but as a still-intact union. Paul lobbied against the return, arguing with other left wingers that the strike should continue until 700 sacked miners got their jobs back. Having been out-voted, however, he was part of the disciplined return to work...

Mick Duncan reviews "Faith" , BBC1, 28 February The Tory Party complained about William Ivory’s Faith, claiming it painted Margaret Thatcher in a bad light. Ivory is a talented writer, and this feature length drama of love and betrayal, set in an anonymous Yorkshire town during the miners’ strike, certainly had its moments. But painting Thatcher in a bad light? It would take the dramatic talent of Shakespeare coupled with a god-given gift for abuse equivalent to that of Hunter S Thompson to achieve that. You can’t make the devil more evil than he already is. So it is with Thatcher. What this...

The last pit in the “superpit” coalfield of Selby, North Yorkshire, closed last month and with it went 1,700 mining jobs. The coalfield — which consisted of five pits and one drift mine — covered 110 square miles, an area the size of the Isle of Wight. It was started October 1976, at a time when British capitalism thought coal was a good alternative to oil. When it opened, the Selby coalfield was praised by then Labour government as a “striking symbol of the re-birth of coal as a major energy source”. The closure means the number of UK mines has shrunk to just 11, employing 3,000 miners. Only...

For most miners, the Notts coalfield was synonymous with conservatism and right wing domination. It was the first coalfield to return to work in 1926. The home of “Spencerism” (employer’s union) and the main area of support for the introduction of an incentive scheme in 1977. Conditions in the coalfield — thick straight seams and relatively good wages and conditions — helped. Notts was not the only area with a right wing tradition but, unlike neighbouring Yorkshire (which also was right wing until the 1960s), it had little history of militant rank and file organisation and strikes. The Notts...

Socialist Worker, the miners and the “downturn” By Jack Cleary, from Socialist Organiser 6 February 1985 Socialists need realism, honesty and candour in assessing the world around us. On the other hand we should have no business with unnecessary or premature defeatism. Anyone reading what Socialist Worker says could not avoid the conclusion that the strike is lost. Socialist Worker’s 2 February issue, for example, has good headline advice for striking miners: “No Surrender”. But the underlying train of thought behind this, is made clear in articles in that issue. For example, under the...

Christmas and unity Christmas pressures tended to united pit communities. Socialist Organiser of 12 December reported from Kiveton Park: “As television commercials paraded computers and spaceships before children’s eyes, Jenny Dennis had to tell her seven year old son Matthew that Santa Claus was a mere fantasy. “Mathew reassured his parents that the sacrifice was worthwhile to preserve future hopes. “Soon, though, sackfuls of toys and games arrived from trade unions like ASLEF at Derby and Labour Parties as far away as Bethnal Green and Stepney in East London. “Jenny recently appealed for...