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Times
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Times
Orgreave inquiry serves no one but Labour
In the early 1980s Arthur Scargill became president of the National Union of Mineworkers and set out to bring down the elected government through a campaign of industrial confrontation. The bulk of Britain's miners decided to back him. And Margaret Thatcher was determined to stop him. Let's have an inquiry into all of that. Last week the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced an inquiry into the so-called Battle of Orgreave that she has been advocating for more than ten years. Some people have argued this is pointless, and an odd priority for a government with so many other challenges. Well yes, but I think it is worse than that. • Orgreave inquiry into miners' strike clashes to begin in autumn On June 18, 1984, somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 pickets assembled outside the British Steel coking works in Orgreave, South Yorkshire. It was the climactic moment of the miners' strike that both Scargill and Thatcher had long been preparing for. The aim of the NUM was to stop lorries moving coke from the plant, but the pickets failed. Their challenge was met by something like 5,000 police officers and the confrontation became violent. Exactly why that happened is what the inquiry will seek to establish. There is no question that many officers were violent and overstepped professional boundaries, and that afterwards there was quite a lot of official lying, covering up and fabricating evidence. All of this is quite well known, since the prosecutions of the arrested miners collapsed due to the unreliable evidence, and a number of them received compensation in an out-of-court settlement. The Orgreave inquiry will certainly tell of scandalous behaviour and find plenty that it will wish to criticise. This does not make the inquiry a neutral investigation of the truth. It is, instead, a nakedly political exercise which will be led by someone — the Bishop of Sheffield — who has been campaigning on the issue for many years. What is taking place is an attempt to re-litigate the rights and wrongs of the miners' strike, using the evidence and grievances of only one of the parties involved. Having lost the political argument over the strike at the time, the left has sought to rewrite the history of that disastrous dispute, and Orgreave is their weapon. The idea they are advancing is that the strike was somehow thrust upon the miners against their will, a class provocation by the establishment designed to crush working-class spirit. The Orgreave inquiry will seek to portray the dispute's violence as being originated by the police, with the miners as victims. This narrative must be vigorously resisted. What happened that day wasn't the whole of the miners' strike. The so-called Battle of Orgreave wasn't even the only encounter in Orgreave. On May 29, less than three weeks before the famous battle, mass pickets threw darts and bricks at the police and dozens of people were injured. The miners' strike of 1984 was thrust on to the rest of us by the miners, not by us on to them. It was the NUM who decided to try to bring the UK economy and broader society to its knees, pursuing an economic demand that was utterly ridiculous. The insistence that we continue mining coal whatever its economic viability could not possibly be yielded to by any government. And Scargill did not even really mean it to be yielded to, since his intention was actually to depose the government. The miners gathered in large and deliberately intimidating numbers in order to use their physical presence to prevent other people from going to work. They sought to collapse the economy, destroying the livelihoods of millions of people. They made their particular target those miners who went to work, treating them as traitors in the class struggle — even though Scargill hadn't had the decency to hold a proper strike ballot. All of this was a repeated and violent act, which they intended to continue until we all agreed to do whatever they wanted. Margaret Thatcher and her government determined that this would not be allowed to happen. The police undoubtedly overstepped the mark quite seriously on occasion, but they were defending the freedom of all of us to elect our own government, decide our energy policy, keep the lights and heating on and go about our lawful business as workers and customers. If the police had lost at Orgreave and elsewhere, the losers would have been all of us, and the consequences economically and for the rule of law would have been disastrous. The great irony of the Orgreave inquiry is that it comes about through an appeal to an elected home secretary and relying on the strong sense of the rest of us that justice and the law be upheld, when in fact the strike was an assault on all these things — elected governments, law and justice. That is the actual story of the miners' strike and if Yvette Cooper really feels it is worthwhile, we can have an inquiry into all of that. Let me explain why I think this matters. Liberal democracies must have the self-confidence to defend themselves and to insist that political disputes are settled politically. The moment one group shows it can get its way by violence or threat of violence, everyone will start to do it. People must be free to protest, but using your body to prevent someone going about their lawful business cannot be accepted as a way to win an argument. Take the protests outside migrant accommodation. I have been arguing for much of the past 20 years against rapid mass migration and against the many failures of our asylum system that the disastrous migrant hotels manifest. Protest is inevitable and the reason for it obvious. However, the arrival at these protests of far-right groups and violent individuals, threatening the safety of those inside the hotels and attacking police officers, needs to be met with a vigorous response. Liberal democracies need to police their borders and prevent illegal migration, but they also cannot allow vigilante justice and physical menace to determine asylum policy. The Home Office has rightly formed an investigations unit, with police officers providing intelligence on the protests gathered from social media. Yet this was attacked by Nigel Farage as 'sinister' and by Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, as turning Britain into a 'surveillance state'. An outrageous position. This is not the moment for the home secretary to round on the police and place herself on the side of violent protest, even if that protest was more than 40 years ago. The idea she is pursuing facts to right an ancient injustice is one I completely reject. It is partial truth and sectional justice she is after, in the political interests of the Labour Party.
Telegraph
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Re-enacting the Battle of Orgreave is pointless
Oh dear, an inquiry into Orgreave. The name refers to the Yorkshire coking depot where, in June 1984, Arthur Scargill's violent flying pickets failed to prevent delivery lorries leaving the plant with coke to fire the Scunthorpe steel furnaces. It was a turning point in the miners' strike. Scargill's mass picketing of the Saltley coke depot in 1972 had closed the plant, humiliating the Conservative government of Edward Heath. His defeat at Orgreave ensured that history did not repeat itself. The police came out on top. Fuel supplies never failed. Margaret Thatcher's government eventually won. After nearly eight more bitter months, the strike collapsed. Scargill had lost. Ever since, the Left has been obsessed with Orgreave, alleging police brutality and mendacity, and repeatedly called for an inquiry. Some hope to find documents implicating Mrs Thatcher, such as they alleged existed, but did not exist, in the case of the Hillsborough disaster. At Hillsborough, as at Orgreave, the South Yorkshire police were the objects of their anger. It is true that court cases against the pickets collapsed because the police evidence against them was discredited. The fact of that collapse, however, would suggest that justice was done. If police misconduct was not sufficiently arraigned, there is what is now called the Independent Office for Police Conduct to handle this. Why an inquiry, 40 years on? For some strange reason, Theresa May, after becoming prime minister in July 2016, briefed (indirectly) that there would be an Orgreave inquiry. Perhaps her poor relations with the police, when she was home secretary, had something do with it. Anyway, two months after making this suggestion, she wisely dropped it. But the Left kept on complaining and, in Labour's general election manifesto last year, the following promise was made: 'Labour will also ensure, through an investigation or inquiry, that the truth about the events at Orgreave comes to light.' The clear implication of that sentence is that the truth has, until now, been concealed. Labour's version of the truth is that the police, covertly directed by the evil Thatcher, behaved appallingly. Given this highly political background, it will be hard for any inquiry to look at the matter dispassionately. In terms of presentation, the Government seems to be hoping that this is a repeat of the Hillsborough Inquiry. The Hillsborough report, produced by James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, was entitled The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power. It was widely admired for its account of what the families had been through. So the Orgreave report is also to be chaired by a bishop, the Right Reverend Dr Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield. Episcopal purple is supposed to ward off accusations of political bias, but Bishop Wilcox will be under enormous pressure. He says he looks forward to 'engaging with stakeholders', but I wonder who will qualify for that description. Since the energy supplies of the entire country depended on Scargill's pickets failing wherever they tried to attack, all of us alive at that time are stakeholders. More directly, so were the steelworks, so was the government, so were the police, who had to enforce the law, and so were those miners, more than a quarter of the total workforce at the time of Orgreave, who went on working. They did not agree with the strike and resented Scargill denying his members a ballot on it. Many were victims of NUM violence. The announcement of the inquiry goes against the Government's own current work of looking to see whether inquiries are worthwhile. There are so many nowadays, few leading to recommendations that get implemented, but still costing literally hundreds of millions of pounds. Sir Keir Starmer privately acknowledges that they should be cut back. For an inquiry to begin, the Government now wants to require evidence of 'a clear present public benefit'. It does not want inquiries to be merely public therapy sessions. It wants them only if they can address an issue that needs addressing now. How can anyone say that this intensely political issue of more than 40 years ago fits that criterion? Politeness on all sides Guess what happened in our village last Saturday? Sir Keir and Lady Starmer came. The occasion was the lovely wedding in our parish church of the daughter of a long-standing legal colleague. And guess what happened? Nothing. I think this uneventfulness should be celebrated. First, it was a tribute to the security people, who were very low-key and courteous. Second, it reflected well on the parents of the bride, who had kept the information close. Third, it reflected well on those villagers who did know who was present but did not choose to vent any of their mainly unfriendly current feelings towards the Prime Minister. Finally, the Starmers behaved well, and everyone liked them for it. My wife and I were close witnesses as they sat in the pew behind us, and we can attest that they were unassuming, friendly and demanded no place of honour. They stayed for a flatteringly long time at the reception and seemed to be quietly enjoying themselves. Perhaps none of this needs saying, but I mention it because the age of social media tends to erode the concept of privacy which is so important in civilisation. This was, in all respects, a civilised occasion. Vice-president J D Vance is reported to be heading for a short holiday in the Cotswolds next month. I hope the Vance family will be treated with similar politeness.
The Independent
21-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
What happened at the Battle of Orgreave – and why is there an inquiry 40 years laster?
The government has announced it is launching a statutory inquiry into the violent policing at Orgreave during the infamous miner's strike of 1984. Dubbed the 'Battle of Orgreave' by historians, the event saw dozens of picketers and police injured in a morning clash with an estimated 14,000 participants. The inquiry will also look into the collapsed cases of the 95 miners accused of offences there, more than four decades after the events. Home secretary Yvette Cooper announced the inquiry having first informed campaigners last Thursday. She spoke from the site in Orgreave where the coking plant that was the target of the picketing was located. 'People have waited for answers for over 40 years,' she said. 'The scale of the clashes, the injuries, the prosecutions, the discredited evidence, all of those things – there's still so many unanswered questions.' 'I think the miners' strike still has deep scars across coalfield communities, and the decisions made at that time – the broadest decisions that were taken by the Thatcher government in the 1980s – the scars can still be felt across the coalfields.' Here's everything you need to know: What happened at the Battle of Orgreave? On 18 June 1984, one of the most brutal clashes in modern British policing history unfolded as workers organised by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) gathered to picket a South Yorkshire coking plant. The previous evening, NUM president Arthur Scargill addressed miners about plans for the following days' picket. Around 2,000 miners were due to visit Orgreave, a major plant near Rotherham where coal was processed into coke to be used in British Steel factories. Picketers begin gathering as early as 4am on the hot day, and by 7am are being guided in their thousands by police to a nearby field. Here, an estimated 6,000 police officers have assembled, and are facing around 8,000 picketers. Many of the officers are equipped with truncheons, riot shields, or on horseback. Just after 8am, empty wagons begin arriving to pick up coke from the plant. Miners begin pushing towards police line, and police push back. At this point, picketers recall struggling to keep their footing or even breathe in the crush. A few minutes later, the police line opens up, and officers on horses carrying long truncheons advance on the miners. Two more charges like this would take place within the hour, as one senior officer is filmed advising the police: 'Bodies, not heads.' The third charge is accompanied by snatch squads – police with batons and short shields – marking the first time this kind of unit had been deployed on the UK mainland. Miners that have not fled are dragged out of the crowd and pulled to the ground. One news report captures footage of a miner named Russell Broomhead being repeatedly hit in the head with a truncheon. Around 2,000 of the remaining miners are sent to another entrance to Orgreave, where there is another large field. Gates open at 10.15am, when around 30 lorries packed with coke leave the site. Pickets attempt to stop them, and more arrests are made, with allegations of more violence. It is during this final frenzy of activity that Mr Scargill is injured, claiming he had been hit by a police shield. He said: 'All I know is that these bastards rushed in and this guy hit me on the back of my head with a shield and I was out.' Police deny that Mr Scargill was hit by a shield. The lorries get through, and police continue to attempt to disperse remaining picketers. The horse charges and snatch squad activity continues until around 1pm, when the majority of the violence subsides. What was the aftermath? Following the clash, South Yorkshire Police was accused by critics of having pre-planned the violence and overstating the unlawful behaviour of the striking miners. This criticism was also lodged against then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who said the Orgreave picketers had attempted to 'substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law,' adding that the strike action failed 'because of the magnificent police force well trained for carrying out their duties bravely and impartially.' The following year, the prosecution against 95 of the picketers charged with riot, unlawful assembly and similar offences collapsed. All charges were dropped after their barristers repeatedly accused police officers of lying. Michael Mansfield KC, who represented several of the miners in court, called the event 'the worst example of a mass frame-up in this country this century.' A number of lawsuits were subsequently brought against South Yorkshire Police for assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution. The force would later agree to pay £425,000 compensation and £100,000 in legal costs to 39 picketers in an out-of-court settlement. To this day, the police have not admitted any fault, and no officer has been disciplined for misconduct, Why has an inquiry been launched now? The subsequent 41 years have seen several calls for an official inquiry into the events. In 2012, the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) was launched following the success of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign in forcing an investigation into police conduct in that event. However, in 2015, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it would launch a formal investigation because too much time had passed. Prior to the July 2025 general election, the Labour Party led by Sir Keir Starmer promised to launch an inquiry into Orgreave should it secure victory. A year on from its election, the government has delivered on that promise. OTJC secretary, Kate Flannery, said: 'We have waited a long time for this day and this is really positive news. All these years of hard work by the OTJC and our many supporters has helped to influence this constructive announcement. 'We now need to be satisfied that the inquiry is given the necessary powers to fully investigate all the aspects of the orchestrated policing at Orgreave, and have unrestricted access to all relevant information including government, police and media documents, photos and films' The NUM president, Chris Kitchen, said: 'We are over the moon. We're hoping the inquiry will show that our dispute, which we believe was industrial, was political, orchestrated from No 10, or higher up the food chain towards No 10. 'We never came to this field to cause a riot or to deliberately lame people. I don't think that was the same for the police, who came tooled up, with a plan to injure us, and to try and get the public perception on their side and end the strike.' A spokesperson for South Yorkshire police said: 'We will fully cooperate with the inquiry in a bid to help those affected find answers.'
Straits Times
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Britain to hold inquiry into miners strike ‘Battle of Orgreave' four decades on
British Miners Union leader Arthur Scargill arriving at the Advisory Consiliation and Arbitration Service office in London in 1985. LONDON - Britain said on July 21 it would hold an inquiry into the 'Battle of Orgreave', a violent confrontation between police and striking coal miners in 1984 at the height of a year-long industrial dispute with Margaret Thatcher's government. More than 5,000 striking miners clashed with a similar number of riot police who had been drafted in from across the country at the Orgreave coking plant near Sheffield in northern England. It was one of the most violent scenes witnessed during a British industrial dispute, and also a pivotal moment in the strike, launched against Thatcher's moves to close money-losing pits. The miners ultimately lost the broader fight to save their industry. The police have long faced accusations of brutality and using excessive violence at Orgreave on June 18, 1984. Television footage showed charges by officers on horseback and one miner being repeatedly struck on the head with a baton. More than 120 people were injured and 95 miners initially arrested and charged with riot and violent disorder. Those charges were all later dropped after the evidence was dismissed. Campaigners have for years demanded to know who was responsible for the deployment of the large number of police and their tactics, as well as what happened to some official documents. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper - Britain's interior minister whose Labour party was in opposition at the time of the strike - said an inquiry headed by Pete Wilcox, the Bishop of Sheffield, would be held to find out the truth. 'The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades, and we must now establish what happened,' she said. Ms Kate Flannery, the Orgreave Truth Justice Campaign Secretary, said they needed to be sure that the inquiry had the powers to have unrestricted access to all government and police papers. 'We have waited a long time for this day and this is really positive news,' she said. REUTERS
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The confrontation at Orgreave: a visual timeline
The mass picket of the Orgreave coke works in 1984 has its origins in what has become known as the battle of Saltley Gate. It involved a mass picket of a Birmingham fuel depot and has been called the British miners' Agincourt. The picket was initially 400 miners from Yorkshire, led by a 34-year-old firebrand called Arthur Scargill, but was swelled by at least 15,000 engineering workers from surrounding factories. The picket was successful and helped bring Edward Heath's government to its knees. Heath, subsequently forced to introduce a three-day week, lost the election in 1974 while Scargill was propelled to national fame. A meeting is held at Silverwood Miners Welfare, in Rotherham. Scargill, now president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), addresses miners about the following day's picket. He says 2,000 miners from South Yorkshire collieries would be at Orgreave, an enormous plant outside Rotherham where coal was processed into coke to be used in British Steel's vast factories, 40 miles east in Scunthorpe. That evening, miners from further afield arrive, staying overnight in places such as the Northern College, in Barnsley. Others sleep on floors. About 400 pickets gather near the plant. It is shaping up to be a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. It was 'scorching' even at that time, recalled one picket. 'All the Scottish boys had their tops off, it was that warm,' he said. A union official is being filmed. 'They tell me it's the biggie,' he says, as men cheerfully stream behind him. Birds are singing. Spirits are high. The official continues: 'It's about seven o'clock. A few of us are here already. I'm told there's going to be thousands. Let's have a look, see what happens.' Police seem to be directing the miners to a field. Some play football. Nearby villagers bring out trays of orange juice and iced water. But why were they being guided by police? 'I'd never seen this before,' recalled one. 'Normally they'd stop you on the motorway and make you walk, six or seven miles.' When miners get over a railway bridge and on to a hill overlooking the plant they see some of what is to come. Police officers are lined up in staggering numbers in front of the plant. Bill Frostwick, a miner from Durham, recalled: 'They were so well organised, man, it was a trap. And we fell for it, went straight in.' The number of police, some on horseback, some with dogs, is remarkable. But so too is the number of miners, in jeans, trainers, T-shirts and no shirts, looking down at a motionless thick black wall of police, sometimes 10-deep. There are an estimated 8,000 pickets facing 6,000 officers. A unit of riot police carrying long shields is ordered to move in front of the lines of uniformed police guarding the coking plant. Tensions are rising. 'It was something out of Gladiator or some Roman film,' said one. 'It was just beyond belief.' Empty wagons start arriving to pick up coke from the plant. Miners push towards the police line and police push back. Pickets who were there recall struggling to keep their feet on the ground or even breathe. The police line opens and officers on horses, carrying staves twice as long as truncheons, advance on the miners. Hundreds of miners can be seen running, trying to get out of the way before the police ride their horses back and the ranks close up. Stones are being thrown towards the police. There is footage of police in uniform trying to avoid missiles. There is a second horse charge. As they return, police applaud and bang their batons on their shields. A third charge. This time they are accompanied by snatch squads of police with batons and short shields, the first time they have been used on the UK mainland. A senior officer can be heard on film shouting into a megaphone: 'Bodies not heads!' Lesley Boulton, the subject of what has become one of the most famous photographs taken on the day, recalled: 'There were policemen on foot with short shields, laying about people with truncheons. I was numb with shock. This was violence far in excess of anything I'd ever witnessed.' Miners are being dragged out of the crowd and pulled to the ground. A TV news crew captures footage of Russell Broomhead being repeatedly bludgeoned over the head with a truncheon. About 2,000 miners are sent to another entrance to Orgreave where there is another large field. The gates open and aabout 30 coke-laden lorries begin to drive out. Pickets begin moving forward to try to stop the lorries. Arrests, along with more allegations of brutality, are made. The lorries get through. The police launch new attempts to clear the area of pickets. There are more horse charges and more snatch squads of officers with short batons. Miners can be seen running as fast as they can to get out of the field. Scargill sits dazed and injured after being hit, he says, by a police shield. 'All I know is that these bastards rushed in and this guy hit me on the back of my head with a shield and I was out.' The police deny that Scargill was hit by a shield. The trouble subsides. In two late-night sittings of Rotherham magistrates court, scores of arrested arrested miners are charged with criminal offences and given bail. The newspaper headlines and stories focus on Scargill being treated for minor injuries. 'Scargill in hospital after bloody battle of Orgreave,' is the headline on the lead story in the Times. 'Blackest day for pit strike violence,' is the headline in the Guardian, which reports that the battle lasted for 10 hours. The Labour MP Tony Benn said the scenes amounted 'in some cases to almost civil war proportions', the Guardian reports. Sources include the documentary film Strike: An Uncivil War, on Netflix, and Robert Gildea's book, Backbone of the Nation.
