Latest news with #BattleofOrgreave
Times
2 days 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.
Channel 4
21-07-2025
- Channel 4
‘Battle of Orgreave' national inquiry confirmed by government
Forty years after the violent clashes between police and striking miners at the Orgreave plant in south Yorkshire – a national inquiry will examine what happened. More than 100 people were injured in what became known as the Battle of Orgreave in 1984 – when riot police charged crowds of pickets trying to stop lorries bringing in fuel.
ITV News
21-07-2025
- Politics
- ITV News
What are public inquiries and how many are ongoing?
The government has said a public inquiry will be established into the Battle of Orgreave - the fifth to be announced in 2025. The announcement of this inquiry brings the total number of ongoing public inquiries to 23, more than at any time before. Concerns have been raised by members of the public, as well as MPs and ministers, over the ever-growing number, cost and length of time they take to complete their work. So what do public inquiries achieve, and, after this latest announcement, is the government too quick to push the inquiry button? What is a public inquiry? Public inquiries are set up by government ministers and aim to investigate "events of major public concern or to consider controversial public policy issues." There are two types of public inquiry, statutory and non-statutory. Statutory inquiries in the UK are launched under the Inquiries Act 2005 and have legal powers to compel evidence and witness testimony. Typically, they are used for serious matters of public concern and are often led by judges. Non-statutory inquiries have no legal powers and rely on voluntary cooperation. They are faster and more flexible, but can be less effective if key witnesses refuse to take part. Through the analysis of documents, as well as evidence and testimony from relevant parties, inquiries seek to establish a legal record of what happened, who bears responsibility and what recommendations can be made to prevent something similar from happening in the future. Do we need them? There are often widespread calls for public inquiries in the wake of serious events. Many see them as a vital tool in seeking answers and bringing all responsible parties together in one investigation. Responding to calls to reform the system, the government claimed recent public inquiries have been "considered to be an independent, legitimate and trusted method of investigating complex issues of deep public concern. "They have shown to be a way to shed light on injustices of the past, provide a means for victims and survivors to finally have their voices heard, and to help rebuild trust in national institutions." But cabinet minister Nick Thomas-Symonds acknowledged "there is serious and growing criticism of their cost, duration, and effectiveness." The government claims that, in the financial year 2023/24, the cost to the public of ongoing inquiries totalled more than £130 million. Statutory inquiries that produced their final report in the last five years took, on average, nearly five years to do so. How many public inquiries are there? With the announcement of the public inquiry into the Battle of Ogreave, the UK now has 23 ongoing statutory inquiries, including the Infected Blood Inquiry. According to the Institute for Government (IfG), since 1997, there have never been fewer than five public inquiries running at any one time. Three of the 23 - the Orgreave Inquiry, the Independent Commission on Grooming Gangs and the Finucane Inquiry - have been announced, but are yet to begin. The IfG claims that between 1990 and 2025, 90 public inquiries have been launched – compared with only 19 in the 30 years prior. Whilst public inquiries vary greatly in length, the shortest ever recorded was less than a year. The Hammond Inquiry ran from September 2006 to June 2007, investigating allegations of corruption by Peter Mandelson over the handling of two foreign brothers' UK passport applications. Currently, the longest recorded inquiry was into Hyponatraemia-related deaths, which took over 13 years to complete. Could things change? In 2014, the House of Lords reviewed the public inquiry process and made 33 recommendations to reform it. The coalition Conservative and Liberal-Democrat government at the time accepted 19 of these, but failed to implement a single one. Reporting again in 2024, the Lords' Statutory Inquiry Committee reiterated many of these recommendations but disagreed with the 2014 suggestion that all new inquiries should be established as statutory. It concluded there were several benefits to non-statutory inquiries, particularly the ability for victims to address the chair directly, rather than through legal counsel as required by statute. The current government has accepted the latest report's findings and agreed that the inquiry process needs to be improved. It confirmed its intention is 'to build on this important work with a wider review of the policy and operational framework around public inquiries,' promising a further update to parliament in due course.
Daily Mirror
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Battle of Orgreave miners warn police 'no more shredding' after public inquiry win
Miners from The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign have issued a stark warning to the police after it was finally announced a public inquiry would open more than four decades after the event Miners from The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign who have won their victory for a public inquiry are warning police 'no more shredding'. They were speaking at a press conference in Sheffield, about the 'historic' announcement that there would be an inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave. They told how they want 'full disclosure' to 'clear our names'. They said they want to see all the secret documents handed over including 'raw footage' of the police violence captured by TV companies. They pointed out the BBC reversed footage to make them look like the 'villains' - which they later apologised for. They said it was an 'absolute tragedy' they have had to wait so long in their fight for justice. Police could now be forced to give evidence about the day of terror at the Orgreave Coking Plant on the hot summer's day of June 18, 1984. The investigation announced by the Home Office is set to launch in the autumn will look at the events surrounding the clashes which caused 120 injuries. In total, 95 picketers were arrested and initially charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were later dropped after evidence was discredited. But campaigners for the OTJC say they fear there will now be more 'shredders overheating all over the country'. They were referring to the 'disgraceful' news that Northumbria Police had recently admitted to disposing of documents relating to the miners' strike in April 2024. Kevin Horne, 75, who was arrested at Orgreave for 'unlawful assembly' showed his file from police marked 'closed file 2071' with the details mainly redacted. 'We have this chance now of wiping the slate clean so that our children and grandchildren can respect the police again,' he said. 'I've already lost my boys, they don't like the police at all, they said they'd seen me come back from Orgreave black and blue. I don't remember that. I know I had to wait 14 months for my name to be cleared, all that time thinking I could be going to prison for life. So let's get on with this inquiry and stop the police shredding.' Kevin told how he was sitting on a wall when he was bundled into a police van, Later he didn't recognise the police statements which he said had been made up of 'total lies' saying he had attacked several officers. John Dunn, 73, from Derbyshire who suffered a serious head injury when he was hit over the head with a truncheon on the picket lines weeks before Orgreave, says he hopes this will 'open the door' to look at policing throughout the 'frightening' dispute. 'I was seriously injured, arrested and framed on the picket line weeks before Orgreave, since then I have been trying to clear my name. I have two criminal convictions to this day, I have a scar in the back of my head. I hope this Orgreave will open the door on what was happening every day throughout that strike, in our villages away from the cameras.' In a message to police, he told The Mirror: 'Get ready, it's our turn, you'd better make sure that everything is available to us. I am sure I have heard these shredders going all over the country this weekend. Watch out, we're on to you now.' Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign Secretary (OTJC), Kate Flannery, said: 'We are indebted to the striking miners for their dedication to that year-long struggle that changed our lives forever. Thank you to everyone who has campaigned with us over the last 13 years for an Orgreave Inquiry. It has been a long, hard and sometimes lonely journey, but we are determined, persistent people…' She said they hoped to get answers about the 'paramilitary violent policing' across mining villages and communities. Adding: "We know the Tory Government of the 1980s were directly involved in the strike while 'professing 'non-involvement'...This was state sponsored organisation against the miners and their livelihoods... 'Orgreave marked a turning point in the policing of public protest. The Right to Protest should be a fundamental human right. With no accountability of policing at Orgreave a message was sent to the police that they could employ violence with impunity. This set a culture that enabled the police cover up in 1989 at Hillsborough…'
21-07-2025
- Politics
UK to hold inquiry into violent clash between police and miners during 1984 strike
LONDON -- The British government said Monday that it will hold a public inquiry into the 'Battle of Orgreave,' a violent confrontation between police and striking coal miners that became a defining moment in the conflict between unions and then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. Some 120 miners and police were hurt when officers clashed with miners trying to stop trucks entering the Orgreave Coking Plant in northern England on June 18, 1984. It came three months into a nationwide strike over plans to close two dozen coal pits and lay of 20,000 miners. The bitter dispute between the National Union of Mineworkers and the government was a decisive moment in Thatcher's bid to break the power of trade unions and remake the U.K. economy along free-market lines. The strike ended in defeat for the miners after a year and hastened the end of British coal mining, which employed 180,000 people at the start of the strike. Today, no coal mines remain. Campaigners have long called for an inquiry into why police from across the country were sent to Orgreave and what their orders were. Images of mounted police in riot gear charging stone-throwing miners with truncheons and dogs shocked and divided the nation. Some 95 picketers were arrested and charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were later dropped after evidence from the police was discredited. The Home Office said the inquiry will be led by Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield, and start in the fall. It will have the power to compel witnesses to testify under oath. Kate Flannery, secretary of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, said the announcement of an inquiry was 'really positive news.' She said it must be given 'unrestricted access to all relevant information including government, police and media documents, photos and films.' Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the events at Orgreave 'cast a shadow over communities in Yorkshire and other mining areas. 'The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades, and we must now establish what happened,' she said.
