: S.n., 1996. We're here to answer any questions you have about our services. Downing Street Years. This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here. 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. [43] In February 2012, Scargill won 13,000 in a court action against the NUM, primarily for car expenses, and for the earlier temporary denial of membership. [31] In addition, it was alleged that he had taken 1,000,000 of cash donated by the Soviet Union for the Welsh miners and placed it in a Dublin bank account for the "International Miners' Organisation", where it stayed until a year after the strike had finished. Margaret Thatcher: From Grocers Daughter to Iron Lady. 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. ", R.R. [9] When Bullough (unwell at the time) attempted to rule Scargill as "out of order", he was voted out by the area's delegates and a strike was declared across Yorkshire on the issue. Page 51, [9] Lawson, Nigel. Notice that the CaSe is important in this example. However, they have conflicting views on to what extent these preparations were made in order to bring down the unions. The myth of workers' control: We are fighting for the survival of our culture: Selected Co-authors Countries and Regions of . [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. September 09, 2018. The View from No. [52], The Guardian in February 2014 said that Scargill had become a recluse. So that was my initial introduction into socialism and into political militancy. "Our communities are now just about dead on their feet." The strike started in Yorkshire in March . Scargill, once the hero of the miners, now cuts a rather sad, isolated figure and this is a complex post-1985 story. Arrow, 1994. Staff members suddenly taken ill, or with long-standing medical appointments, require his personal consent to be absent from the office. "The strike wasn't just about Arthur Scargill or Margaret Thatcher, it was about a way of life. Put the custom structure back if you had one. The miners had already built up a fearsome reputation as the shock troops for organised labour and during his time as leader of the Yorkshire coalfield, Mr Scargill had rarely been out of the news. London: Verso, 2014. After looking at the evidence, I believe that the Marxist view is more valid than the Mainstream media view in the fact that it is clear that Thatcher and her government went above and beyond in order to bring down Scargill and the miners. 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. Study for free with our range of university lectures! [43] Marr, Andrew. Therefore, the fact that Scargill didnt call a National Ballot was irrelevant[11] as Tony Benn says, but the fact that Scargill authorised violent tactics that reduced public sympathy and misjudged situations may have been a factor in the failure of the miners strike. (The Yorkshire Left had already decided to stand him as their candidate even before the strike.) The View from No. [57] Scargill supported the 2022 United Kingdom railway strike, joining an RMT picket line in Wakefield on 21 June 2022. By not calling a National Ballot the strike rapidly gained support. [5] Benn, Tony. Andrew Marr is one of many historians who support this view and believed that The Nottinghamshire miners turned out to be critical. Was this national or local? [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. Margaret Thatcher began a media campaign in order to win over the public and demonise the miners. Regardless, we have to be careful when using Arthur Wakefield as a source as his diary entries will reflect his heightened emotions after a day of striking that may not truly reflect the real situation. Page 164. This is unfair as after the NCB accidently announced pit closures, the strike gained momentum very quickly forcing Scargill to just go along with it. Following these results, Thatcher urged Ian McGregor to fix the problem, she describes how time and time again he (Ian McGregor) and his colleagues were outmanoeuvred by Arthur Scargill and the NUM leadership[36]. This source is reliable as Kim Howells was a member of the NUM at the time of the strike but still discredits Scargills tactics. In 1973, Scargill was elected to the full-time post of compensation agent in the Yorkshire NUM. However, the people that argue this are clear Thatcherites such as Shirley Letwin, John Campbell and even Thatcher herself who blamed Scargill for the violence at the picket line mass pickets led by Arthur Scargill forced the closure of the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham[44] contradicting this, Seumas Milne who takes a clear Marxist view that the standard fairy tale, still routinely recycled by media and politicians alike, has it that Scargill called the action in spring in a classic example of his poor generalship and tactical sense[45]. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. The miners also failed to gain the support of the dock workers in strike effort. Milne explains how the strike was a last-ditch fight to defend jobs, mining communities and the NUM itself against a government prepared to bring into play unlimited resources and its entire panoply of coercive powers as and where necessary to break the union and its backbone of support[22]. An article published in The Times in August 2015 stated that Scargill had spoken to the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union conference in June 2015, and that he was due to appear alongside Jeremy Corbyn at the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign in September 2015. He was the President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1981 to 2002 and has served as leader of the Socialist Labour Party, a political party he founded, since 1996. Either way, please contact your web host immediately. He stepped down from leadership of the NUM at the end of July 2002, to become the honorary president. Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers. He cannot resist pointing out parallels in all times and places. McIlroy, J. Scargill, Solidarity and Workers Revolutionary Party ( Book ) Margaret Thatcher, face aux mineurs : 1972-1985, treize annes qui ont chang l'Angleterre by Pierre-Franois Gouiffs ( Book ) Arthur Scargill is a British trade unionist who was the president of the National Union of Mineworkers. He left school in 1953 at fifteen years old to work as a coal miner at Woolley Colliery, where he worked for nineteen years.[2][3]. He led an unofficial strike in 1969, and played a key organising role during strikes of 1972 and 1974, the latter of which played a part in the downfall of Edward Heath's Conservative government. The Myth of Workers' Control Arthur Scargill Snippet view - 1980. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. Accessed October 12, 2018. If it wasnt for Thatchers continued support for the Nottinghamshire miners, the strike would have had their support which may have been vital in the success of the strike. you only have to look at the current state of our country after Cov19torealise that we have noindustry left! He was also on the hard-left of the Labour Party, often disagreeing with Neil Kinnock who couldnt support the strike due to its illegitimacy after Scargills failure to call a ballot. The union is known for leading the longest as well as the most violent miners` strike in the history of British history. The students, lesbian and gay rights movements also supported the miners as they could relate to their struggle. [12] Evans, Eric J. Thatcher and Thatcherism. We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (198485), a major event in the history of the British labour movement. [42] Evans, Eric J. Thatcher and Thatcherism. [18] Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. [53] Following Margaret Thatcher's death in April 2013, ITN made Scargill several offers for a five-minute interview, with the final offer reaching 16,000, but Scargill refused all the offers and did not speak to any media organisation. [33] Milne, Seumas. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; the executive was described as dominated by "Gormley's rotten boroughs", since every region even quite small ones had one delegate, and the larger regions had only a few more (Scotland and South Wales had two delegates each, Yorkshire had three). In any case, the will of the people has decided the UK will leave, we have even had a General Election over the matter. Lawson also takes the mainstream media view that everything Thatcher did during the strike was to maintain law and order. Right click on the X and choose Properties. Dont forget that Labours manifesto at Kinnocks last election included a policy of leaving the bloc, and who knows what t was under Corbyn. It is rather ironic that his view on the EEC was shared by Tjatcher, deep down, and it is a Tory Govt that has taken us out. 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 was succeeded by Ian Lavery. The strict trade union laws have also been credited for the failure of the strike with Norman Tebbit, who introduced the trade union law reforms, saying because of my reforms, if these other unions had joined an illegal strike, the Coal Board could have asked the court to confiscate their funds[23]. He had no means of calling a strike in Yorkshire.[27]. (1983), Restructuring the employment relationship, Gallie, Duncan, It was a major political victory for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party. //--> 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. Arthur Scargill, the former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), addressed a rally Saturday outside Sheffield railway station in support of the railworkers' strike. ",confirmEmpty: "Are you sure you want to empty your clipboard? [9] He had challenged Sam Bullough, the President of the Yorkshire area NUM, to act on the working hours of surface workers, given that the union's conference had passed a resolution that their hours be shortened the previous year. She makes some bold accusations about when Scargill and his cohorts were accused of serious irregularities in the handling of union funds but this is unconvincing as it has never been proven true. Many people blame him for the failure of Miner's Strike due to his poor leadership skills and bad judgement. [30] Lawson, Nigel. Tony Benn. Wikipedia. It was not , and will not ever be the liberator of the working Class, but their oppressors. [9] Scargill saw this strike as a turning point in the union's attitude to militancy.[10]. Scargill, Arthur. On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear to destroy the coal industry and the NUM". Page 473. Arthur Scargill emerged from semi-retirement from politics to speak at a meeting of the Communist Party of Britains wretched little pro-Brexit front organisation Leave Fight Transform (LeFT) in Brighton on 11 September, alongside Eddie Dempsey (the man who said Tommy Robinson supporters were right to hate the liberal left) and other assorted xenophobes, nationalists and social conservatives. On platforms that enforce case-sensitivity PNG and png are not the same locations. Accessed October 11, 2018. Scargills first mistake was refusing to call a National Ballot after the strike started to gain support. [55], In 2017, Scargill spoke at an event in Cardiff setting out how British manufacturing could be rebuilt after Britain had left the European Union. Therefore, we must conclude that whilst Arthur Scargills leadership was an important factor in the failure of the strike, it would be wrong to assume that this was the main reason as without the lack of support, especially from the Nottinghamshire miners, as well as the governments preparations, such as the stockpiling of coal, the miners strike might not have failed. In 1958, he attended the World Federation of Trade Unions youth congress in Prague. The Enemy Within: The Secret War against the Miners. Scargill, Arthur, (1978) CONTESTING THE MARKET: PAY EQUITY AND THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC . At the risk of paraphrasing, Karl Marx once wrote that the great figures of history appear first as tragedy and then as farce. On March 6, 1984, the National Coal Board announced its plan to cut the nation's coal output by 4 million tons, in an effort to stem a $340 million annual loss. In a 1975 interview with New Left Review Scargill said: I was in the Young Communist League for about six or seven years and I became a member of its National Executive Committee responsible for industrial work. Page 316, [3] Harris, Robert. The End of an Era Diaries 1980-90. Your TV show 'White Light' presenter James Maw speaks to Union leader Arthur Scargill about what Trade unions can do for the youth of today. London: Verso, 2014. This Mainstream media view holds that the strike failed because of Scargills extreme beliefs and bad decisions. . [35] The Truth of Nacods Shameful Sell-out. The Guardian. [7], Scargill became involved in the Yorkshire Left, a group of left-wing activists involved in the Yorkshire region of the NUM, its largest region. Scargill opposed civilian nuclear power and, during the first Wilson ministry, became highly critical of the government's energy policy. However, Evans fails to mention how campaigning in Nottinghamshire was successful and how the pickets won over many workers until the police eventually intervened. However, we have to be careful when using Thatcher as a source as she may be trying to give more credit to her successes and deflecting her failures onto other people such as Ian McGregor. A History of Modern Britain. [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. (1998), The third way : the promise of industrial democracy, Lawrence, Dennis, However, another reason that many people blame Scargill for the downfall of the miners is due to the fact that Scargill authorised the flying picket strategy in order to stop miners going to work. Look at the end of July 2002, to become the honorary president example... From leadership of the NUM at the risk of paraphrasing, Karl Marx once wrote that the Nottinghamshire turned... 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