Miners' Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain

The strike of Britain's mineworkers in 1984 was a seminal event in the history of the country. It's defeat marked the effective victory of Margaret Thatcher in her attempt to destroy the power of the trade unions, which itself is a major factor in the subsequent widening of inequality in the country. On one hand, Arthur Scargill, the union leader, does not cut a sympathetic figure, and his position, that no pit should ever be closed on economic grounds, was an absurd one: on the other, the workers were striking for not just their own jobs, but for the life of their communities, towns that depended on their mines; and without doubt, the government saw the strike as not just a threat, but an opportunity to finish the unions off. This brilliant series shines a light on three stories from the strike: the way that a village was split between those who wanted to strike and those who wanted to work; the battle of Orgreave, where the police surpressed a protest by essentially treating the pickets as enemies of the state; and the wider issue of the anamalous position of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, where miners kept working throughout the strike. It's sympathetic to miners on all sides, many of whom who found themselves in an impossible position, not least the pro-strike, but anti-Scargill, leader of the Nottinghamshire miners, still an impressive figure at 90, but who at the time was villified by just about everyone. To call the strike a civil war would be going too far, but there are strong civil war vibes in these stories nonetheless. With hindsight, coal mining in the UK was always going to decline, to an extent that probably even Thatcher did not anticipate. The brutality of its death remains a tragedy.

The miners strike during the 80's dominated the news coverage at the time and seemed to go on forever. It wasn't as simple as story as its commonly described today by the left, i..e that the miners were correct and the UK government were 100% wrong. But as its only the far left that ever talk about it, the narrative is rarely challenged.

This is a three part documentary about the strike which was initially cheered on by the ex miners and the left, although many of these cheers turned to boos. The reason being that this documentary looked at the bigger picture and uncovered bad behaviours on both sides of the debate.

The first episode covers the miners community and listens to the people who chose to strike as well as the ones who refused and ended up paying a heavy social cost for working for a wage. Episode two covers the largest pitched battle between the professional demonstrators and the police, which results in police brutality but also violence from the miners. However its the third episode which brings everything together and exposes the people who had the power of the unions and the state, and how the unions ended up being destroyed by the UK government. It also shows a side of the unions they would rather nobody saw, which was their intent to bring foreign agents who have an anti UK agenda into the fold, before this was thwarted by the press.

This series illustrates that in essence, the strikes were a waste of time and effort as their aim was to bring down the government, which was never going to happen. Like the recent documentary about the troubles, it shows that normal people are simply used as political pawns by bad actors, in order to further their intentions. Its clear from some of the talking heads, many of the miners still haven't been able to see they were being used politically. And some of them haven't recovered.

This series destroys the notion that the miners were innocent victims of "Maggie Thatcher", although she did use that strike to break the unions. Ironically it was because previous strikes had worked in terms of pay deals, the government had enough stock piles of coal regardless of how long the strikes lasted. While some people lament the decline of the unions after this episode, the coal mines were never going to last and unelected bodies were never going to be allowed to dictate how the country was run over an elected government.

This is a balanced documentary which will no doubt put some noses out of joint if they were expecting yet another pro-miner anti Tory narrative. This is warts and all and some of the warts are on the miners side.

I watched this series with great interest having lived through this era. I didn't personally have anything to do with mining but had relatives and friends who were directly affected.

I must admit that I learned several things I didn't know before watching the series and think that it was well researched and put together.

One thing that was not mentioned is that some miners, some of whom had been in the pits since age 14 and were approaching retirement, were threatened by Thatcher's bully boys that they would forfeit their whole pensions if they did not return to work. What would you do?

This sort of blackmail obviously approved by Thatcher was an abhorrence that further split communities and left long hard working men with the denigrating and undeserved description "SCAB".