Scargill was born in Worsbrough Dale near Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire. March 10, 2004. Atvery lease Mr Scargill was a leader of man and lead them unlike our current prime minister who couldn't lead a pack of sheep out of a field even though he resemble one. 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. Margaret Thatcher. Arthur Scargill. These days he only gets to speak at the crankiest of Stalinist events. Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938)[1] is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. RewriteRule . 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]. Without their support, victory for the miners looked uncertain as they were the best paid, with better conditions promised by Thatcher[13]. Somerset: Routledge, 2018. His father, Harold, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. [29] Thatcher, Margaret. [52], The Guardian in February 2014 said that Scargill had become a recluse. A debate on workers' control. of the other candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare. Uncategorized > the myth of workers' control arthur scargill. Riddled with Stalinist politics and practice and some of the worst sectarianism imaginable, it has no meaningful existence today. In 1958, he attended the World Federation of Trade Unions youth congress in Prague. So that was my initial introduction into socialism and into political militancy. This Mainstream media view holds that the strike failed because of Scargills extreme beliefs and bad decisions. London: Routledge, 2019. [39] Benn, Tony. [33] Milne, Seumas. Many people also argue that the police werent as brutal as some other accounts made them out to be and that they were just doing their jobs in maintaining law and order. Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2002. This only reinforces the idea that it was Scargills decision not to call a ballot that lost him valuable support. I think people would be astounded if they knew that."[42]. January 26. : A Review of Literature on the 1984/5 Miners' Strike.". His nationalist backwardness on Brexit (and immigration, to judge by a letter published in the Guardian on 29 August 2017) cannot be forgiven. See also V. L. Allen, The Militancy of the British Miners (1981); N. Hagger, Scargill the Stalinist (1984); and "What Drives Arthur Scargill?"The Sunday Times of London (July 15, 1984).. In fact, other factors such as the governments intense preparations came into play. Change the settings back to the previous configuration (before you selected Default). Industrial Democracy in Italy: Workers Co-ops and the Self-management Debate Mark Holmstrom, Mark Holmstrm Snippet view - 1989. Seumas Milne argues that the miners had sued the police for assault, wrongful arrest, malicious persecution and false imprisonment and then went on to describe the battle of Orgreaves as an 8,000 riot police staged medieval-style mounted charges of unprecedented ferocity[33]. Campbell, Adrian, and Malcolm Warner. Scargills first mistake was refusing to call a National Ballot after the strike started to gain support. March 10, 2004. [25] Thatcher, Margaret. He had been a Communist and retained strong Marxist views and a penchant for denouncing anyone who disagreed with him as a traitor Scargill had indeed been elected by a vast margin and he set about turning the NUM's once moderate executive into a reliably militant group By adopting a position that no pits should be closed on economic grounds, even if the coal was exhausted more investment would always find more coal, and from his point of view, the losses were irrelevant he made sure confrontation would not be avoided. His comments followed a question in the Commons from Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who said the miners and their families deserved an apology for the mine closures. 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. This event is held every year at the Barnsley Headquarters of the NUM and acquired particular poignancy that year as it coincided with the 30th anniversary of the strike. Harpercollins Publishers, 2012. 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. [9] This performance strengthened his popularity with the Yorkshire miners. London: Constable, 2009. 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. He did not take the Eleven-Plus exam and went to Worsbrough Dale School (now called the Elmhirst School). Accessed October 11, 2018. 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. Because of Scargills actions, the strike was illegal, poorly supported and doomed to failure given the level of government preparations. If being ignored is the ultimate retribution forscargill, then he is a lucky man, for if he had espoused his views in some of the countrieswith which he wanted to align us, his best outcome would have been breaking rocks but more likely he would have disappeared never to be heard of again. He cannot resist pointing out parallels in all times and places. ",email_success: "Message Sent",bulk_noitems_advice: "No items were selected. We may criticise some of the tactics he used in the 1984-5 miners strike, but we cannot dispute that he gave real leadership and was serious about wanting to defeat the Tories. I could write a million words and not be able to adequately describe the misery,hardship and dispare these leaders bought upon the people of this nation. RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 2002. The movement faced a huge confrontation from the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, and the union was eventually defeated. How to find the correct spelling and folder, 404 Errors After Clicking WordPress Links, From the left-hand navigation menu in WordPress, click. London: Verso, 2014. Arthur Scargill: We Could Surrender or Stand and Fight. The Guardian. [13] Still the Enemy Within (2014). IMDb. Can you add one ? Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales. [33], In July 1990, the NUM executive voted unanimously to sue Scargill and general secretary Peter Heathfield. 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. [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. The View from No. [31] There was much criticism of Scargill within the NUM from the Welsh and Scottish areas, who briefly considered splitting from the NUM. Arrow, 1994. The strike started in Yorkshire, and he was not present at the delegate Council meeting in Barnsley. "The strike wasn't just about Arthur Scargill or Margaret Thatcher, it was about a way of life. I really do not care what you think of Mr Scargill today, where elseis a man supposed to go after he was betrayed by the system and vilified by the media to agullible population, a media that was run by the government of the day. The Labour Party was opposed to membership of the EU to begin with wasn't it, so what happened, are its current membership more enlightened. However, Thatcher, herself, has discredited this view saying He (Arthur Scargill) was making wild claims that the CEGB had only eight weeks of coal stocks. Margaret Thatcher: Volume Two The Iron Lady. [14], Scargill was a very vocal opponent of Thatcher's Conservative government, frequently appearing on television to attack it. In any case, the will of the people has decided the UK will leave, we have even had a General Election over the matter. He has contested two parliamentary elections. [57] Scargill supported the 2022 United Kingdom railway strike, joining an RMT picket line in Wakefield on 21 June 2022. April 23, 2022 the myth of workers' control arthur scargill . He mentions how the strikers overtime ban was biting deep into power-station coal stocks and goes on to say If it was allowed to continue until the autumn, managers warned, a twelve-week strike would be enough to put the countrys lights out[26]. [47], In 1996, Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV advocating the public democratic ownership[48] of key industries and utilities from their constitution. The myth of workers' control; More details; The myth of workers' control . This included Norman Tebbits radical reforms[39] as put by Tony Benn, who was newly elected to the mining seat and a clear supporter of the 1984-85 Miners strike[40]. Margaret Thatcher began a media campaign in order to win over the public and demonise the miners. Page 346. This was to begin the argument of whether the actions of Thatcher and the state during the strike led to its failure. Arthur Scargill, with his odd and sometimes monomaniacal-seeming habit of referring to himself in the third person, was in some ways a throwback to turn-of-the-century radicalism, a syndicalist . [38] Thatcher, Margaret. Scargill admitted there was 'bad blood' between him and the NUM general secretary Chris Kitchen, who said, "I honestly do believe that Arthur, in his own world, believes that the NUM is here to afford him the lifestyle that he's become accustomed to. You've been found out. Arrow, 1994. In the 1997 general election, he ran against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest. ", Old Labour party constiturion, Clause 4 part IV, Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, "Arthur Scargill joins Battle of Saltley Gate 40th anniversary celebration", "The Nottinghamshire Miners, The Union of Democratic Mineworkers and the 198485 Miners' Strike: Scabs or Scapegoats? Carrying the Fire in The Road T he dystopian world of Cormac McCarthy's The Road is best summarized by the following lines from the novella: "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. 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. [38], Film director Ken Loach subsequently made "The Arthur Legend" as part of Channel 4's Dispatches series. We also know that lots of support groups popped up to encourage the miners on in their fight. Essay Writing Service. Accessed October 11, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/jan/07/guardianletters4. However, he does give credit to the harsh tactics taken by the miners that may have cut out any support for the Nottinghamshire miners; The only legitimate question that may be raised about the tactics of the NUM nationally was whether the Yorkshire miners, by picketing Nottinghamshire so early and so vigorously, alienated those they were seeking to influence. Lawson also takes the mainstream media view that everything Thatcher did during the strike was to maintain law and order. The appointment of Ian McGregor as head of the NCB can be seen as a failure on Thatchers behalf showing that the governments preparations were insufficient to cause the strike to fail. His major innovation was organising "flying pickets" involving hundreds or thousands of committed strikers who could be bussed to critical strike points to shut down a target. BATTLE FOR BRITAIN; on the 25th Anniversary of the Miners Strike, NORMAN TEBBIT, Reveals Why He Believes Defeat Would Have Been the Death of Democracy.. Either way, please contact your web host immediately. Notice that the CaSe is important in this example. ." It is a world of despair, of ashes, and coldness, and darkness, and the setting acts as a . Another important factor in the failure of the miners strike is the amount of support that it had. Darlington, "There is no alternative: Exploring the options in the 1984-5 miners' strike. ",confirmDelete: "Are you sure you want to delete this? Exciting, witty Arthur Scargill brought coalmining to a close in Britain far faster than would have happened had the NUM been led by some prevaricating, dreary old-style union hack. [20] Ridley, Nicholas. [9] Scargill saw this strike as a turning point in the union's attitude to militancy.[10]. Andrew Marr is one of many historians who support this view and believed that The Nottinghamshire miners turned out to be critical. . 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