Thursday, June 07, 2018

Remembering the Miners' Strike

While the UK government ruled out an inquiry into the "Battle of Orgreave", an independent review of the impact of policing on communities during the miners' strike has been set up by the Scottish government.

It is estimated that 500 Scottish miners were arrested during the year-long strike, with Scotland seeing 30% of the arrests during the disputes despite only having 10% of the UK's mining workforce.

 David Hamilton, a former miner's leader who went on to become Labour MP for Midlothian, explained, "They'll be able to look at what's happened, they'll be able to see the mistakes that were made.
"They'll be able to see that it was a state versus a trade union.
"And I think if they come to a conclusion that proves beyond doubt, something that we've always known as miners, that the general public have never known, and young people don't understand, that the power of the state was used in a way that should never have been used...It's about recognising they were criminalised during that strike and they should never have been criminalised."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-44402284

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