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East Midlands Region of the SLP cordially invite you to the annual wreath laying gathering to take place in Swadlincote, on 17th December 2022 at 12 midday. The venue is at the Miners’ Statue, The Pipeworks, Coppice Side, Swadlincote, DE11 9AA

Arthur Scargill expresses soildarity with RMT and union action in support of working class struggle under Tories and others shamefully failing to give support. Arthur Scargill speaks in Sheffield at RMT meeting 20/11/2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRYAke2qRRw Click on link to see video. Socialist Labour Party 22/11/2022

Yesterday the energy market was opened up again with nuclear energy resurfacing. Arhur Scargill addressed the issue in 1998, just over 20 years after the Miners’ Strike. Click here to view video: https://youtu.be/_8wNKLkszBA Socialist Labour Party 18/11/2022

Arthur Scargill Working class hero – Talking to Arthur Scargill 20 years after the Miners’ Strike The name Arthur Scargill will forever be synonymous with trade unionism and left-wing politics. Scargill, who served as President of the most powerful union in Britain, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), for most of the 1980s, came to international prominence 20 years ago, when he led the striking miners in their epic battle with the T hatcher government from 1984 to 1985. Thatcher wanted to shut down pits throughout Britain. The miners wanted to protect their industry and their livelihoods. The s trike was one of the most bitter and hard-fought in living memory. For 12 months, miners picketed their pits and faced financial hardship, vicious attacks by the police and demonisation from the establishment media. When they returned to work in March ’85, many believed a new era had dawned in Britain. Thatcher had broken the most powerful union in the country and was about to embark on a strategy of privatisation, which would bring about the end of many other traditional industries.
Last Sunday, An Phoblacht’s JOANNE CORCORAN met with the legendary Scargill, who was in Dublin to address a public meeting on the 20th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, at the invitation of the Dublin Congress of Trade Unions. He talked to Joanne about his early life and involvement in politics, and about the 1984/’85 strike and its aftermath. In this, the first of a three-part series, Scargill describes his upbringing and early political involvement. An Phoblacht: Arthur, can you tell our readers about your background and your early life?
Arthur Scargill: I was born in a small village, two miles south of Barnsley in South Yorkshire. I lived in that village all my life and I still live there now.
My father was a miner and my grandfather was a miner.
My great grandparents were Irish, and called McQuillan. I should have been called McQuillan but for the law of the times. You see, my grandparents were having my father before they got married. When they went to register the birth, the registry office put ‘no father’, on my father’s birth certificate, because they weren’t married. So, five of his siblings were called McQuillan, and he was called Scargill. In those times life was difficult if you carried a name different to your father.
I remember being very moved later on, when I was elected President of the NUM. He said to me: “It’s ironic isn’t it — for so many years I’ve sought to have the name of my brothers and sisters, but tonight the name I was always embarrassed by is known all over the world.”
My father was so proud of that. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to acknowledge his heritage, because he did. He was deeply committed to the Irish cause and a united Ireland. I could never understand as a youngster why my father would be cheering the Ireland football team against England. It took me a while to figure out. Then I started to cheer Ireland too.
When did you begin to take an interest in the political world and trade unionism?
By the age of 13 I had began to read books that my father had around the house, by Jack London, by Shaw, by all the leaders of left politics, including James Connolly. I began to realise that there was something very wrong in a world which could produce enough food and water for everyone, that could build enough houses to house everybody and provide enough clothing to clothe everybody, and yet we had millions of people dying from starvation, and lacking shelter and clothing.
My father was a lifelong Communist, but I actually wrote to the Labour Party to see if I could join their youth section. I must have been bonkers, but that’s what I did. I didn’t get a reply at all. So after a month I wrote to the Workers’ Party and asked whether they had such a thing as a young communist party. Within two days, the Secretary of the Young Communist League visited my house and recruited me.
I decided that I would be an active young communist, there was no point in me joining if I wasn’t going to do anything. They had a paper called Challenge, and I asked how many papers they sold a week. In the branch I was in there were six members and they told me they used to order 20 copies, but they’d take two copies each to try and build up the sales and the rest they’d give away.
I said: “Why don’t: you sell them?” and they said “Do you think you could sell them?”
So I said yes and they told me to try it. I took the 20 copies and I went to a meeting that I knew was on and sold the lot. They appointed me Challenge organiser, and within three months we were selling 700 papers a week. Unless people are prepared to go out, get up off their backsides and do these things, they won’t happen.
What made you decide to go into Trade Unionism rather than politics?
I knew I had to make a decision and I decided the Trade Union Movement was a place where I could exercise real power, not for myself, but on behalf of the workers I would be representing.
So I became very active in the National Union of Mineworkers.
I led my first strike when I was 16, for better conditions, and we won. I became something of a folk hero for the youngsters at the pit after that.
When I was 21 I was elected the youngest delegate in Yorkshire. A delegate is a representative to the area council and it’s a very powerful position. For the next three years I was very active in the Yorkshire region.
You played a significant role in the 1972 National Miners’ Strike, which eventually led to the downfall of Edward Heath’s Government. Can you tell our readers about that?
In 1971, I put forward a proposal for a wage increase for the miners. I said, if we want to go for this, I want none of this nonsense of saying we want two pounds a week and then we negotiate and finish up with 75p. I said, that’s not negotiation, it’s sell out. If we can’t justify two pounds to start with, don’t ask for it. If we can justify it, then we’ll fight to the death to get it. In my view, that was more principled.
We ended up having a ballot on a wage increase and in 1972 we closed the entire coalfield with a strike. We paralysed the whole of Britain.
I was put in charge of picketing in Yorkshire and we did a great job, picketing East Anglia, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
One Saturday I was in the strike office and a couple of lads called into me and said that there was a problem in Birmingham with a coke pit (coke is a by-product of coal).
I thought, ‘A problem with a coke pit?’
My idea of a coke pit was one with about 20 tonnes of coke in it, which would deliver every other day. But they said that this was a big coke depot and that the owners were still managing to send coke out. They said the people in the NUM down there couldn’t control anything and they wanted pickets sent down.
Within a few hours I had something like five or six hundred of our pickets going down to Birmingham on buses. I followed them down and got into Birmingham about half past one in the morning. I’d never been in Birmingham before and I got completely lost. Then I stumbled on something that looked almost like a cul-de-sac and there were coaches of police there.
So I went up to one of them and said, “Excuse me, can you tell me where the Star Social Club is?”
“Don’t ask me,” he said. “We’re strangers here, we’ve no idea”.
I thought that was funny. It was like they were expecting trouble. So I went on my way and eventually reached the spot where the pickets had gathered. We’d got them bedded in Birmingham, in people’s houses, and we started to picket the coke depot the next morning, which was a Sunday. And we managed to close it down.
I said to the lads that the next morning we would have to turn out in force again, because those buggers would re-open it. And they did. That’s when they poured in the police, hundreds and hundreds of them. Many of them were in riot gear. They looked almost like a stormtrooper brigade.
We battled like hell for the next two days.
I recall going to a massive meeting of all the trade unions in the centre of Birmingham on the Tuesday. We’d had no sleep, but I got up the energy to made a very passionate speech. I said, ‘We don’t want your money. We don’t want you to give us a pound or a fiver to ease your conscience. We want you out on this strike. We want you to stop the movement of coke out of this depot.’
The chair addressed them after that, looking for suggestions of what to do and this right-wing union secretary said: “I think what we have to do here is mobilise over the next five or six days and then we can get the mass support that brother Scargill is seeking.”
I jumped out of my seat at this and said, ‘No, Comrade. We don’t want to mobilise over the next five or six days. What we’re asking is that in two days time, that’s on Thursday, you all down tools and come out on strike with us. That means you’ve got tomorrow to go to your members and tell them to take action. Either you can stand by and see us kicked to bits by the police, or you can say you’ve had enough. You’re not taking this treatment of your fellow workers, and go on strike.’
After the meeting our lot went back on the picket line and on the Thursday, something strange had happened. As we got to the picket line, the police were there as usual. But there was a strange atmosphere. It was almost indescribable. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then I suddenly realised that there was no traffic.
There were five roads leading into this giant coke plant, which could produce over a million tonnes for delivery, in the second biggest city in Britain, and there wasn’t a single car or truck passing by.
Then suddenly over the hill, there were workers coming. On all the five roads, they were coming in with banners, chanting and marching. They had downed tools and walked out in solidarity with us.
How did the police react?
Well, I heard the Chief Constable saying: “Get the bastards, move them, don’t let them stop.”
I don’t know what possessed me, but I grabbed my megaphone and I ran to the centre of the road and shouted ‘Stay!’
As he was shouting, “Move them along”, I was shouting ‘Stop. They don’t want you to stop.’
They were jamming up like a sandwich. Even moderates estimate there were about 20,000 there. They were all chanting different things, and I thought we have to get one chant going. And I took this megaphone and I chanted ‘Close the Gates’. And they took it up as one, “Close the gates. Close the gates”.
Every time they said it, they moved closer to the gates. And the police didn’t know what to do. So the owners of the depot had to close the gates, and within a very short time they had to sit down and sign an agreement with us that they wouldn’t allow any coke out of the depot.
It was a victory for the working class, and it sent the establishment into absolute apoplexy. And of course, in the end the miners got their demands.
It meant I was suddenly catapulted onto every front page in Britain.
I stood for election as full-time leader in Yorkshire the same year, and I won it by 70% of the vote.
Time line of Arthur Scargill’s life
1938 – Born 11 January in Worsbrough Dale. Started work at Woolley Colliery after leaving school in 1953.
1955 – Joined the Young Communist League.
1957 – Elected NUM Yorkshire Area Youth Delegate. Attended the World Youth Festival in Moscow as a representative of the Yorkshire miners.
1961 – Elected a member of the Woolley NUM Branch Committee
1962 – Joined the Labour Party. Later that year he took a three-year course in economics, industrial relations and social history at the University of Leeds.
1965 – Elected Branch Delegate from Woolley to the Yorkshire NUM Area Council.
1969 – Elected a member of the Yorkshire NUM Area Executive Committee. He played a leading part in the 1969 unofficial miners’ strike, which won an eight-hour day for surface mineworkers.
1972 – In the first National Miners’ Strike since 1926, Scargill was spokesman for the Barnsley Strike Committee, and picket organiser for the Yorkshire miners. He co-ordinated the ‘Battle of Saltley Gates’ at the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham, considered by many to be the turning point in winning that dispute. The strike indirectly led to the fall of Edward Heath’s Government in March 1974.
1973 – Elected leader of the Yorkshire NUM.
1977 – Elected chair of the British Anti-Nuclear Campaign.
1981 – Became President of the NUM.
1984 – One month after the year-long Miners’ Strike began, he acted as advocate for all five NUM Trustees of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme in a legal action over how the coal industry’s pension funds should be controlled and invested.
1984-1985 – Led the biggest miners’ strike in history
1987 – Voluntarily resigned his position as NUM President, stood for re-election and was elected again as President in January 1988.
1986-1988 – Served as a member of the TUC General Council and as a member of the nuclear review body
1990 – He and the NUM’s General Secretary, Peter Heathfield were the targets of an unprecedented media-led smear campaign.
1995 – Following New Labour’s abandonment of Clause IV, its commitment to common ownership, Scargill proposed to a group of fellow trade unionists that the time had come to create a new party for Britain’s workers. Out of that proposal came the Socialist Labour Party. Scargill currently serves as the party’s General Secretary.
2002 – Retired as President of the NUM after over 20 years in the job. An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland First published 2002 Socialist Labour Party 14/11/2022

https://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/transport-streets-parking/doncaster-sheffield-airport-statements The solution to the Closure of Doncaster Airport is simple. It should be taken into public ownership.This can be done either by the Government or by the by the a Combination of the local authorities. Socialist Labour Party 2/11/2022

The Socialist Labour Party welcomes the election of LULA DA SILVIA as President of Brazil. This former Trade Union Leader and Socialist previously served two wonderful terms as President of Brazil but his defeat of the Fascist Bolsonaro is a victory not just for the people of Brazil but a victory for the world. RTE News https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1031/1332363-brazilian-election/ Arthur Scargill Socialist Labour Party 31/10/2022

Arthur Scargill once again joined a picket line, this time with Unison staff on strike at the coal mining museum in Wakefield. (https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/striking-coal-mining-museum-workers-receive-visit-from-arthur-scargill-3894859)

Rob Hawkins, Southwest Region 21/10/2022

SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY PRESS STATEMENT HOW TO RESOLVE IN THE SHORT TERM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS 1. SCRAP TRIDENT – THE CURRENT CRISIS CAN BE RESOLVED BY SCRAPPING THE REPLACEMENT OF TRIDENT NUCLEAR WEAPONS SYSTEM AND ITS ONGOING COSTS, A POLICY WHICH WILL COST BETWEEN £250 and £350 billion more than enough. Use that saving on our NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM, our EDUCATION SYSTEM, CARE HOMES AND PAY WAGES WILL PAY DECENT WAGES AT LEAST EQUAL TO THE INCREASE IN THE ANNUAL RETAIL PRICES (RPI) 2. PUBLIC OWNERSHIP – IN ADDITION TAKE BACK ALL INDUSTRIES AND SERVICES INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP WITHOUT PAYING A PENNY TO ANY OF THE PRIVATISATIONS WHICH HAVE WRECKED OUR RAIL INDUSTRY, AND OUR COAL INDUSTRY (If it had not been closed we would not have had an energy crisis!) GOVERNMENTS PRIVATISED OUR WATER SYSTEM. THE PRIVATISED PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR SHOULD BE IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE AND NOT IN THE THOSE OF THE UNITED STATES MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES. 3. FAIR TAX SYSTEM – WE NEED A TAX SYSTEM WHERE ANYONE BELOW £30,000 would pay no tax. An income of between £30,000 and £50,000 – 30%; between £50,000 and £80,000 – 40%; between £80,000 and £100,000 – 50%; between £100,000 and £200,000 – 75%; between £200,000 and £300,000 – 80%; any income above £300,000 – 90%. 4. SUPPLY OUR OWN INDUSTRIES AND FOOD PRODUCTION – We should build our own cars, aircraft, heavy and light engineering, grow our own food with our own workers who should be paid an average wage. Don’t say we can’t do it. We did it during the second war and we did it for years after, YES AND WE DID IT UNTIL WE WERE SUCKED INTO THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (EEC, later to become the European Union) controlled by UNELECTED BUREAUCRATS and INTO NATO WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE, TOGETHER WITH THE USA, FOR DETERMINING WHICH COUNTRIES THEY LIKE AND THOSE THEY DO NOT. 5. WAR IN THE UKRAINE – THE UK AS PART OF NATO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE, IN CONTRAVENTION OF AN AGREEMENT CONCLUDED BETWEEN JAMES BAKER, THE USA SECRETARY OF STATE AND GORBACHEV the Leader of the Soviet Union. NATO SAYS A COUNTRY HAS A RIGHT TO SELF DETERMINATION. How do they explain why they do not implement sanctions on ISRAEL WHO HAVE OCCUPIED PALESTINE UNLAWFULLY SINCE 1967 or the USA WHO OCCUPY PART OF CUBA AND WHO TOOK THE UK INTO AN UNLAWFUL WAR AGAINST IRAQ which cost over a million lives, including British and American. Why no SANCTIONS AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN FOR ITS OCCUPATION OF PART OF IRELAND? Socialist Labour Party 12/10/2022

In 1984 during the Mine Workers’ strike, National Union of Mineworkers’ President Arthur Scargill addresses the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. https://twitter.com/miners_strike/status/1443825386576621576?lang=en

Rob J. Hawkins, SLP South West Region 4/10/2022

The Newsletter of International Energy and Mines (IEMO) newsletter for August/September 2022 lays bare attacks on the nuclear plant in Ukraine ordered by President Zelensky guarded by Russian Troops and other key issues subject to misleading and untruthful reporting. Arthur Scargill, Chair IEMO 3/10/2022

Saudi Oil Windfall Tops $65billion While the rest of us suffer massive inflation, high prices and lower real incomes and pensions, there are those having a lovely war at your expense. The Socialist Labour Party will expose those making massive profits from Biden’s war. Since the U.S. President, Joe Biden went crawling to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the Kingdom’s Sheik’s are enjoying a lovely war as oil income has doubled in the second quarter of this year. The Saudi state-controlled oil giant, Aramco, has received a massive windfall of $65billion in oil revenues, but decided to keep the windfall to itself and not increase dividends. Good work if you can get it! Instead, the oil giant made payments to the government which owns 94 percent of the company, meaning the Sheiks, who run the totally undemocratic country, ignoring “normal democratic norms” and are regarded by many in the U.S. Senate as having been involved in the murder of Saudi/American Journalist, Jamal Khoshoggi, received more than $65billion in the period, up from $35billion a year earlier, this according to statements released on Monday (15 August 2022.) So, while the rest of us pay for this Biden created war, it’s a lovely war for some. Ken Capstick, Yorkshire Region 15/08/2022

The reason the United Kingdom and most of the world is facing water shortages is in part the closures of Reservoirs and the failure to construct new reservoirs – but the solution is to develop desalinisation plants which turn sea Water into clean Water. We have rising sea levels, a problem which could be resolved by the desalinisation process, providing clean water not just in the United Kingdom but to the rest of the world Water should be in public ownership throughout the world and with desalinisation we can provide water free of charge and in the process save millions of lives. Desalinisation is needed now . Now we can see how dangerous Thatcher’s great water robbery really was. ARTHUR SCARGILL PRESIDENT NUM 1982-2002 SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY 10/8/2022

I am sick and tired of the constant media express concern that Britain is facing water shortages when the reason for shortages has been caused by the privatised Water Companies who since water was privatised in 1989 the Water Companies have closed over 30 reservoirs and not built one new reservoir throughout the 33 years. Research by Corporate Watch has recorded that privatised Water Companies have paid out £57 billion to its shareholders, an average of £2billion a year, whilst Water Company bosses received £15 billion in 2021 in pay and bonuses. It’s time to take back our water and invest in New Reservoirs and pay 90% of profits its received since it was privatised. Arthur Scargill President NUM 1982- 2002 Socialist Labour Party 5/8/2022

If the USA is serious about a Swap deal with Russia it must include the USA withdrawing its extradition of Julian Assange and his immediate release from the “Stitch Up” by the USA and United Kingdom of a man whose only crime was the exposure of the USA’s crimes. Arthur Scargill Socialist Labour Party 4/8/2022

The announcement by the Bank of England is a blatant misleading of the real rate of Inflation. It is based on on an increase in Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) when Companies are increasing their costs to the people of Britain on the basis of the increase of the Retail Prices Index ( RPI ) The latest published figures in June clearly show the difference: In June 2022 CPI was 9.1% whilst the increase in RPI was 11.8 % The expended figures in September will rocket for both at a time when Energy costs are based on CPI whist consumers prices are based on RPI ! All Major Companies such as Energy, Amazon, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and the 10% of the the population who own 90% of the wealth of the United Kingdom should pay 90% tax on all their profits Arthur Scargill Socialist Labour Party 4/8/2022

Tory proposal to charge patients £10 for non attendance to see a GP at the surgery. Are Tory and Labour MP’s unaware that there are no GP’s in surgeries. all that’s offered in many surgeries is a GP will contact a patient by telephone. Will a Government, Tory or Labour or another agree to fine GP’s a £1,000 for non attendance at their surgeries where they should be giving ” hands on” attention to patients who pay through their taxes for an NHS doctor to be available : UPON DEMAND; AT THE TIME OF NEED; AND FREE OF CHARGE. IT’S OBSCENE THAT 74 YEARS AFTER THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE WAS ESTABLISHED WE HAVE HOSPITAL CONSULTANTS, SURGEONS; AND GPs SEEING PATIENTS PRIVATELY, PROVIDED THE PATIENTS PAY. IT IS IMMORAL THAT IN 2022 WE WITNESS CONSULTANTS; SURGE0NS WORKING THREE DAYS IN A NHS HOSPITAL OR IN THEIR PRIVATE CONSULTING ROOM AND THEN SEEING PRIVATE PATIENTS IN THE NEXT THREE DAYS AT A PRIVATE HOSPITAL EARNING A HIGHER SALARY ( IN MANY CASES PAID FOR BY THE NHS ) AS A SOCIALIST I WANT TO SEE ALL PATIENTS SEEN WITHIN THE NHS; I WANT TO SEE AN END TO ALL PRIVATE HEATH HOSPITALS AND PRIVATE HEALTH CARE. ARTHUR SCARGILL SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY 2/8/2022

Arthur Scargill, leader of the Socialist Labour Party leads from the front, unlike Labour’s Keir Starmer who sacked a Labour front bench spokesman who defied him. Here Arthur is with other SLP members, including Ken Capstick and Terry Robinson (Yorkshire) and Nell Myers (London). They are at Doncaster Station in support of the train drivers’ Union ASLEF members who called the strike today, 30th July, 2022. Meanwhile John Tyrrell, SLP President, visited New Street (Grand Central) and Snow Hill stations in Birmingham to show solidarity there. The above demonstrates clearly that trade unions who are disgusted with Starmer’s Labour Party can affiliate to the Socialist Labour Party. This was established by trade union leaders including Bob Crow and Pat Sikorski together with Mick Rix, Joe Marino and Arthur Scargill, Frank Cave, Ken Capstick and Ricky Tomlinson. Other notable people who played a significant role at first include Bridget Bell, Nell Myers, Katrina Howse and Carolyn Sikorski. Individual members of Starmer’s Labour Party who have seen the Heart of the Labour Party “Clause IV” torn out by Blair and now see the Party refuse to support workers who take strike action and instruct Labour MPs not to attend picket lines should join the Socialist Labour Party. John Tyrrell 30/07/2022

Arthur Scargill, former Presient of the NUM and Leader of the Socialist Labour Party, joined an RMT picket line for the third time and the third day of action, pictured here with long time activist and Socialist Nell Myers. In contrast to the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, who today sacked a leading front bench Labour MP, Sam Tarry, for joining a picket line at London’s Euston Station, Scargill has shown constant solidarity with workers taking action in increasing numbers against a Government hell-bent on curbing union power and influence. Labour front bench MP, Sam Tarry, today sacked by Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer for standing on an RMT picket line at a major London terminus. As reported on this website, Arthur Scargill was invited by the RMT to give the opening address at its Annual Conference this year. He told the meeting “Our Movement has historically defied unfair laws. Trade unions won the right to exist not because of benevolent politicians but through strike action. We must follow in the footsteps of the weavers of Yorkshire and Lancashire, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Suffragettes – and more recently the Women of Greenham Common, by adopting a policy of non-compliance with unjust laws.” He received a standing ovation. John Tyrrell, SLP President 27/07/2022