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Arthur Scargill (born January 11, 1938) led the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1981 to 2000. As of 2006, he led the Socialist Labour Party, a political party he founded in 1996. January 11 is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The National Union of Mineworkers is a trade union for coal miners in the United Kingdom. ...
The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) is a small left-wing political party in the United Kingdom. ...
Scargill was born in Worsbrough Dale, just south of Barnsley. His father, Harold Scargill, was a miner and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Statistics Population: 72,000 Ordnance Survey OS grid reference: SE3406 Administration District: Barnsley Metropolitan county: South Yorkshire Region: Yorkshire and the Humber Constituent country: England Sovereign state: United Kingdom Other Ceremonial county: South Yorkshire Historic county: Yorkshire (West Riding) Services Police force: South Yorkshire Police Ambulance service: Yorkshire Post office...
Barnsley is a large town in South Yorkshire, England, lying on the River Dearne, approximately twenty kilometres north of Sheffield. ...
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist party in the United Kingdom. ...
Scargill became a miner after leaving school, working at Woolley Colliery from 1953. This article is about mineral extraction. ...
A row of terrace houses in Woolley Colliery. ...
He soon became a left-wing political activist, joining the Young Communist League from 1955 to 1962. Later, he became a member of the Labour Party 1962-1996. Then he became the leader of the Yorkshire division of the NUM 1973-1981. In 1973, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that brought down Edward Heath's Government in March 1974. Scargill became president of the NUM in 1981, with Mick McGahey as vice-president. The Young Communist League was or is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world such as the Young Communist League in Britain and the Young Communist League, USA. In the Soviet Union the youth organization under control of the Communist Party of the...
The Labour Party is a centre-left or social democratic political party in Britain (see British politics), and one of the United Kingdoms three main political parties. ...
Look up Yorkshire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, OBE (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. ...
Michael (Mick) McGahey was a Scottish miners leader and Communist. ...
Role in the National Union of Mineworkers
During his period as President of the Yorkshire region of the NUM, Scargill became popular. Miners saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare.[1] In the 1981 election for NUM President, Scargill secured around 70% of the vote. One of the main planks of his platform was to give more power to union conferences than to executive meetings on the grounds that the former was more democratic. This had great implications for regional relations in the NUM; executive committees gave the same number of votes to a large region such as Yorkshire as it did to a small region such as North Wales. The small regions, with the exception of Kent, were less militant. Scargill's platform gave greater scope for the approval of militancy within the union.
Scargill was a very controversial figure for his outspokenness and the tactics he used. The use of flying pickets in the 1972 and 1974 strike brought remarkable concessions to the miners and made him the most feared man amongst the British Conservative right. At the time of the miner's strike of 1983, there were allegations that the N.U.M. was helped financially by the Soviet Union.
He is also noted as a fiery and emotional orator with audiences sympathetic to his cause. Although he already had a high level of national prominence it rose even further with the miners' conflicts with the Government during 1974. After the miner's strike he was elected to lifetime Presidency of the NUM by an overwhelming national majority in a very controversial election where some of the alternative candidates claimed that they were given very little time to prepare. His stand both for the future of the mining industry and the communities dependent on it and against the policies of the Thatcher Government led to his leadership of the 1984-1985 miners' strike. This ended in a shattering defeat for the miners and saw a split in the union (see also Union of Democratic Mineworkers). The strike is generally seen as a major defeat for the National Union of Mineworkers and the trade union movement generally. Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC (born October 13, 1925), former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in office from 1979 to 1990. ...
The miners strike of 1984-5 was a major piece of industrial action affecting the British coal industry. ...
The Union of Democratic Mineworkers is a British trade union for coal miners, which is based in Nottinghamshire, England. ...
The media characterised the 1984-5 action as "Scargill's strike", believing that he had been looking for any excuse to go on strike ever since becoming union president. This portrayal may not be wholly accurate, as the strike began when miners walked out in Yorkshire, rather than when Scargill called for action. The decision not to hold a ballot of members was seen as an erosion of democracy within the union by Scargill, but the role of ballots in decision-making had been made very unclear after previous leader, Joe Gormley, had ignored two ballots over wage reforms and his decisions had been upheld after appeals to court were made. Joseph (Joe) Gormley, Baron Gormley, OBE (5 July 1917-27 May 1993) was born in Ashton-in-Makerfield, in Lancashire in 1917. ...
An objective assessment of Scargill is arguably impossible, given his close association with one side of a very divisive conflict in British politics, the 1984-1985 miners' strike. His opponents would be likely to characterise him as a marginalised politician out of touch with popular politics, losing a long and ultimately futile miners strike, splitting the National Union of Miners and destroying the international competitiveness of deep-mined coal. His supporters would be unlikely to accept any part of that assessment, other than the objective fact that the strike ended in defeat for the miners. They would suggest that the strike was necessary, the split in the National Union of Miners as being the fault of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, the decline in the coal industry as being the result of a government whose priority was attacking trade unionism, and his unpopularity compared to more centrist left-wing politicians as being a result of his willingness to stick to his principles even if they were unpopular. The Union of Democratic Mineworkers is a British trade union for coal miners, which is based in Nottinghamshire, England. ...
What does seem clear is that many of his predictions have come true. On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the Coal Board in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear - to destroy the coal industry and the NUM".[2] This became something of a joke, as it seemed a hysterical response. During the strike, Scargill constantly claimed that the government had a long term strategy to decimate the industry and that it listed pits that it wanted to close each year; this was both denied by the government and dismissed by the public as paranoid. However, of the 170 British pits in 1984, only 15 were still open at the time of privatisation in December 1994. Ian MacGregor, (b. ...
The National Union of Mineworkers is a trade union for coal miners in the United Kingdom. ...
Founding of the Socialist Labour Party He founded the Socialist Labour Party after the Labour Party abandoned the original wording of Clause IV in its constitution. His breakaway party has had little success in the polls. Scargill himself has become more politically outspoken, defending Stalin;[3][4] Scargill had long criticized Poland's Solidarity trade union movement for its destabilisation of socialism, as he saw it. He himself has contested two parliamentary elections — in the 1997 general election against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour who had been given a safe seat to contest, and in the 2001 general election, against Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool. He lost on both occasions. The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) is a small left-wing political party in the United Kingdom. ...
The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the principal political party of the left in England, Scotland and Wales. ...
Clause IV of the United Kingdom Labour Party constitution sets out the objects of the party, and has been the scene of political fights over its direction. ...
“Stalin†redirects here. ...
Solidarity (Polish: ; full name: Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity — Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy Solidarność) is a Polish trade union federation founded in September 1980 at the then Lenin Shipyards, and originally led by Lech Wałęsa. ...
The UK general election, 1997 was arguably the largest and one of the most significant election Victory of the twentieth century (Labour won 418 seats- More than the liberals in 1906). ...
The Rt. ...
The Conservative Party (officially the Conservative and Unionist Party) is the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of sitting Members of Parliament (MPs), the largest in terms of public membership, and is the second oldest extant political party in the world. ...
Tony Blair William Hague Charles Kennedy The UK general election, 2001 was held on 7 June 2001 and was dubbed the quiet landslide by the media. ...
This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ...
Location of Hartlepool constituency Hartlepool is a Parliamentary Constituency in the House of Commons. ...
In the film Brassed Off, the union leader played by Christopher Tetlow bears a very strong resemblance to Scargill. Brassed Off (1996) is a British film written and directed by Mark Herman. ...
A trade union or labor union is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. ...
The novelist David Peace is a defender of Scargill. He stated in a Daily Telegraph interview[5] that "it suits both left and right to blame [Scargill]", and that the latter had been made into "an utter scapegoat". David Peace is a British author born in Ossett, West Yorkshire in 1967. ...
This article deals with The Daily Telegraph in Britain, see The Daily Telegraph (Australia) for the Australian publication The Daily Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper founded in 1855. ...
The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, 1854. ...
References - ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ Johann Hari, "Comrades up in Arms", New Statesman, June 10, 2002.
- ^ Andy McSmith, "Stalin apologists drink to the memory of Uncle Joe", Independent on Sunday, March 2, 2003.
- ^ [3]
Johann Hari (born 1979) is an award winning British journalist and writer. ...
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