A homage to British miners

Today I would like to pay homage to Britain’s miners. It is 25 years on from the start of their epic struggle to defend their communities. Their message was that, neo-liberal economic policies, operated as state dictat, would have a disastrous outcome for their country. They were so right.

Their year long strike in 1984-85 was against mine closures, to save their communities, their livelihoods and Britain’s energy supply. In this they failed, but in the desperate defence of their industry they showed the true value of human solidarity, of a kind needed to overcome the present global crisis.

They, their children and now their grand children have suffered the horrendous consequences of their defeat. Unemployment remains very high in their wrecked communities as over 300,000 jobs in the coal industry alone were killed off. Their children and their grand children are targeted by drug pushers. A few are joining gangs. Drug addiction and alcoholism are higher than elsewhere. Sounds familiar?

Be in no doubt who these men were. Former Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan summed it up when he said in 1984, in a pointed message to Mrs. Thatcher, ‘the miners are the best men in the world – they defeated the Kaiser and they defeated Hitler’. They were in the front lines and dug the tunnels in the dangerous mud of Flanders and northern France. Kiwis know they were not alone.

I had the great privilege of advising their union for 10 years until 1993, on health and safety and technology. Throughout, they remained cheerful, and often incredibly funny. They would ring up the National Office and ask, ‘Is that the Marie Celeste?’ after the name of the ship found sailing around the world with no crew. As the mines closed, staff members were made redundant, too. In the end, few were left.

The defeat of the miners represented the virtual death of industrial Britain. Industry is now one third of what it was in 1979. North Sea oil and gas is running out fast, all but a handful of mines are now shut, never to be revived. The UK will be importing all of its fossil fuel by 2020, with huge balance of payments costs.

If someone asked me, 'How would you fix Britain?' I would have to say - go back to 1983 and reach an industrial modernisation and technology agreement with the miners and present it as a model for the rejuvenation of British industry. This was on the negotiating table in 1983 but Mrs. Thatcher refused to discuss it. In the 1980's, the UK had the most technologically developed coal industry in the world, after Prime Minister Harold Wilson set up Plan for Coal, out of the 1973/74 oil shock. It could have led the world.

Never has any community of working people contributed so much to their country and yet been so badly treated. The miners powered the industrial revolution. At the peak of the coal industry in 1913 there were 1.1 million miners or one in 10 of the work force.

They dared to oppose Thatcherism. In the US this was Reganism and here it was Rogernomics. The deregulation they all promoted has brought the global economy to its knees. The removal of banking controls led to crazy new financial instruments, the housing bubbles and a soaring, toxic debt. This blew up in September last year.