Pierre-François GOUIFFES MARGARET THATCHER & THE MINERS 1972-1985 Thirteen years that changed Britain Creative Commons Licence 2009 This e-book is the English translation of “Margaret Thatcher face aux mineurs”, Privat, France (2007) Comments on the French edition Lord Brittan (Home Secretary 1983-5, former Vice-President of the European Commission) “The fairness and accuracy of the book are impressive both in the narrative and the analysis. I am not aware of anything comparable to what Pierre-François Gouiffès has produced.” Dr Kim Howells MP (now Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, spokesman for the NUM South Wales area in 1983-5) “Mr. Gouiffès’ book describes key events, such as the 'winter of discontent' and the industrial disputes of the eighties which had a major impact on the Labour party.” Other material available on www.pfgouiffes.net or www.mtfam.fr TABLE OF CONTENT Foreword 3 Prologue: the rise and fall of ‘King Coal’ 12 Coal: its economic, social and symbolic importance in the United Kingdom during the 19th century 13 The painful aftermath of World War One 18 The search for consensus after 1945 24 Tensions escalate from the 1960s 29 The NUM victorious: the strikes of 1972 and 1974 42 Crystallization of conflict 43 The 1972 blitzkrieg strike 51 1974: an arm-wrestling contest leading to strike and General Election 63 The legacy of the strikes of the 1970s 75 1974-1984 : the Labour interlude and Margaret Thatcher's early performance 80 The Labour interlude 81 The early years of Margaret Thatcher 108 The 1984-5 strike part one: from explosion to war of attrition 133 First steps in the conflict 134 The flashpoint 143 2 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS The strike settles in for the duration 156 Mobilizing the state 170 The 1984-5 strike part two: disappointments, reversals of fortune and the twilight of the NUM 194 The battle for public opinion 195 The involvement of the trade union movement and the political left 208 The ‘October revolution’ and the final turning 221 The end 229 Epilogue and lessons from the strikes 241 Epilogue: the deep consequences for the United Kingdom 242 The miners’ strikes as a classical of polical and social warfare 262 Who’s who in the British miners’ strikes 1972/1974/1984-5 291 Institutions involved in the British miners’ strikes 1972/1974/1984-5 298 Chronology 302 Bibliography and sources 342 Notes 358 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS 3 FOREWORD 4 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS Prelude At midnight on Sunday January 9th 1972, the 280,000 miners of the 289 British coal pits launched their first national strike action since the great strike of 1926, almost half a century earlier. The decision to strike broke the three-month deadlock in pay negotiations between the State-owned National Coal Board (the NCB) and the National Union of Mineworkers (the NUM). The NCB could not offer anything better than a 7.9% increase, in line with the 8% public sector wage ceiling set by the Government of Prime Minister Edward Heath. This offer was unacceptable to the NUM, which continued to claim a £9 weekly pay increase on an average wage of £25 per week. The negotiations broke down under the threat of a national strike. Since November, an overtime ban had reduced the NCB coal output by 15%. In December a majority of miners voted for national strike action over pay. On the eve of the first strike day, Derek Ezra, the NCB chairman, broke off negotiations. He then explained to journalists that the strike would cost the NCB £12 million per week, cutting its financial resources and making it even less able and more unlikely to meet the miners’ wage claims. The unreasonable NUM claim would require £120 million, an amount far beyond the NCB’s resources without dramatic increases in the price of coal. However, the NCB’s communication also hinted at a quick and positive conclusion to the conflict. Yet the miners seemed determined to win their fight. A Welsh miner explained to the BBC: “We’re going into this now, not thinking it’s going to be over in a week or a fortnight. We’re intending to win this battle, however long it may take”. Lawrence Daly, General Secretary of the NUM, forecast that coal stocks would MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS 5 drop very quickly and force NCB management to call in the only real negotiator, the Prime Minister and his Government. Meanwhile, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) planned to coordinate various initiatives in support of the miners with regard to the NUM picket lines. The transport unions were expected to be especially supportive. The public doubted, however, that the miners would succeed in their fight. They had accepted, without any real opposition, a major restructuring and slimming down of their industry in the sixties because of cheap and abundant oil. The 58.8% December majority for strike action was only slightly higher than the required NUM constitutional majority of 55%, which raised questions as to whether the strike had solid support. The London correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde explained that the strike could not have begun under worse conditions for the miners, who seemed doomed to defeat. However the miners’ strike conformed to the difficult British industrial context of the time which was marked by increasing unrest. As early as June 1970, only one month after taking office, the Heath Government had to face a dockers’ strike and could not avoid the declaration of a state of emergency. Then the municipal workers went on strike. In December 1970, the work to rule movement by electrical workers led to a second state of emergency and required electricity rationing and limited power cuts, for the first time since 1947. In 1971 the TUC and its affiliates fiercely opposed the Industrial Relations Bill, with a national one-day protest strike respected by two million workers, and disruption of newspaper printing. This was followed by a strike at the Ford Motor Company and a strike of postal workers. The first day of the miners’ national strike seemed like business as usual in industrial Britain of the early seventies. It was however the starting point of a critical sequence of British contemporary history, a sequence that 6 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS would end thirteen years later under the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher, then Cabinet member as Secretary for Education. A coherent historical cycle This book, written by a French observer with a great affection for Britain and a keen interest in the United Kingdom, aims to describe the full frontal confrontation between Her Majesty’s Government and the NUM, then the most powerful and feared trade union. It commenced on January 9th, 1972, thirty five years ago. The following thirteen years of confrontation were marked by three national strikes (1972, 1974 and 1984-5). The cycle ended conclusively in March 1985. This fascinating and turbulent sequence of events started with a Conservative Government under Edward Heath, first surrendering unconditionally to the NUM, then losing a general election and being politically destroyed after two short but extremely efficient miners’ strikes. Then a second Conservative Government, this time under Margaret Thatcher, successfully faced the longest (one year!) and toughest industrial confrontation to take place in the Western world in the twentieth century. This confrontation also resulted in irreparable damage to the NUM, the British trade union movement and the once mighty British coal industry. There is already a plethora of British literature about this sequence of events (especially the long 1984-5 strike), but most books on this subject tend to be both polemical and one-sided. However, to the surprise of this author, there are very few studies of the miners’ strikes of the seventies and no comprehensive review of the 1972-1985 period. It is clear that the strikes form an integrated sequence: the 1972 and 1974 strikes created key myths and legends, and the subsequent 1984-5 MRS. THATCHER & THE MINERS 7 conflict relied to a large extent on those myths. On the one hand, the Thatcher government wanted to exorcise the disasters of the seventies: the lessons from the past had been carefully learnt, and determination was shown both in the careful preparation and the operational management of the confrontation. On the other hand, the NUM leadership wanted to renew their victories of the seventies but largely overestimated their ability to do so; they also made significant strategic mistakes in pursuit of their cause, which turned out to be fatal. The book represents a synthesis of this extraordinary 1972-1985 period. It is based on existing literature, particularly in the United Kingdom. The book also includes original research and interviews with some of the key players of all sides during the period, in addition to an extensive review of contemporary material, eye-witness accounts and subsequent analyses of the strike. A major conflict refracted through warlike terminology The title of a recent British book on the 1984-5 is “Civil War without Guns1". This choice of title fully reflects the verbal violence of the three miners' strikes, marked by an abundant use of military terminology. In particular, the two key leaders used warlike language to describe what was seen as a military confrontation, or, even worse, as a civil war. Indeed Arthur Scargill compared the Conservative Government to the Nazi leadership in his NUM presidential speech in July 1983, while Mrs Thatcher would later characterise the NUM as “the enemy within” and gave the chapter on the strike in her autobiography the title of “Mr Scargill’s insurrection”.