In the more militant mining areas, strikebreakers were reviled and never forgiven for betraying the community. In 1984, some pit villages had no other industries for many miles around. [18] :10 In South Wales, miners showed a high degree of solidarity, as they came from isolated villages where most workers were employed in the pits, had similar lifestyles, and had an evangelical religious style based on Methodism that led to an ideology of egalitarianism. [24] The dominance of mining in these local economies led Oxford professor Andrew Glyn to conclude that no pit closure could be beneficial for government revenue. [25] :24

Garth Crooks volleys home the winner for Spurs against Stoke City as Steve Bould looks on helplessly. Photograph: Neal Simpson/EMPICS Sport We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty. [63] Symcox, Jonathon, ed. The 1984–85 Miners' Strike in Nottinghamshire: If Spirit alone won Battles, The Diary of John Lowe (Barnsley, 2011); primary source. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx Adeney, Martin; Lloyd, John (1988). The Miners' Strike 1984–5: Loss Without Limit. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7102-1371-9.The coal industry was privatised in December 1994 creating "R.J.B. Mining", subsequently known as UK Coal. Between the end of the strike and privatisation, pit closures continued with many closures in the early-1990s. There were 15 British Coal deep mines left in production at the time of privatisation, [110] but by March 2005, there were only eight deep mines left. [111] Since then, the last pit in Northumberland, Ellington Colliery has closed whilst pits at Rossington and Harworth have been mothballed. In 1983, Britain had 174 working collieries; by 2009 there were six. [112] The last deep colliery in the UK, Kellingley Colliery, known locally as "The Big K" closed for the last time on 18 December 2015, bringing an end to centuries of deep coal mining. I must tell you... that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. [cheering] It must not succeed. There are those who are using violence and intimidation to impose their will on others who do not want it.... The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob. [64] Scargill did not call a ballot for national strike action, perhaps due to uncertainty over the outcome. Instead, he started the strike by allowing each region to call its own strikes, imitating Gormley's strategy over wage reforms; it was argued that 'safe' regions should not be allowed to ballot other regions out of jobs. The decision was upheld by a vote by the NUM executive five weeks into the strike. [57] They were perhaps four metres apart when the girl stumbled and fell almost flat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was wrung out of her. She must have fallen right on the injured arm. Winston stopped short. The girl had risen to her knees. Her face had turned a milky yellow colour against which her mouth stood out redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with an appealing expression that looked more like fear than pain.

Loach, Loretta (1985). "We'll be right here to the end...and after: Women in the Miners' Strike". In Benyon, Huw (ed.). Digging Deeper: Issues in the Miners' Strike. London: Verso. pp. 169–179. ISBN 0-86091-820-3. Stephenson, Carol, and Jean Spence. "Pies and essays: women writing through the British 1984–1985 coal miners' strike." Gender, Place & Culture 20#2 (2013): 218–235. The strike in Yorkshire relied on a ballot from January 1981, in which 85.6% of the members voted to strike if any pit was threatened with closure on economic grounds. [18] :169 The motion was passed with regard to the closure of Orgreave Colliery, which prompted a two-week strike. [18] :169 The NUM executive approved the decision in Yorkshire to invoke the ballot result as binding on 8 March 1984. [18] :169 Nicholls ruled that the 1981 ballot result was "too remote in time [with]... too much change in the branch membership of the Area since then for that ballot to be capable of justifying a call to strike action two and a half years later." [18] :171 He ruled that the Yorkshire area could not refer to the strike as "official", although he did not condemn the strike as "illegal" as he did in the case of the national strike and the North Derbyshire strike. [18] :171 In 2021 Peter Fahy, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, argued the policing of the strike was politically motivated and "took policing a long time to recover" from, and warned that the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill risked drawing policing into politics once more. [125] Historical assessments [ edit ]Graham Cunnington, Angus Farquhar and Paul Jamrozy, Test Dept: Total State Machine, eds. Alexei Monroe and Peter Wegg (Bristol: PC Press, 2015).

Shaw, Katy. Mining The Meaning: Cultural Representations of the 1984–5 UK Miners' Strike (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012). a b c d e f "We could surrender – or stand and fight". The Guardian. London. 7 March 2009 . Retrieved 9 February 2017.The storyline of Radio K.A.O.S., a 1987 album by Roger Waters, makes several references to the strike and its repercussions. Towers, B. (1985). "Posing larger questions: The British miners' Strike of 1984–85". Industrial Relations Journal. 16 (2): 8–25. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2338.1985.tb00510.x. The Sun newspaper took a very anti-strike position, as did the Daily Mail, and even the Labour Party-supporting Daily Mirror and The Guardian became hostile as the strike became increasingly violent. [18] :251–252 The Morning Star was the only national daily newspaper that consistently supported the striking miners and the NUM. Gildart, Keith. North Wales Miners: A Fragile Unity 1945–2006 (Studies in Welsh History), (Cardiff, 2001).

Chris Cutler, Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper from Henry Cow, along with Robert Wyatt and poet Adrian Mitchell recorded The Last Nightingale in October 1984 to raise money for the strikers and their families. [147] a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay "Strike: 358 Days that Shook the Nation". Sunday Times. London, UK. 1985. ISBN 0-340-38445-X. Wilsher, Peter, Donald Macintyre, and Michael CE Jones, eds. Strike: Thatcher, Scargill and the miners (A. Deutsch, 1985) Martin Kettle, "The National Reporting Centre and the 1984 miners' strike," in Bob Fine and Robert Millar, eds., Policing the miners' strike (1985), pp. 23–33.Milmo, Cahal (8 July 2008). "Grimethorpe Colliery Band left brassed off by music festival snub". The Independent. London . Retrieved 21 March 2009. Media reports alleged that senior NUM officials were personally keeping some of the funds. In November 1984, it was alleged that senior NUM officials had travelled to Libya for money. [78] Cash from the Libyan government was particularly damaging coming seven months after the murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London by Libyan agents. In 1990, the Daily Mirror and TV programme The Cook Report claimed that Scargill and the NUM had received money from the Libyan government. The allegations were based on allegations by Roger Windsor, who was the NUM official who had spoken to Libyan officials. Roy Greenslade, the editor of the Mirror, said 18 years later he was "now convinced that Scargill didn't misuse strike funds and that the union didn't get money from Libya." [79] This was long after an investigation by Seumas Milne described the allegations as wholly without substance and a "classic smear campaign". [80] Born and bred in Worksop, once the area’s industrial powerhouse, Whitehead believes demographic changes also have a lot to do with Labour losing a quarter of its votes in Bassetlaw at the last general election and a 7% swing to the Tories in neighbouring Bolsover, where Dennis Skinner lost his seat after 49 years.