Veteran of the British Miners' Strike Remembers.

 

This was a comment Andrew Birchall put on his Facebook page and that I have permission to reprint here. He describes what happened to him after the defeat of the British Miner’s strike in 1984-85. I was on those picket lines and this strike had a profound effect on my thinking. Thatcher and Reagan’s man, Ian MacGregor, the Scottish American industrialist, were intent on breaking the back of one of Britain’s strongest unions, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

This assault on the NUM, an assault that was not confronted in a serious way by the TUC, the British equivalent of the AFL-CIO or the Labor Party, broke the back of the strongest union in Britain and set the British working class back for decades. I have left the English spelling and grammar as the original. RM

 

By Andrew Birchall

 

Thatcher the politician that never stops giving, so insightful that she closed the Coal Mines to save the planet. This is what Boris Johnson informed journalists, when nothing is further from the truth.

Margaret Thatcher and the Tories Pit closure programme was an attack not only on the Miners Union, it was an attack on organised labour and was needed to bring working people to heel. It was an attack on our way of life.

It was to teach us a lesson that their class, a minority of powerful people are in charge and they must beat the enemy within.

The pits gave us the dignity of Labour, it gave us a community and we were from a proud tradition of forming a social bond to protect and enhance our interests. Job security, pay and relatively safe working conditions, if you were from a coal mining community you would see the effects of a life of toil on those we lived with and around, it wasn't perfect but there wasn't much else and that's the real point.

The Tories closed the pits and there was no planned transition, just a payoff and the job centre. One of the lowest points for me was an advertisement in the job centre.

Security person wanted, £1.50/hr, must have their own dog. I actually thought, I wish I had a dog!

The time I was unemployed destroyed my soul, as I had little or no money. If I did go out, I never accepted a drink from anyone because I couldn't buy them one back, and I dreaded the question, what do you do?

On the dole I did some casual work, someone reported me and I was threatened with prosecution, by this time I just said fine, lock me up, I've had enough. They just stopped my dole.

Then as now the Labour Movement was all over the place. What was left of the unions focused on members, so that meant they focused on those in work.  They were fragmented

and beaten after this massive attack on our class, which had very personal effects on millions of us, and retreated into damage control.

Labour Party politicians in place nationally and locally had relatively secure positions in safe Labour areas and so they sympathised and tried their best, yet seemed powerless to change anything.

Kinnock and then new Labour selling out, reinforcing the message that we should think ourselves lucky if you have a job, many including myself came round to the idea of a job at any price. No pledges from the Party of Labour for full employment, no they would help get us work ready for the bosses, those who own and control the world of work.

The social isolation, the loss of dignity and status as a worker nearly finished me off. In fact, I don't think I will ever recover. Yosser Hughes kept coming to mind, give us a job, I can do that, was in my thoughts daily.*

People like me didn't care about the planet, didn't care about anything it was a living nightmare and at times I just wanted it to end. Still do and the Tories are still at it.

In the Trade Union Movement we were taught about the “we “ yet this was all about me. Our dad kept me alive, he was a hard man never did show much emotion, yet he pulled me to one side and said don't do anything stupid lad, know your dad loves you.

Without my family and friends I don't think I would have made it. “The end of society” another Thatcher quote, was very real.

This is just my story, there are millions like these, millions untold and millions more will go untold, all the time organised labour gave ground, it was a nail in the coffin of the next generation.

The damaged caused for me is beyond repair, in fact it lies deep in my subconscious, the fear of Tories, the fear of capitalism and its forever ongoing insecurities is there deep in my soul everyday, all day.

I see it daily, the sun never sets on the pain and anguish caused by these greedy, selfish, nasty, downright evil Tories.

The effect they have on our lives determined in Westminster, Whitehall and the corporate boardrooms, decisions made that benefit profit at the expense of humanity is there pragmatically in our lives, they make it seem and feel normal.

Neoliberalism is the dominant idea that is our reality, we must adjust and deal with it or go under, some don't make it, not because they are weak, it is because we live in an economic system that prioritises money, profit and the accumulation of private wealth before the public good.

Capitalism is an economic system that develops and affirms and reaffirms its values and beliefs, it socialises us into its traditions. Many of us struggle knowing that there's something wrong, your senses, feelings of the intelligent beings we are knows something isn't right.

Do we fight back, or do we become desensitised by our experiences, personally approaching 60 this month I am asking myself do I have the energy for one more round with these Tories, which ever Party they are in.

Again feeling I am a bit lost and powerless my mind turns from thinking about the “we “to the “me”. I know by experience that thinking about me and only me the Tories get their way.

I will never forgive or forget what Thatcher did, and the Tories are still doing to ordinary relatively powerless people.

I will always be a member of a union, yet the left is split, I question daily, sometimes hourly is the Labour Party still worth supporting, power does funny things to people, our system seems to bring out the inner sociopath in what are otherwise quite different people.

So no, Thatcher didn't save the planet, she and the Tories are anti planet and oppose humanity, and the sooner we are rid of them the better it will be for all of us, even them.

Solidarity
Viva la Peaceful Revolution

 

*Jimmy "Yosser" Hughes is a fictional character from Alan Bleasdale's 1982 television series Boys from the Blackstuff, set in Liverpool, portrayed by Bernard Hill.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosser_Hughes