19 June 1984: On the day after the Battle of Orgreave, the Labour MP for Doncaster North contrasts police behaviour towards striking miners under the (Conservative) Heath and Thatcher governments
House of Commons. 1984/06/19. Coal Industry Dispute. Hansard, Vol. 62. London: UK Parliament. Licensed under Open Parliament Licence, without modification. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
Mr. Michael Welsh (Doncaster, North)
At Orgreave yesterday, the chief constable of south Yorkshire must have ordered a tremendous number of policemen to carry out their duties there, but then he also brought in the cavalry. There were light troops on horseback hurting the lads on strike and wielding their batons unmercifully. We then saw the riot squad move in and do the same think to our lads—belting them across the head. The result was that 16 loads of coal left the depot for an undertaking that had no desire for it. In Saltley in 1972, the miners went to picket and the chief constable closed the depot down. Nobody was hurt. Which of those chief constables acted most rationally?
Mr. Brittan
If a highwayman holds one up, it is always possible to avoid violence by handing over to him what he wants. I do not commend that course to a society that believes in freedom.
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- 1972 United Kingdom miners’ strike (1) W/G ·
- 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners’ strike (1) W/G ·
- Battle of Orgreave (1) W/G ·
- Battle of Saltley Gate (1) W/G ·
- Birmingham (8) W/G ·
- British Steel (1967–1999) (1) W/G ·
- Coal mining (27) W/G ·
- Coke (fuel) (5) W/G ·
- Conservative Party (1834-) (25) W/G ·
- First Thatcher ministry (2) W/G ·
- Heath ministry (4) W/G ·
- Heath, Edward (4) W/G ·
- Industrial action (1) W/G ·
- Labour Party (UK) (17) W/G ·
- Metropolitan Police (1) W/G ·
- Michael Welsh (Labour politician) (1) W/G ·
- National Coal Board (2) W/G ·
- National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) (2) W/G ·
- Orgreave, South Yorkshire (1) W/G ·
- Picketing (2) W/G ·
- Rotherham (21) W/G ·
- Saltley (1) W/G ·
- South Yorkshire Police (3) W/G ·
- Thatcher, Margaret (4) W/G ·
- Yorkshire (8) W/G ·
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From the Spanish Civil War I’m familiar with deals where people from place A sin in place B, and vice versa, in order to avoid recognition, but I don’t get the impression from the articles in the Mercury that the troublemakers were all strangers, though it may have been convenient to say so – perhaps in order to maintain Lister’s commitment to the pit.
How to construe “queer”? Irvin Saxton, who has done a brilliant job of collecting material relating to the history of Featherstone, says the jury was chosen by Sergeant Sparrow and included miners, checkweighmen, deputies, a builder, a timekeeper and a postman (Saxton 2021/03). What does “chosen” mean, etc. etc.? And oh! to have been a fly on the wall as they balanced truth with expediency!
Saxton cites Asquith, home secretary in Gladstone’s 1892-95 Liberal government, and his self-justification is also interesting:
The Featherstone Riot … aroused considerable controversy at the time, and earned for me for some years in the rhetoric of the Labour platform the designation of “Asquith the Murderer.” It came about as follows. A miners’ coal strike had been for some time going on at or near Featherstone in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Its progress was marked by growing disturbances, which developed into organized violence and arson. The local magistrates, with whom the responsibility for the preservation of peace and the protection of property primarily rests, were soon brought to the end of their resources; they tried in vain to supplement their own police by borrowing from adjoining areas; and at last, in response to their repeated appeals to the Home Office, I sanctioned their applying for the necessary help from the military forces in the neighbourhood, whose legal duty it is, according to the Common Law of England, as citizens, to come to the aid of the civil power in such an emergency.
Their intervention put an end to the whole disturbance within forty-eight hours. A magistrate was present with the troops; he made no fewer than seven appeals to the crowd, who were armed with sticks and bludgeons, to discontinue the work of destruction, much valuable property being already ablaze; the Riot Act was read; a bayonet charge was unavailingly made; and as the defensive position held by the small detachment of soldiers (fewer than thirty men) was becoming untenable, and the complete destruction of the colliery was imminent, the magistrate gave orders to the commander to fire. Two men on the fringe of the crowd were unfortunately killed.
As I was not satisfied, after a careful study of the evidence given at the two inquests, that all the facts had been adequately investigated, I took the unusual course of appointing a Special Commission to examine and report upon the whole affair. The commissioners whom I nominated were Lord Bowen, one of the most eminent of the judicial members of the House of Lords, Sir Albert Rollit, a solicitor of wide experience and a Conservative M.P., and Mr. Haldane, then a Liberal member, and afterwards Lord Chancellor.
No one disputed the impartiality and competence of the Commission, and after an exhaiistive inquiry at Wakefield they made a Report, setting out in detail all the facts, defining in a passage which has become a classic in our law, the respective duties of the civil and military powers in such cases, and completely justifying in every respect the action both of tlie magistrates and of the officers and rank and file of the soldiers. The matter was then fully debated in the House of Commons, when I challenged in vain my accusers to prefer and make good any charge which they thought fit to make.
It took years, however, to dissipate the legend, assiduously circulated, mainly by ejaculations from the back benches of so-called “Labour” meetings, that I had sent down the soldiers deliberately to help the owners in the dispute and to thin the ranks of the strikers.
(Asquith 1928)
It is with a kind of despair that those who have hoped that this dispute might end with some concession on the part of the coal-owners now see a small reckless percentage of the colliers throwing away tactical advantages. Hitherto public sympathy has been remarkably evenly divided between the parties. The miners’ refusal of arbitration has been resented by many; the abrupt and tactless demand of the coal-owners for a heavy [wage] reduction “in one piece” has been resented by about as many more.
But riots like this bring a mass of fresh public opinion to bear. The miners appear as wanton robbers and destroyers, the coal-owners as law-abiding men subjected to cruel injury.
For the sake of the miners and of trade unionism itself, we hope that every repetition of these blundering crimes will be repressed with more common sense than when soldiers were helplessly looking on for want of a magistrate to read the Riot Act.
(Guardian 1893/09/09)
A Mercury article published on the same day or shortly thereafter contradicts the Guardian line that three died: apparently Tomlinson survived.
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