Battle of Orgreave

Orgreave Coking Works, photographed in 1989.

The Battle of Orgreave is the name given to a confrontation which took place on 18 June 1984 between police and picketing miners at a British Steel coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire.[1] It was a pivotal event in the 1984–85 UK miners' strike, and one of the "most violent clashes in British industrial history."[2][3][4] Tristram Hunt described the confrontation as "almost medieval in its choreography... at various stages a siege, a battle, a chase, a rout and, finally, a brutal example of legalised state violence."[5] The media reported it as "an act of self-defence by police who had come under attack."[6]

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) deployed 5,000 pickets from across the UK, who planned to use sheer numbers ("mass picketing") to prevent access to the works by strike-breaking lorries that collected coke for use at the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe.[7][8] Mass picketing had proved successful at the Battle of Saltley Gate in Saltley, Birmingham, during the 1972 miners' strike.[9][5] At Saltley Coke Works, 30,000 pickets and supporters led by Arthur Scargill had faced 800 police officers, and on 10 February 1972 Sir Derrick Capper, the Chief constable of Birmingham City Police, ordered the coking plant to close its gates "in the interests of public safety."[10][11][12][13] Closure of the Saltley works secured victory for the NUM and 9 days later the Conservative Government of Edward Heath agreed to meet the union's demands.[14][15]

The police were determined not to see a repeat of Saltley and deployed over 8,000 officers at Orgreave, equipped with riot gear and supported by mounted police and police dogs.[16] Robert East et al, writing in the Journal of Law and Society in 1985, suggest that rather than maintaining order "the police intended that Orgreave would be a 'battle' where, as a result of their preparation and organisation, they would 'defeat' the pickets."[16] Having corralled the pickets into a field overlooking the coke works, they positioned officers equipped with long riot shields facing them at the bottom of the field and mounted police and dogs to either side. A road along one side of the field allowed the mounted police to deploy rapidly, and a railway cutting at the top of the field made retreat by the pickets difficult and dangerous.[1] When the pickets surged forward at the arrival of the first convoy of lorries, Assistant Chief Constable Anthony Clement ordered a mounted charge against them. It was "a serious overreaction" and the miners responded by throwing stones and other misiles at the police lines.[5] Clement ordered 2 further mounted advances, and the third advance was "backed up by short-shield snatch squads" who followed the mounted police, "delivering baton beatings to the unarmed miners."[5] There followed a lull of several hours, during which many pickets left the scene. By now "massively outnumbering" the pickets, the police advanced again and launched another mounted charge. The police pursued the pickets out of the field and into Orgreave village where Clement ordered a mounted police canter which Hunt described as an "out-of-control police force [charging] pickets and onlookers alike on terraced, British streets."[5]

Following the confrontation, 95 pickets were charged with riot or violent disorder.[17] At the time, riot was punishable by life imprisonment. The trials collapsed when the evidence given by the police was deemed "unreliable".[18] Gareth Peirce, who defended some of the pickets at the trial, wrote in The Guardian in 1985: "Orgreave... revealed that in this country we now have a standing army available to be deployed against gatherings of civilians whose congregation is disliked by senior police officers. It is answerable to no one; it is trained in tactics which have been released to no one, but which include the deliberate maiming and injuring of innocent persons to disperse them, in complete violation of the law."[19]

Background to the picket

The Orgreave coking works, where coal was turned into coke for use in steel production, was regarded by Arthur Scargill as crucial. Early in the strike, British Steel plants had been receiving "dispensations", picket-permitted movements of coal to prevent damage to their furnaces. However, it was found that more than the permitted amount of coal had been delivered, so action was taken.

Two months went by before it dawned on Yorkshire, South Wales and Scotland that they had been outmanoeuvred by British Steel, and the leadership of the steelworkers' union, and that British Steel was moving far more coal than the dispensations agreed with NUM areas. Yet there was still time to stop all those giant steelworks, and if the steelworkers' union would not cooperate with the NUM to stop all deliveries of coal to the steelworks then the National Union of Seamen and rail unions ASLEF and NUR had already demonstrated that they would stop all deliveries.[9]

If coal could be prevented from reaching there, the low stocks at British Steel plants such as Ravenscraig steelworks would be exhausted and the furnaces prevented from "ticking over", causing significant economic damage to the industry.[9]

Aftermath

Official reports state that during the confrontation 93 arrests were made, with 51 pickets and 72 policemen injured.

95 pickets were charged with riot, unlawful assembly and similar offences after the battle. A number of these were put on trial in 1987, but the trials collapsed, all charges were dropped and a number of lawsuits were brought against the police for assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution. South Yorkshire Police later agreed to pay £425,000 compensation and £100,000 in legal costs to 39 pickets in an out of court settlement. However, no officer was disciplined for misconduct.

Michael Mansfield QC described the evidence given by South Yorkshire Police as "the biggest frame-up ever". He said that the force had a culture of fabricating evidence, which was not corrected by the time of the Hillsborough disaster. After the 2012 report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, NUM leader Chris Kitchen called for the investigation into the force's practices to be widened to cover the Orgreave clashes.[20] Also in 2012, the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) was formed to campaign for a public enquiry into the policing of the events of 18 June 1984, following the success of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign[21][22][23] In October 2012 the BBC broadcast a documentary about what happened at Orgreave. The programme revealed evidence that there was evidence that South Yorkshire Police had deliberately attempted to co-ordinate arrest statements in order to charge the miners with riot.[24] Following the programme, South Yorkshire Police referred itself to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.[25]

In June 2015 the IPCC announced that it would not launch a formal investigation into the events at Ogreave because too much time had passed.[26] A Labour MP, Helen Jones, responded in the House of Commons by expressing her "deep concern", saying that the decision "calls into question whether the IPCC is fit for purpose".[27]

Conspiracy theory

Paul Routledge, biographer of Arthur Scargill, suggested that the National Coal Board had used the Orgreave dispute as a diversionary tactic to concentrate pickets in one location, and relieve the pressure of policing working pits in Nottinghamshire.[28] He writes that Kevin Hunt, the NCB director of industrial relations, had asked Arthur Scargill in advance if he would allow more tonnage to be allowed out of Orgreave, which led Scargill to believe that Orgreave was a pressure point that he should target. The picketing of working pits in Nottinghamshire lost momentum after Orgreave, partly because many pickets were given bail conditions after being arrested, and the number of strikers in Nottinghamshire decreased.[28]

Ian MacGregor, Chairman of the NCB, wrote in his biography, "It [Orgreave] became a cause célèbre for Scargill, a fight he had to win. We were quite encouraged that he thought it so important and did everything we could to help him continue to think so, but the truth was that it hardly mattered a jot to us - beyond the fact that it kept him out of Nottingham."[29]

David Hart, a libertarian who was active in strike-busting tactics for the NCB, made controversial claims that Orgreave was "a set-up by us". He said in a 1993 interview, "The coke was of no interest whatsoever. We didn't need it. It was a battle ground of our choosing on grounds of our choosing. I don't think that Scargill believes that even today. The fact is that it was a set-up and it worked brilliantly."[30] Following his comments, senior managers from the NCB denied these claims and threatened Hart with disassociation.[28]

The Battle of Orgreave in culture

In 2001, conceptual artist Jeremy Deller originated and set in motion the idea of a re-enactment of the event as an arts project, commissioned by British arts organisation Artangel, with the recreations scripted and staged by historical re-enactment events company EventPlan Limited. The event took place on 17 June 2001 and was filmed by film director Mike Figgis for a Channel 4 documentary. The re-enactment featured 800 people including 280 local residents, a number of people (police and pickets) from the original encounter and 520 re-enactors from various groups such as Legio II Augusta (Romans), The Vikings, War of the Roses English Civil War Society and The Sealed Knot, but with authentic 1980s clothing and techniques. Only the railway crossing was omitted from the re-enactment, on safety grounds.

The Dire Straits song "Iron Hand" from the 1991 album On Every Street tells the story of the event.

The Manic Street Preachers song "30-Year War" from Rewind the Film mentions the event as an instance of class conflict.

In the video for his song "Sirens", Dizzee Rascal is chased by huntsmen through the fictional 'Orgreave Estate'.

Irvine Welsh's Skagboys opens with a journal entry detailing the lead character Mark Renton's experience at The Battle of Orgreave.

The confrontations at Orgreave form a substantial part of David Peace's 2004 novel GB84.

The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign has been involved in a number of fundraising and commemorative activities in 2014 and 2015, including live concerts and a fundraising double-CD compilation album, containing (in part) musical and spoken-word tracks relating to the events.[31][32][33]

References

  1. 1 2 Mansfield, Michael (June 2009). "Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Miners' Strike 1984-85". Socialist Lawyer (52): 16–18. ISSN 0954-3635. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  2. ↑ Conn, David (22 November 2012). "Miners' strike: how the bloodiest battle became the 'biggest frame-up'". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  3. ↑ Conn, David (22 July 2015). "We were fed lies about the violence at Orgreave. Now we need the truth". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  4. ↑ Philpott, Colin (28 December 2012). "The Battle of Orgreave: The story of an infamous confrontation between striking miners and police in Yorkshire". On:Yorkshire Magazine. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Hunt, Tristram (4 September 2006). "Charge of the heavy brigade". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  6. ↑ Bounds, Andrew (4 May 2016). "Orgreave miners take heart from Hillsborough verdict". Financial Times (London). Retrieved 6 May 2016. (subscription required (help)).
  7. ↑ Callinicos, Alex (5 March 2014). "The battle of Orgreave and how it was lost". Socialist Worker (London). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  8. ↑ Johnson, Dan (12 June 2015). "Background: 'The Battle of Orgreave'". BBC News. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  9. 1 2 3 Scargill, Arthur (7 March 2009). "'We could surrender - or stand and fight'". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  10. ↑ Robertson, Jack (23 April 2010). "25 years after the Great Miners' Strike". International Socialism (126) (London). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  11. ↑ Maconie, Stuart (2011). Hope and Glory: A People’s History of Modern Britain. London: Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-091-92648-9.
  12. ↑ Bunyan, Tony (1985). "From Saltley to Orgreave via Brixton". Journal of Law and Society 12 (3): 293–303. doi:10.2307/1410123. ISSN 0263-323X.
  13. ↑ Mackie, Phil (10 February 2012). "Arthur Scargill and the Battle of Saltley Gate". BBC News. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  14. ↑ Griffin, Jon (23 January 2012). "40 years on from the miners' battle of Saltley Coke works". Birmingham Post (Birmingham). Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  15. ↑ "1972: Miners strike against government". BBC News. 9 January 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2016.
  16. 1 2 East, Robert; Power, Helen; Thomas, Philip A. (1985). "The Death of Mass Picketing". Journal of Law and Society 12 (3): 305–319. doi:10.2307/1410124. ISSN 0263-323X.
  17. ↑ George, Mark (29 April 2016). "Like Hillsborough, Orgreave cries out for justice". The Justice Gap. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  18. ↑ Conn, David (14 November 2014). "Tell us the truth about the battle of Orgreave". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  19. ↑ Peirce, Gareth (12 August 1985). "How they rewrote the law at Orgreave". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  20. ↑ Conn, David (21 October 2012). "Hillsborough investigation should be extended to Orgreave, says NUM leader". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 22 October 2012.
  21. ↑ Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign
  22. ↑ Flannery, Kate; Etherington, David (20 March 2015). "Orgreave: no justice, no peace". Red Pepper.
  23. ↑ "Orgreave Truth And Justice Campaign". Morning Star.
  24. ↑ "Orgreave - BBC - Battle for Orgreave". Dailymotion.
  25. ↑ "IPCC apologise for Orgreave probe delay". BBC News. 14 November 2013.
  26. ↑ Conn, David (12 June 2015). "IPCC will not investigate Orgreave police action during miners' strike". The Guardian.
  27. ↑ "Police Watchdog 'Not Fit For Purpose', Argues MP". Morning Star. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  28. 1 2 3 Routledge, Paul. Scargill: the unauthorized biography. London: Harper Collins. pp. 155–156. ISBN 0006380778.
  29. ↑ MacGregor, Ian (1986). The Enemies Within. Collins. p. 205. ISBN 978-0002177061. in Routledge, Paul (1994). Scargill: the unauthorized biography. London: Harper Collins. pp. 155–156. ISBN 0006380778.
  30. ↑ Interview by Paul Routledge with David Hart, 11 January 1993 in Routledge, Paul. Scargill: the unauthorized biography. London: Harper Collins. pp. 155–156. ISBN 0006380778.
  31. ↑ https://usilive.org/opinions/rock-against-what-protest-music-makes-a-welcome-return-for-orgreave-justice-campaign/
  32. ↑ Lazenby, Peter (16 June 2014). "Battle of Orgreave 30th Anniversary: We Demand Justice For Victims of Police Brutality, Says 1,500-Strong Crowd". Morning Star.
  33. ↑ http://louderthanwar.com/orgreave-truth-and-justice-cd-out-now/

External links

Coordinates: 53°22′39″N 1°22′24″W / 53.37750°N 1.37333°W / 53.37750; -1.37333

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