Scargill joins rally marking 40 years since Orgreave

Former National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leader Arthur Scargill was among around 400 people to mark the 40th anniversary of one of the most violent days of the miners’ strike.

People from across the country waved banners as the annual Orgreave rally took place in Sheffield city center on Saturday.

Organizers said the event was organized to raise awareness of the June 1984 clash between police and miners outside the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire.

Chris Peace, from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, said it was important to “remember what happened that day”.

“We have a rally every year and for the last few years it’s been here in Sheffield, but we’re here to remember what happened that day and to remind everyone, especially those who have the power to do something in this day, that this wrong has not been righted and we still need the truth and justice of that day,” she told BBC Look North.

The Battle of Orgreave, as it is often referred to, began when thousands of miners, striking against the closure of the pits, surrounded the plant on 18 June 1984 to try to stop lorries carrying coal into the plant.

They were met by approximately 6,000 police, some on horseback and some with riot shields.

More than 100 people were injured after mounted police attacked the miners.

95 miners were arrested and charged with rioting and unlawful assembly.

However, their trials collapsed amid allegations of police misconduct and perjury by officers.

Mr Scargill was NUM president at the time and is now 86.

He attended, but did not address, Saturday’s rally.

Ms Peace, whose campaign group organized the event, said justice was still needed for what the men had been through.

She said: “Hopefully an inquiry now would bring some accountability as there has been no accountability or official admission that there was state interference in the way the police acted during the miners’ strike, not just at Orgreave but the whole strike.

“There is now evidence in the public domain that there was direct interference from members of the Cabinet and that the Prime Minister of the day intervened in how the pickets were controlled, interfering with the charges that were brought to court and even interfering with what sentences they got were pronounced.

“We cannot have a government interfering in police operations. They lied then, they said they weren’t interfering, but now we know they definitely were.”

The rally came just days after Labor pledged in its general election manifesto to back a full inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave.

The Liberal Democrats, UK Reform and the Green Party told the BBC this week they supported an inquiry in principle into the events at Orgreave.

In 2016, the Conservative government rejected calls for an inquiry, which the then home secretary, Amber Rudd, said would not be in the “public interest”.

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