Solidarity, class struggle and the state – the miners’ strike 40 years on with Ian Mitchell скачать в хорошем качестве

Solidarity, class struggle and the state – the miners’ strike 40 years on with Ian Mitchell

Hosted by Glasgow SWP Flying pickets, brutal police repression, working class solidarity: the 1984-85 miners’ strike was the longest and bitterest national strike in British working class history. For 12 months miners fought an unprecedented battle to defend their jobs and communities against the full might of the government and ruling class. The prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, provoked the strike then prosecuted it like a civil war. Almost 10,000 miners were arrested during the dispute. Forty years on, the strike holds important lessons for us today. Some say it was doomed to failure, and that the miners could never have won against the power of the state. But the truth is that if solidarity had been mobilised by the union leaders, Thatcher’s government could have been broken. Join these meetings to discuss the legacy of the strike, and what it can tell us about solidarity, class struggle and the state today.