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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— December - January
Arthur Scargill
Kevin Brannigan (KB) – Folk singer Billy Bragg
recently said, ‘Today’s economic crisis started
on March rd , the day the Miners were
defeated’. Do you support this view?
Arthur Scargill (AS) – No. Billy Bragg unfortu-
nately has moved to the right instead of moving
to the left. Billy Bragg supported the miners in
/’ and indeed did a lot of things which
were very positive, but I think his analysis is
completely wrong. The position is that the
Labour and Trade Union movement failed to
understand in /’ that this was not just
a matter of a dispute between an industry and
a trade union, this was a fight promoted by
the Tory Government to try and destroy trade
unionism. Had other Trade Unions accepted
the call of the Miners Union to come out on
strike with them the strike would have been
over in weeks, but incidentally, you might not
know this, but on five separate occasions we
reached an agreement to settle the strike, on
four of those occasions they were sabotaged
by Thatcher and the Government, and on
the fifth occasion the most important one in
October we reached an agreement iron-
ically at ACAS [the Advisory, Conciliation and
Arbitration Service] and with the Deputies
Union present I drafted an agreement which
would have settled the strike.
I can tell you that the Government accepted,
in secret, that deal and it was only when the Trade
Union known as NACODS [National Association
of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers]
suddenly changed their position, withdrawing
from the agreement they had made with the
NUM at ACAS, that the Tory Government with-
drew from its proposal to settle the strike. And
even to this day nobody has been able to answer
the question why did they change their mind?
They even refused a plea from the [Trade Union
Congress] TUC leadership not to call off their
strike. Probably the first time in history that the
TUC has asked somebody to go on strike.
KB – Well why do you think they changed their
mind?
AS – I’m still looking for the answer. It’s like the
Ark of the Covenant, but we’ll find out someday.
Arthur Scargill, former leader of Britain’s National Union of
Mineworkers and leader of the UK Socialist Labour Party, shares his
views on Margaret Thatcher, James Connolly and journalism.
k e v i n b r a n n i g a n
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
KB – You said in a Television interview in
that you were “proud to be an enemy
of capitalism”. Saying such stuff was never
going to help you find a middle ground with
Thatcher.
AS – Absolutely. You get knocked down, in the
middle of the road. I’ve never been in the middle
of the road I’ve always been on the left and always
will be for the rest of my life. You either take a
stand and want to see society changed so that the
means of production, distribution and exchange
are in the hands of ordinary people and not in the
hands of a few or you go along with the concept
that we support Social Democracy and become
part of the system that we become infected with
capitalism as a way of life. I’m sorry I don’t go
with that I’m a Socialist and like James Connolly
I didn’t want just to see Irish Independence and
Nationalism I want to see a Socialist Ireland. Still
do. United.
KB – Was it class war in /’?
AS – It’s been class war ever since the begin-s been class war ever since the begin-
ning of capitalism. If one looks at it you can only
define class in political terms by applying one sci-
entific process. There are only two classes. This
nonsense about the middle class and the upper-
middle class and the lower – middle classes is an
invention of the sociologists, perpetuated by the
broadcasters on television and radio. A class is
determined by its relationship to the means of
production; if you own and control industry and
services then you are a member of the capitalist
ruling class. If you work by hand or by brain, no
matter what your job is, you are a member of the
working class and until people understand that
they will never understand the nature of what
class is or class warfare.
KB – When you look back now after years
with the ability to analyse and pick out
where mistakes were made and you see how
Thatcher had stockpiled coal before the strike
had started and that she had plans to import
coal into Britain. Do you look back at these
events and ever think that you had no chance
of success from the start?
AS – See one of the first things you should do,
as a journalist, is never make the presumption
that your question is the right thing to say. In
other words, never make a presumption that your
point is something that’s a fact. It’s not true. They
didn’t have the reserves. At the start of the strike
in , the coal industry had certain supplies
but for major industry, such as the power indus-
try, there was a -week supply only. More
important, the cement industry, which is depen-
dent upon coal, had only around weeks’ sup-
ply. But the most vulnerable of all was the steel
industry, which had only got weeks supply left
and no stocking grounds. That’s why Orgreave
was so important and had people followed my
advice to recreate what we did at Saltley in
- and kept up the mass picketing not only
at Orgreave but at Ravenscraig and, Llanwern, at
Port Talbot and all the other steel plants in Britain
- we would have had the strike settled within weeks.
Bearing in mind that at Scunthorpe, for example,
which was dependent upon cooking coal, that
steel works had only got about a week’s supply left
when we had the mass picket at Orgreave.
They couldn’t get coal in by sea because the
seamen had stopped it, they couldn’t get coal in by
rail because the [National Union of Railwaymen]
NUR as it then was had stopped it they couldn’t
get it up the wharf because we’d stopped it with
our pickets and their only route was by road; and
if other Trade Unionists had taken the advice that
I gave at the time - indeed if the NUM leadership
in many areas had taken the advice to step up the
picketing as we had done in in February -
then we would have brought Orgreave to a per-
manent standstill. Tell you an interesting story;
just a few years after the miners’ strike ended I
put a telephone call through to the police HQ at
South Yorkshire and I asked them if they could
send some police straight away down to Orgreave.
They said “what for, Sir?” Well I said they’re clos-
ing it. “Who’s closing it, Sir?” I said, the British
Steel Corporation. “What’s that got to do with
us?” Well, I said, it had a lot to do with you in
- you had , riot police down here and
we had , pickets trying to stop that plant
temporarily just for five or six days. Here British
steel are, closing it permanently and we can’t find
one police officer. By the way, that’s called class
struggle.
KB – How different a place would Britain be
today if the miners had won in /’?
AB – Well I don’t believe we were defeated - so let’s
get that absolutely clear - and I resent and reject
this concept that we were defeated. What per-
son in his right mind today would say that James
Connolly and those who stormed the GPO in
were defeated? Nobody in their right mind.
You wouldn’t have the Republic of Ireland with-
out their campaign, their determination and their
heroism. Looking through history, people have
been told that they were defeated only to see time
and time again that was not the case. Probably
the most significant is in Cuba. They celebrate
and the storming of the Moncada Barracks
where it was commonly conceded that they had
lost. , Fidel Castro and Che Guevara walked
into Havana and raised the flag of the Revolution,
which still flies today. Who won?
KB - The British working class have elected
two fascists to the European Parliament. Why
has this happened?
AS – Well it’s simple. You have got economic
condition now prevailing not dissimilar to those
that prevailed in the s and it’s throughout
Europe. It’s caused by capitalism and it’s certainly
caused by membership of the European Union.
Anyone who is daft enough to support the con-
cept of the EU doesn’t understand the damage
that it does to countries like Great Britain or to
countries like Ireland where the crisis has been
catastrophic. We for example, have not only the
free movement of capital but the free movement
of labour, in other words it can just move around
“What person
in his right
mind today
would say that
James Connolly
and those who
stormed the GPO
in 1916 were
defeated?”
Also in this section
Geoghegan-Quinn
Colombia
Israel and the EU
International equality
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
— December - January
as it wants and it can close down a factory, it can
close down a business in Ireland - it can move
it to another country. If workers want to go on
strike and do exactly the same thing, withdraw
their labour, they’re suddenly confronted with
legislation and legal constraints and that demon-
strates how they try to keep peoples living stan-
dards down.
KB –In January of this year we had the Lindsey
oil refinery strike in England, which featured
placards with the legend ‘British Jobs for
British Workers’. What was that about?
AS – It’s about the same thing I’ve just told you
about. You can’t have a situation were people can
just move factories out of Britain or move labour -
not about immigration not asylum seekers. There
is a difference. You can’t have a situation were
you can just move migrant labour, migrant capi-
tal into a society with it having devastating effects
on the whole society because it will undermine
the whole system that exists.
KB – You left the Labour Party in and the
Socialist Labour Party [SLP] was set up after
that. Can the left reclaim ‘New Labour’?
AS – No it can’t. First of all let me correct you,
the SLP was established in at a conference
in Edinburgh by James Connolly. Our policies
are as near as they possibly could be to those
devised by James Connolly in the original mani-
festo. We re-founded the SLP in because
of the betrayal of the Labour leadership. I t ’s
now abandoned any vestige of pretending to be
a party that supports socialism. It’s eliminated
from its constitution any commitment to social-
ism or public ownership. But more than that it’s
dropped the twin cornerstones which formed
the Labour party, a social democratic party one
is Propositional Representation, which was
abandoned by Ramsay MacDonald, that arch
betrayer of the Labour movement, in and
then in Blair abandoned the commitment
to common ownership. Now you can’t have those
twin policies removed and make any distinction
from the Tory party or the Liberal Party, indeed
making it to the right of the
Liberal party, and then say-
ing we can re-claim it. You
might as well say we can go
into the Tory party and re-
claim that or change it. I t ’s
complete and utter non-
sense you can’t do it.
KB – You’re a supporter
of Sinn Féin, to an extent,
how do you think they
have preformed in
Government in the North
of Ireland?
AS – Again you see you
make presumptions. I’m
a supporter of the Socialist
Labour Party. I want to see a
socialist Ireland. To do that
you need a socialist policy
and you need to make that
absolutely crystal clear to
the electorate on both sides of the border.
KB- Has Sinn Féin been socialist enough since
the signing of the Good Friday Agreement?
AS – Well I think with respect I’ve just answered
your question. I will support any argument by
any organisation for independence. I will support
any organisation that campaigns for the right of
self-determination. That’s the reason why I sup-
ported for years the campaigns put forward by
Republicans in Ireland for a united Ireland. That’s
why I supported the [African National Congress]
ANC in South Africa, because I wanted to see an
independent South Africa free from apartheid.
But of course that’s not far enough what you need
is a socialist South Africa and a socialist Ireland.
KB – What is your opinion on how much Trade
Union leaders should earn?
AS – I think Trade Union leaders should be paid in
accordance to decisions taken by their members.
I think that’s perfectly reasonable and perfectly
understandable. I don’t go for the Trotskyite
argument, which appears to be coming from
your question about what they should be paid.
No outside body should start interfering. You’ll
find that by and large if you look at trade Union
leaders it’s not their salaries that are the problem
it’s their policies. And some of the leaders in the
past who have been the most militant have been
the most attacked and vilified and I don’t need to
spell them out to you, certainly as someone who
has been under surveillance by the British state
on their own admission since .
KB- Finally, regular contributor to Village
magazine, George Monbiot [green cam-
paigner] has yet to take you up on your chal-
lenge to stand in a room full of radiation for
more than two minutes. [Arthur Scargill chal-
lenged Monbiot in an article in The Guardian
last year, “I challenge George Monbiot to test
out which is the most dangerous fuel - coal
or nuclear power. I am prepared to go into a
room full of CO for two minutes, if he is pre-
pared to go into a room full of radiation for
two minutes.”]
AS – I’m still waiting for him to take up the chal- still waiting for him to take up the chal-
lenge but he never has. Of course if he walked
into a room full of radiation - my choosing not
his - he wouldn’t last. I know I can hold my
breath for two minutes because I’ve tried it
you see and I know what happens with carbon
dioxide. But what also is important is that he
can’t get rid of radiation from nuclear power
stations and so in supporting nuclear power
stations I would say he needs to see a psychia-
trist! In the case of coal we now know, we’ve got
the proof, we can remove the carbon by a sys-
tem called ‘carbon capture’, and that means no
carbon will escape into the atmosphere so we
don’t have the global warming problem com-
ing from coal. It’s high time people began to
identify where the emissions are coming from.
They’re coming from air transport, they’re
coming from transport on the roads, and
they’re coming from shipping and of course
many other areas that they don’t often refer
to throughout the world. The real problem is
there isn’t a sensible integrated energy policy
that excludes nuclear power completely and
begins to develop in our case the , years
plus of coal and extract from that coal all the
oil, gas and petro chemicals we need and at
the same time does not emit dangerous gases
including CO into the atmosphere.
“Anyone who is daft enough
to support the concept of
the EU doesn’t understand
the damage that it does to
countries like Great Britain
or to countries like Ireland
where the crisis has been
catastrophic”
Arthur Scargill
