Former National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill was spotted on the picket line for a second day – standing on the track in solidarity with Mick Lynch’s mass strike.
The far-left arsonist was seen earlier with National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) strikers at Wakefield’s Westgate station on Tuesday, as 80 per cent of train services ground to a halt.
Today he joined the RMT picket lines in Sheffield for a second day of industrial action as they railed against the government and demanded a wage increase of at least 7 per cent in line with the cost of living crisis.
Speaking to ITV Today, Scargill said: “I think it should be the summer to start building a union and launching a socialist movement in Britain.
“It’s time for workers to come together. As far as I’m concerned, I would call on every railway worker to go on strike and force this government to withdraw.’
Former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers Arthur Scargill, 84, told ITV’s Martin Fisher: “I think it should be the summer to start building a union and start a socialist movement in Britain. “
Scargill today joined pickets for a second day of strikes in Sheffield
Scargill’s appearance on the second day of the rail strikes was welcomed by striking workers
Arthur Scargill, former President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1982 to 2002, joins the picket line outside Wakefield Train Station on Tuesday June 21st
A fervent communist, Arthur Scargill has today joined Mick Lynch’s mass rail strikes in solidarity with the ‘greedy’ union lords who have paralyzed Britain. Above: The former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers is seen on a picket line in Wakefield
Arthur Scargill was chairman of the National Union of Mineworkers for 30 years and led the 1984 miners’ strike
Scargill remains a controversial figure on the left and led the 1984 National Union of Mineworkers strike.
Unlike earlier strikes in 1972 and 1974, the industrial action failed to overthrow the government, which had prepared by stockpiling coal.
In June 1984, one of the most notorious episodes occurred when police in Rotherham clashed with pickets.
In what became known as the “Battle or Orgreave,” between 10,000 police officers and 5,000 miners fought each other.
Police said they acted in self-defense, but miners said the violence was instigated by officers.
95 miners were arrested but none successfully prosecuted. About 39 cases of unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution were settled without an admission of guilt by the police.
Beginning in early 1985, as miners struggled to pay for food and union wages ran out, the number of workers choosing to break the strike increased.
The industrial action finally ended on March 3, 1985, when the miners voted to return to work.
Scargill, pictured in 1986, speaking through a megaphone as President of the National Union of Mineworkers
Avid communist Arthur Scargill speaks at a rally in 1984, the year the infamous miners’ strike began
Scargill being assisted by riot police after being injured outside the Orgreave Coke Plant near Rotherham in 1984
Pit closures continued gradually through the 1980s and 1990s and Britain’s last active coal mine – Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire – closed in 2005.
After the miners’ strike, Scargill was controversially elected life president of the NUM before being accused of financial impropriety in the 1990s.
In 1996 he founded the obscure Socialist Labor Party and remains its leader to this day. He finally resigned from the NUM presidency in 2002.
In 2016, Scargill was accused of hypocrisy after it was revealed he bought his London council flat with Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy flagship.
He originally applied to buy his then £1million house at a bargain price in 1993 under the scheme but was turned down.
He didn’t mention in the filing that he doesn’t pay rent. Instead, the NUM paid £34,000 a year to the Corporation of London for this.
Scargill finally managed to purchase the home in January 2014.
Lynch, whose union represents 40,000 striking rail workers, told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast: “I’m nostalgic for the power we had and even more nostalgic for the control and values we had. There is talk of the winter of discontent and the excesses of the trade union movement as it has been styled and characterized.
“They had a good reason for that, because they had very powerful unions. I’m nostalgic for the balance we struck. I think society was rebalanced in the 70’s.’
Scargill’s reappearance in Britain’s biggest rail strike in decades caught the attention of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who pointed to a heated exchange with Labor leader Kier Starmer in the House of Commons yesterday.
Noting that Scargill had joined the picket line on Tuesday, Johnson said Labor had “literally held hands” with the man who tried to bring Britain to its knees in the 1980s.
He said Labor is now “worse than it was under Jeremy Corbyn”, adding: “This is a government that is moving this country forward; They would take it back to the 1970s.
Sir Keir, who took a vow of silence during yesterday’s strike, again refused to condemn the activists who staged the biggest strike in 30 years.
But shadow culture minister Lucy Powell said the RMT had “perfect authority” to shut down Britain’s rail network.
“Of course we do not condemn the RMT strike,” she said. “You have every right to take industrial action to try and reach a better settlement.”
She said the Labor leadership is sitting on the sidelines in the dispute because “we aspire to be the party of government”.
Sir Keir claimed the government was responsible for the strikes and told the Prime Minister: “Rather than blaming everyone else, why isn’t he doing his job, coming around the table and getting the trains running?”
