Injustice, deindustrialisation and the 1984–1985 Miners’ Strike in Scotland

Abstract

ABSTRACT The transition out of coal production in Scotland was managed carefully in the 1960s and 1970s, prioritising workforce voice and communal security. Under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative governments in the 1980s, the position changed abruptly. Colliery closures and redundancies accelerated; miners and coal communities were subject to political attack. The criminalisation and victimisation of union officials and activists during the 1984–1985 strike against pit closures was disproportionately greater in Scotland than in England and Wales. The oral history testimony of strike veterans provides a powerful narrative of historical unfairness, imposed by a hostile anti-union government, National Coal Board officials, police officers and sheriffs. Their stories of injustice on picket lines and in communities nevertheless qualify a tendency in oral histories of deindustrialisation to pessimism and loss. Strike veterans spoke positively about the strike and its political meaning. Their memories constitute a usable past, present in subsequent campaigning. The Miners’ Strike (Pardons) Act, passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2022, was an important outcome, making provision for the collective and posthumous pardon of people with strike-related convictions from 1984–1985.