FORMER miners gathered over the weekend to commemorate two mineworkers who were killed on the picket line during the 1984-85 strike against pit closures.

Joined with their families and friends yesterday, the former miners rose to applaud an inspirational speech from the Orgeave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) at the annual gathering.

OTJC secretary Kate Flannery spoke passionately in memory of David Jones and Joe Green.

The atmospheric council chamber of the historic headquarters of the National Union of Mineworkers in Barnsley was charged with emotion at the injustices suffered by mineworkers and their families at the hands of the police, the judiciary and all the apparatus of the state during the year-long conflict.

Ms Flannery issued a rallying call for a wide fightback against the Tories in the face of the enforcement of yet more anti-union legislation.

“Many people made sacrifices and the ultimate sacrifice to give us the human rights at work we have today,” she said.

“But some of those rights have been and are being taken off us and if we don’t fight for our rights and protect the trade union movement, we will never get these back.

“This isn’t a fear. It’s happening right now.”

She vowed that the OTJC would continue to campaign until the truth was revealed about the police’s notorious attack on striking miners at Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire during the strike.

Ms Flannery also praised the commitment of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party in the last general election for an inquiry into the attack if elected.

“What the police did at Orgreave was symbolic of what the state was prepared to do to smash trade unions and any individuals who were prepared to stand up for their rights,” she said.

“Regions in Britain have been deliberately punished by a conservative political elite and our greatest enemy is economic injustice. We have the biggest divide between the super-rich and the rest of us.”

Vowing to continue the campaign for justice she said: “We have not gone away and have no intention of doing so. We are still here and the fight goes on. The past we inherit, the future we build.”