The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
Latest editorial
June 18 1984. Never forget, never forgive.
We must never forget or forgive what the Tories orchestrated and the police did throughout mining communities all over Britain and to striking miners at Orgreave – so join us for an anniversary rally this weekend, writes KATE FLANNERY
Violence outside the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham, where police, with mounted police support, clashed with miner's pickets in 1984
In the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s murder, JOHN GREEN wonders whether the government will really get to grips with the root cause of these attacks on our MPs
The new PM’s opening addresses offered hope, council homes and reform — but little detail on how any of it will be delivered, warns CLAUDIA WEBBE
Despite the screeching from the right-wing media, Burnham’s speech chimed with the public mood - and socialists should take advantage, says Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO
Scotland's Labour leader cannot continue to evade responsibility for the party's decline, argues LAUREN HARPER
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
IN JUNE 1984 the miners’ strike against Tory plans for pit closures had been going on for three months. The cold war was raging. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher and US president Ronald Reagan were colluding to boost their nuclear capability while waging class war on their own population.
Their devotion to monetarism and increasing the role of the private market required shifting politics sharply to the right, just as had happened after the fascist junta in Chile and other oppressive regimes.
Tory warmongers had tasted a quick victory in their war to maintain control of the Falklands Islands, giving them a renewed confidence and an opportunity to whip up jingoism.
Similar stories
The public inquiry is the result of more than a decade of determined campaigning. Now, those who fought for justice want the full story of government involvement and police conduct to be told, says KATE FLANNERY
A past confrontation permanently shaped the methods the state will use to protect employers against any claims by their employees, writes MATT WRACK, but unions are readying to face the challenge
Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media