Durham Miners’ Association chair STEPHEN GUY speaks to Ben Chacko about the Reform threat, what’s needed from Labour and why the Big Meeting will never lose its politics
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Exposing how trade unions have been caricatured and smeared
GRANVILLE WILLIAMS delves into the historic and continuing role of ‘spycops’ and the media in attacking the trade union movement
NOT LETTING THEM OFF THE HOOK: Demonstrators calling for justice for the Shrewsbury pickets and (below) protesters against undercover policing sit outside London’s New Scotland Yard
![Durham Miners' Gala 2026 [Pic: Neil Terry]](https://morningstaronline.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-07/SSS_20260711_DURHAM_MINERS_GALA_0-21.jpg.webp?itok=NUVjowji)
Andy Burnham’s message of hope will defeat Reform if Labour delivers the New Deal for Working People in full, says JOANNE THOMAS
General Federation of Trade Unions president and bakers’ union general secretary, SARAH WOOLLEY, guides us through the GFTU’s Summer School happening this week at Quorn Grange Hotel
The government’s latest asylum proposals abandon labour movement values and fuel division by aping Reform UK, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Can Andy Burnham’s programme deliver a productive economy – or merely a softer version of capitalism, asks VINCE MILLS
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
IN A thoughtful piece about trade unions, the journalist and historian Andy Beckett made the following observation after visiting exhibition stalls at a Trade Union Congress conference.
“Two were for campaigns about the victimisation of union members: the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, which fights for recognition of the brutal treatment of miners by the police during the defeated strike of 1984-85; and the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign, ‘seeking to overturn the unjust prosecution of 24 building workers who were charged following the first ever national building workers’ strike in 1972.’
“The trade union movement does not forget. That is one of the things that keeps it alive; but sometimes the past seems to matter too much.”
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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
On the 40th anniversary of the Wapping dispute, this Morning Star special supplement traces the long-planned conspiracy that led to the mass sackings of printworkers in 1986 – a struggle whose unresolved injustices still demand redress today, writes ANN FIELD
KIM JOHNSON MP places the campaign in the context of the history of the working-class battles of the 1980s, and explains why, just like Orgreave and the Shrewsbury Pickets before it, justice today is so important for the struggles of tomorrow
