Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
From the miners' strike to Gaza: Jeremy Corbyn joins left voices at the Morning Star's annual conference
Standing ovations and rousing speeches on the 1984-85 miners’ strike prompted lively discussion of how we learn from the great struggle to win today's battles. BERNY TORRE reports on the Morning Star's annual conference
Speakers at the Morning Star conference (left to right) Erkan Ersoy, Alex Gordon, Tom Greenwood, Ben Chacko and Jeremy Corbyn

STRIKE veterans, trade union militants and left MPs led lively debate on the lessons of the miners’ strike for today’s struggles at the annual Morning Star conference at the weekend.

Applause rang out as Labour MP Ian Lavery and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Chris Kitchen called for a public inquiry into the policing of the 1984-85 miners’ strike on its 40th anniversary.

And sessions debated features of the biggest industrial dispute of the Thatcher years that can inform us now, from the co-ordinated use of state power to smash workers and the left to the importance of international solidarity and opposition to imperialism.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
WORKING CLASS SOLIDARITY: Pickets mass outside the Rupert Murdoch's new News International printing plant in support of the print unions on February 22 1986
Workers' Rights / 24 January 2026
24 January 2026

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

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’

 TJC march on June 14, 2025 / Pic: Neil Terry Photography
Durham Miners’ Gala 2025 / 12 July 2025
12 July 2025

The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents

Durham Miners’ Gala 2025
Durham Miners’ Gala 2025 / 12 June 2025
12 June 2025

The Gala’s core message of working-class solidarity offers renewed hope and provides the antidote to the anti-worker policies of Reform UK, argues IAN LAVERY MP