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Gifts from The Morning Star
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.

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