To defend Puerto Rico’s right to peace is to defend Venezuela’s right to exist, argues MICHELLE ELLNER
A fight to defend our industry and our communities
Durham Miners Association chair STEPHEN GUY explains how the legacy of the strike lives on in north-east England with the miners’ gala in July and the under-refurbishment ‘Pitman’s Parliament’
Despite the apocalyptic destruction RAMZY BAROUD points to Gaza’s triumph of spirit against the architecture of genocide
We are demanding action from our politicians to deliver justice, fairness and decency throughout our communities – join us, says ROZ FOYER
After NGOs and the EU, UN condemns Germany’s crackdown on Palestine Solidarity, writes LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT
Once again Tower Hamlets is being targeted by anti-Islam campaigners, this time a revamped and radicalised version of Ukip — the far-right event is now banned by the police, but we’ll be assembling this Saturday to make sure they stay away, says JAYDEE SEAFORTH
THE miners’ strike of 1984-85 was an industrial dispute often considered a “battle,” involving 184,000 miners, their communities, the state, including most of the British media, the National Coal Board (NCB) and the Tory government, led by Margaret Thatcher.
The dispute was not about pay and conditions but rather a fight to preserve an industry, communities and a way of life. For decades, coalmining in Britain was the backbone of the economy, not least in north-east England, employing hundreds of thousands of people, hence the importance of victory in the struggle.
By any measure, the 1984-85 miners’ strike was a pivotal moment is British history and had no parallel in terms of its duration, size or impact, which continues to endure across many workplaces and communities.
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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
PETER LAZENBY is fascinated by a book of cartoons that shows how newspaper cartoonists were employed to, on the one hand, denigrade and, on the other, to defend the miners’ strike of 1984-85
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area
With solidarity coming in from across Britain and the world, PETER LAZENBY speaks to the people who made Christmas 1984 a celebration of working-class resistance in Britain’s striking coalmining communities