Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [212]
Cortonwood may have triggered the strike, but it was not the cause. The truth is that once the NUM leadership had become determined to resist the closure of any pit on economic grounds the strike was inevitable, unless the NCB had been prepared to abdicate effective control of the industry. Even if Cortonwood had never happened, a meeting between the NCB and the mining unions on 6 March might have had the same result. Ian MacGregor outlined his plans for the coming year and confirmed the figure of twenty closures. The reaction from the NUM was swift. That same day the Scottish NUM called a strike from 12 March. Two days later, on Thursday 8 March, the national executive of the NUM met and gave official support to the Yorkshire and Scottish strikes.
Under rule 43 of the NUM constitution a national strike could only be called if the union held a national ballot and a majority of 55 per cent voted in favour. The militant majority on the executive doubted whether they could win such a national ballot, but they found a procedural way round the problem. Under rule 41 of the constitution, the national executive could give official sanction to strikes declared by the constituent areas that made up the union. If all the areas could be pushed into action individually, this would have the effect of a national strike without the need for a national ballot. If any proved difficult, pickets could be sent from striking areas to intimidate them into joining the dispute. This ruthless strategy very nearly worked. But in the end it proved to be a disaster for its authors.
The strike began on Monday 12 March. Over the following two weeks the brutal weight of the militants’ shock troops descended on the coal fields and for a moment it seemed as if rationality and decency would go under. At the beginning of the first day of the strike 83 pits were working and 81 were out. Ten of these, I was told, were not working due to heavy picketing rather than any positive desire to join the strike. By the end of the day the number of pits not working had risen to about 100. The police were fighting a losing battle to ensure that those who wished to work could do so. The Home Office — both ministers and officials — gave them the fullest support, but the situation worsened. On Tuesday morning the flying pickets again descended. On that day it so happened that I was due to see Ian MacGregor about the Channel Tunnel — a quite separate matter in which he had an interest. Peter Walker joined us afterwards and we discussed the situation in the coal fields. Mr MacGregor told me that he had applied for and obtained a civil injunction in the High Court against the NUM executive to restrain the use of flying pickets, using our new trade union law. However, his impression was that the police were failing to uphold the criminal law and that pickets had been able to prevent people going to work. The threat of violence had already resulted in the postponement of plans to hold a strike ballot in the Lancashire area. The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire areas were due to vote on Thursday but there was a real danger that the vote would be frustrated or that intimidation would force miners to stay at home. I told him that I was dismayed at this news. It was a repetition of what had happened in Saltley in 1972. The criminal law had to be upheld. I said that helping those who wished to work was not enough: intimidation must be stopped.
I went straight out of this meeting and asked to speak to Leon Brittan. As luck would have it the next meeting that day had originally been called to discuss the issue of strikes in essential services, on which we had a manifesto commitment,