Easington MP Grahame Morris will deliver a parliamentary petition as part of the Orgreave Trust and Justice Campaign in support of a public inquiry in policing of the miners’ strike and the actions of the police at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984.

In a message to campaigners, Grahame Morris, Chair of the Unite Parliamentary Group, said the UK government has a responsibility to properly investigate the behaviour of the police at the Orgreave coking plant.

Four years ago, campaigners were hopeful that the then Home Secretary Amber Rudd MP would announce a public inquiry. However, in a statement to the House of Commons, and to the shock of campaigners, on 31 October 2016, the Home Secretary refused a public inquiry into the historic injustice.

Speaking ahead of the parliamentary petition, Grahame Morris MP said:

“The miners’ strike is not a long-forgotten piece of history, as the Government would like us to believe. The actions of state collusion and police brutality caused lasting damage to our family, friends and communities like East Durham. Striking Miners were blacklisted, criminalised, wrongly convicted, attacked, and denied basic civil liberties by the state, in a focused effort to smash Trade Unionism in the UK. The historic injustice of the miners’ strike did not end in 1984, but lives with those at Orgreave to this day.

The miners’ strike was over 30 years ago, but whether it takes another thirty years, or century or more, we will have the truth and end the cover-up.

The Government, courts, security services and police are our institutions, they belong to the people of the UK; and when they are hijacked and turned against us to pursue a political agenda, exposing this corruption and collusion is in everyone’s interest.

Thirty years ago, the tools of the state were turned against miners fighting for their jobs and communities. We know through the ‘Spycops’ Scandal that the state ignored civil liberties to infiltrate climate change groups. If we do not get the truth about these historic injustices, then it could be you, and your family, who are the next victims of state intrusion and violation of your civil liberties.

Petition: Inquiry into policing at the Orgreave coking plant, 18 June 1984

To the House of Commons.
The petition of residents of the constituency of Easington,

Declares that the UK Government has a responsibility to investigate properly the behaviour of the police at the Orgreave coking plant miners’ strike on 18 June 1984; further declares that it fails this responsibility with its decision on 31 October 2016 not to order an inquiry into the policing of the strike; further declares that the silence of the UK Government on this issue is irreconcilable with Scotland and Wales, where the Scottish Parliament completed its own review in February 2019 into the policing of the Miners’ Strike in Scotland and the Welsh Assembly continues to call for a review; and further declares that, until a light can be shone on the government participation and police operations during the Miners’ Strike 1984-85, and specifically on 18 June 1984 at Orgreave, this historic injustice will continue to fuel public unrest at the lack of accountability of the state.

The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and review its decision not to order an independent inquiry into the policing at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984; and to consider afresh the legal submission presented to the Home Secretary by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign in 2015.