Arthur Scargill

Trade unions Revolutionary socialism 1938.1.11.–

President of the National Union of Mineworkers who led the miners' strike of 1984–85

Born into a mining family at Worsbrough Dale near Barnsley in Yorkshire, Scargill left school at fifteen to work at Woolley Colliery. He joined the Young Communist League and then, in 1962, the Labour Party. He made his name with the mass "flying pickets" of the Battle of Saltley Gate in 1972 and helped organise the 1974 strike that led to the fall of Heath's government. Elected president of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1981 with about 70 percent of the vote, he held the post from 1982 to 2002 and led the miners' strike of 1984–85, which ended in defeat by the Thatcher government. In 1996 he founded the Socialist Labour Party, which he led until 2024.