Wicc'InTh'ead🇭🇺🇵🇸

Interview for anphoblacht 3rd February, 2005. Arthur Scargill (AS) talks to Joanne Corcoran (JS). “The media's attacks on you continued well after the strike was over. In 1990, you and Peter Heathfield (the NUM's general secretary) were the subjects of an unprecedented media-led smear campaign that eventually ended up in court. Can you tell us about that?” (JC) “Robert Maxwell's Daily Mirror was accusing us of skimming money from the miners' fund during the strike. The rumours were started by an MI5 agent, Roger Windsor, who had risen quite high in the NUM. First we were accused of not declaring money given to us that should have been sequestered. Well, of course we kept money away from the establishment. I've only got pride in how we managed that. We had to live out of paper bags, and we did a good job. In court at the time, it was pointed out to me that there were 17 different accounts all over the world and I was asked why the union had needed 17. I said, "I don't know. We needed many more. If I could do it again, it would have been 117." We had to baffle the sequestor and hiding money all over the place was one way to do that. But there were glaring anomalies in the other accusations made against us. In one case, Windsor said he had brought a sum of money from Libya, £150,000, in October 1984. He said this money was carried over by a Libyan agent, who, incidentally, had no trouble in customs at all. I challenged the Libyans soon after that, because we never got any money from them and I was furious that they hadn't denied the accusations. But they said: "We did send money, but we sent it through a bank in Doncaster in December." So where did the money come from in October? The second allegation was that I instructed this money to be used to pay off my mortgage. One problem — I didn't have a bloody mortgage. Every one of those allegations was disproved and thrown out by the courts. Now Windsor is in France up on charges of forgery and owing debts of over £400,000. He made a comment a few years ago that I would pursue him until I died. I said: "He's wrong. I will continue to pursue him after I'm dead because others will pursue him." This man, and the media, tried to destroy the heroic efforts of the miners by besmirching the strike. The Labour leader of the time, Neil Kinnock, to his shame went along with that nonsense and bayed like a Welsh windbag for the whole bloody thing. If he'd supported us, he would have ended up Prime Minister.” (AS)

“Thousands of other trade unions internationally continued to support us. Their reason for doing so was simple: forty years ago, the Tory government led by Margaret Thatcher declared war on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). I have a confession to make — I never met her. I have met every prime minister — or heckled them — from 1945. But I met her daughter. She interviewed me for LBC Radio; she’d been well briefed. She said, ‘What does it feel like to be the most hated person in Britain?’ I said, ‘I have no idea, my name’s not Thatcher.’ Arthur Scargill April, 2024.