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Peredur Owen Griffiths, who represents Plaid Cymru, is one of four regional Senedd Members serving the South Wales East region.

It is hard to believe it has been 40 years since the start of the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. This bitter industrial dispute lasted for nearly a year and caused immense hardship for colliery workers and their families. It is no exaggeration to say that it changed the face of the Welsh economy, it changed our towns and villages and it changed the fabric of our society.

Even the most ardent of Tory supporters cannot deny the evidence that the Tory Government under Margaret Thatcher had prepared for years for a confrontation with the NUM and engineered the conflict at a time of their choosing. Preparations included stockpiling coal, converting some power stations to burn heavy fuel oil, as well as recruiting fleets of road hauliers to transport coal in case train drivers walked out in support of the miners.

For the miners, their motivation was clear – it was a fight for the future of the industry and for the future of their communities. Many of the places I represent in my region were built for the sole purpose of housing miners so a future without the pit was unthinkable for many in the early 1980s. 

Sadly, the predictions of the striking miners have come to pass. After coal miners lost their fight and returned to work, the coal industry was decimated in the immediate aftermath of the strike. Apart for the odd colliery scattered around the UK, the industry was largely gone within a decade of the strike. This speaks volumes about the veracity of miners’ predictions.

In the eyes of many, this was class war and the full might of the establishment was brought to bear on the brave miners. This was none more evident than at the so-called Battle of Orgreave in June 1984 between pickets and South Yorkshire Police. Miners were charged at by officers on horseback whilst other officers on foot beat the picket line senseless with their truncheons. There remain many questions about the violence that erupted that day and the people that were perpetrating it against the miners. This is why the calls for a public inquiry into the events at Orgreave remain to this day.

Despite the increasing levels of violence used by the state on the picket line and the increasing hardship of a prolonged industrial dispute, I am proud to say that support for the strike was strongest among the miners in the coalfields of the south of Wales. The fact that the strike remained strong around here right up until the bitter end was testament to the will and determination of the miners, not to mention the communities that supported them with soup kitchens, food parcels and fundraising events.

In the intervening decades, there has been incredible changes to the way we live our lives and to the way our communities operate. Some of the former colliery sites have been turned into housing estates or retail parks. The workingmen’s halls – paid for by the subscription of miners – have closed in some communities. The pubs and clubs that have survived the last four decades are not as busy as they once were. The Tories did their best to demoralise and break our communities but the spirit still remains.

We saw how communities rallied to look after the most vulnerable among them during the pandemic. I also see that community spirit in the many visits I undertake to the voluntary groups and projects throughout the region that are carrying out incredible work, day-in, day-out.

One unintended consequence of Thatcher’s actions was the boost she delivered for devolution in Wales. In my view, her electoral success on a UK level underlined to many people in Wales that no matter how unpopular she was with us, we had little say in the matter. We were essentially powerless to stop Tory policy due to the small number of MPs we return to the House of Commons – a number that will be reduced even further after the next general election.

Devolution was a means of addressing that imbalance and bringing more democracy into our politics in Wales. This was one of the major reasons why people in Wales went from rejecting devolution overwhelmingly in 1979 to voting for it less than two decades later, albeit with the slimmest of margins. The Labour Government of Wales may not always be popular and you may disagree vehemently with their policies but you always have the option of voting for something else in our Senedd elections.