The miners’ strike of 1984-85 was a brutal clash between the miners’ union, which was defending jobs, and the Thatcher government, committed to destroying ‘militant’ trade unionism. This article argues that due to the divisions within the miners’ union about the way the strike was started, the Thatcher government was able to exploit this disunity to mobilise criminal sanctions against the miners. This was a ‘lucky accident’, since the government’s preparation for an eventual showdown with strong trade unions had been based on civil legislation. The article combines a range of primary and secondary sources to analyse the extent to which fear over the erosion of civil and trade union liberties was brought to fruition by the strike.
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