A LABOUR MSP has made a fresh call for a probe into the policing of the 1984/85 miners' strike as the 40th anniversary is marked by campaigners.
Richard Leonard, a former Scottish Labour leader, highlighted that miners in Scotland were twice as likely to be arrested than elsewhere in the UK - as revealed in an independent review looking at the impact of policing on communities during the strikes, commissioned by the Scottish Government.
Leonard said the double standard should be taken into account in a public inquiry.
Miners arrested in Scotland during the 1984/85 strike - around 1400 - have already been pardoned thanks to MSPs passing legislation in Holyrood last year.
READ MORE: SNP MP in bid to pardon miners convicted in 1980s
The Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Act 2022 took effect from July 2022 and provides a collective and automatic pardon to former miners, household members of a miner, parents, siblings and children of a miner who were convicted for a breach of the peace, breaching bail conditions and an offence under section 41 (1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 such as police obstruction.
A push by Leonard to secure financial compensation failed, with former justice secretary Keith Brown saying at the time it was for the UK Government to create such a scheme.
READ MORE: Workers’ fights are our fights – just as they were in days gone by
Leonard said: “The whole might of the state was brought to bear on the miners, their families and their communities, and the effects are still being felt today as those injustices have still not been fully resolved.
“There must be a full public inquiry into the policing of the strike and that must include the disproportionate treatment of miners by the police in Scotland. The former miners and their families are heroes and they deserve justice.”
The Labour MSP has gained cross-party consensus in support for a memorial to be erected at the Scottish Parliament of miners' leader Mick McGahey.
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