Orgreave: ‘Shameful stitch up’

Ever since the Cabinet Papers relating to the Battle of Orgreave were published in 2012, campaigners have been calling for a full public inquiry into exactly what happened that day in 1984. But this month, the decision by the home secretary Amber Rudd MP not just to torpedo the idea of a public inquiry but any kind of evidence-gathering independent panel whatsoever, felt like a shameful stitch-up.

And now we have learnt that she didn’t even consider the evidence before pulling the plug on an inquiry. This is a total dereliction of duty and now we need your help. Andy Burnham and I need this petition to reach 100,000 signatures before we can apply for a full debate on Orgreave and hold the home secretary to account for her shameful decision.

Once we get a debate we can look at ways for Parliament to hold the inquiry that the home office has refused to do. It’s really important we get to 100k signatures, so please sign here and share widely.

At the heart of this campaign

Unite members have been at the heart of this campaign and many of the campaigners have dedicated years of their lives to the search for truth before being given barely any notice before the home secretary rushed out her decision at the last minute a couple of weeks ago.

And it’s not just campaigners that think an inquiry is now necessary. The independent police complaints commission found in a review of the Orgreave prosecution court papers that there was evidence of excessive violence by police officers, a false narrative from police exaggerating violence by miners, perjury by officers giving evidence to prosecute the arrested men, and an apparent cover-up of that perjury by senior officers.

And this was a cross-party call from campaigners of all parties and non, troubled at how and whether police forces from across the country, ostensibly there to serve their communities were used against them. It was backed by no less than the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police; Margaret Thatcher’s employment minister at the time; the chief of staff to the prime minister, Theresa May; hundreds of MPs and the Hillsborough families who recognised acutely the pattern of injustice.

This was no narrow, partisan campaign. The interim chief constable of South Yorkshire police Dave Jones put it well. He said, “The Hillsborough Inquests have brought into sharp focus the need to confront the past. I would therefore welcome an independent assessment of Orgreave.”
Indeed, media reports unmasked the previously redacted sections of the IPCC report from June 2015 into the events surrounding Orgreave. They revealed striking similarities between the personnel and alleged practices of South Yorkshire police at Orgreave and at Hillsborough. Similarities which were chilling and which, in my view, rendered the need for truth utterly essential. That’s why my colleague, Andy Burnham, was spot on when he said we cannot get the full truth about Hillsborough until we get the full truth about Orgreave.

Now the home secretary has shamefully slammed the door shut on the search for truth after leading campaigners up the garden path.

Evidence which sits in police force archives across the country and in the archives of public authorities including the government will now stay locked away, gathering dust despite the significant information they may provide. Significant questions about who ordered the brutal deployment of mounted police armed with truncheons on a legal gathering; who decided to charge arrested miners with riot; and why has the operational order for police deployment that day disappeared?

The truth is that for many communities in South Yorkshire the events and actions of police forces across the country during the miners’ strike has left a bitter legacy.

This decision wilfully exacerbates that and leaves the open wound of Orgreave to fester. As a former special constable myself, I know the damage for policing by consent that this decision will cause.

Louise Haigh is the MP for Sheffield Heeley