ORGREAVE TRUTH AND JUSTICE CAMPAIGN MEDIA STATEMENT 26th MARCH 2026

ORGREAVE INQUIRY TO COMMENCE

We are pleased that the Government is finally launching the start of the Orgreave Inquiry after their inquiry announcement last July 2025. While we are disappointed that it has taken so long for the Home Office to come to this stage, we are relieved that work will now begin to establish the truth about the Tory government involvement and police conduct at Orgreave on 18th June 1984 during the 1984/5 miners’ strike.

The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and supporters have worked hard over many years for an Orgreave Inquiry and it has been a long and difficult journey. Our determination and tenacity has however received much support from many individuals, organisations and the Labour and Trade Union movement, whose wonderful solidarity has made it possible to continue and be able to come this far. This is a statutory inquiry, with the Terms of Reference and panel membership established by the government. We have however tried our best to influence the process to ensure this does not become a police-led inquiry but one shaped by the miners and their experiences.

This 42nd anniversary year of the miners’ strike reminds us that we must never forget the importance of that great strike to defend an industry, jobs, trade unions and communities and the fight for all our futures. We are indebted to the striking miners and their families for their dedication and sacrifice to that year-long struggle that changed all our lives forever.

The 1980s Tory cabinet of Margaret Thatcher, Leon Brittan, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit and others, along with their secret “Misc 101” Committee, planned to destroy the British coal industry and organised labour, the National Union of Mineworkers, its leaders Arthur Scargill, Peter Heathfield and Mick McGahey and the British labour and Trade Union movement.

Kevin Horne, striking miner arrested at Orgreave on 18th June 1984 said:
“We know that the Tory Government of the 1980s was directly involved in the miners’ strike while professing ‘non-involvement’. The Tory Ridley plan of the 1970s exposes how far they were prepared to go and the 1980s Tory Government put vast amounts of public resources into the implementation of this plan.  This was state sponsored organisation against the miners and our livelihoods. The Tory’s own archives confirm Parliament and the public were knowingly lied to but their involvement in the strike and the policing of it has never been publicly acknowledged”

John Dunn, striking miner assaulted by the police and arrested on a Derbyshire picket line said:
“The mass media colluded with the Tories by lying in their headlines and reports about what was really happening, or not reporting it at all. Their collaboration in these government and police lies and coverups continues to this day, demonising and vilifying strikers and protesters. The raw footage that the many media companies and photographers have of police attacking miners at Orgreave and other footage of police violence and harassment throughout the strike must be handed over to this inquiry. The injustice faced by us miners and our communities has never been acknowledged by the state and instead they and the media have lied and covered it up. The right to strike and the right to protest should be a fundamental human right”

Kate Flannery, Secretary of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign said:
“We need answers about the systemic violent and lying behaviour of the police. We need to know about plans of how police officers on the ground were briefed and how that briefing came about. We need government and police papers releasing that have been embargoed until 2066 and 2071. The police have recently still been destroying vital evidence needed for this inquiry. This is of great public interest and concern and is about a government who actively worked against its own population and handed the police paramilitary powers and destroyed an industry in the process.”

Chris Peace, Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign activist said:
“Orgreave marked a turning point in the policing of public protest. With no accountability of policing at Orgreave, a message was sent to the police that they could employ violence and tell lies with impunity. This set a culture for violent militarised police to run riot throughout mining communities and villages all over Britain. It also enabled a culture for the police to maintain many lies and cover ups in 1989 at Hillsborough. The Hillsborough campaigners are still fighting for justice to this day”

Chris Hockney, Chair of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign said:
“It is important that due to the age and health of many miners we quickly secure a public acknowledgement of why and what the state did to the miners and our communities. We have to have hope that an inquiry of full disclosure should influence the future behaviour of the state and public officials and that the inquiry panel and resources committed to this inquiry will establish truth and justice”

The campaign will be encouraging as many people as possible to come forward with information to submit to the inquiry once more details about how people can contribute has been revealed by the Chair and inquiry team.

Notes to editors:
Orgreave Truth and Justice  – The Case for an Inquiry

otjc.org.uk/orgreave-truth-and-justice-the-case-for-an-inquiry/

Support us in our campaign for truth and justice – leaflet

otjc.org.uk/support-us-in-our-campaign-for-truth-and-justice/