A scene from the film Strike: an Uncivil War

THIS year marks the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike, and 40 years ago this week saw the most brutal policing of the dispute.

On June 18 1984, three months into the strike, 6,000 miners attended a coking plant in Orgreave, on the outskirts of Sheffield. They hoped to stop the movement of coke and hence steel production. This would increase the miners’ negotiating power. They were confronted by 6,000 police mobilised to facilitate the movement of the coke.

A placard slogan at the time was “Turn Orgreave into Saltley”. In 1972, the miners and other trade unionists had closed down the coking plant in Saltley, north of Birmingham, when thousands of engineers walked out to support the picket. The police ordered Saltley Gates be closed so no coke was moved.

Margaret Thatcher and the Tories never forgot that defeat. They plotted secretly for years to get their revenge against the miners. In 1977, while in opposition the tories devised the “Ridley Plan”. You can find it on the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign website. It’s well worth a look. The rundown state of public services we have to put up with today (epitomised with effluent flushed into swimming waters) can be dated back to the Ridley Plan with its strategy to “return to the private sector, more or less by stealth”. The overall aim was to replace nationalised industries with private companies.

A confidential annex to the Ridley Plan set out the detail of taking on the unions one at a time. The final bit of the plan was “to have a large and mobile squad of police who are equipped and prepared to uphold the rule of law against the likes of the Saltley Coke-works mob”.

How were they going to achieve that? Again, by stealth. Secretly the Home Office led by home secretary, William Whitelaw, instigated and sanctioned a new public order manual. Parliament knew nothing about it.

The manual introduced paramilitary policing in the UK for the first time, following the tactics that had been used in colonial Hong Kong.

The brutality meted out to the miners on June 18 1984, on that field in Orgreave is brilliantly depicted in Dan Gordon’s new documentary film, Strike: an Uncivil War.

Miners from across the country describe the horror of what they went through, which haunts them to this day. The tactics used that day came straight out of the paramilitary tactics manual, which Parliament were never told about.

To add insult to injury the BBC reversed the footage, showing the police horses charges after violence from the miners when the real-time footage was the other way round.

Many miners were charged with riot, and faced a life sentence. The trial of the first 15 collapsed after 48 days when the prosecution dropped the case. By then the police testimony was in tatters in what Michael Mansfield KC described as “The biggest frame-up ever.”

Like victims of the infected blood saga, Hillsborough disaster and the post office scandal, Orgreave is a long-term injustice that needs resolution.

In 2016 the then home secretary, Amber Rudd, refused an inquiry on the basis that policing has improved. Someone forgot to tell the police. We have had numerous incidents since of draconian policing such as at the Sarah Everard vigil, the London-wide ban on Extinction Rebellion protesters, and excessive policing of the protests for Palestine. At the recent coronation, republican protesters were stopped from protesting before they had even emptied their van of placards.

The Lammy, Casey and Daniel Morgan Reports which have followed Rudd’s decision have found an institutionally racist, corrupt, misogynist, and homophobic police force, so Rudd’s argument is not tenable.

One reason things don’t improve is because the police are rarely held to account on specific cases.

You can support the fight for truth and justice for the miners by supporting the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign. The Labour Party has committed to an investigation. To ensure that happens the campaign needs all the support it can get.

Please promote their new report on the Case for an Inquiry available on June 18, 2024 on their website.

Also go and see Strike: An Uncivil War. It is showing at many cinemas on June 18, including in Camden at the Picture­house Central, and separately at the Curzon Bertha Dochouse on June 19.

• Matt Foot is a criminal defence solicitor, and co-author with Morag Livingstone of Charged – How the Police try to Suppress Protest (Verso 2022)