alternatehistory.com

Twenty five years ago the British miners strike began lasting approximately a year. Was it doomed to failure? Was a compromise solution possible.

Suppose Scargill had called a ballot would it have made any difference or merely prolonged the agony.

The dispute began when a pay claim was also being considered and may have caused some confusion. Arthur Scargill was wrong in his warnings of pit closures, far from sacaremongering they proved to be an underestimate.One coalfield held a ballot and produced a small majority in favour Northumberland. Nottinghamshire were in the process of holding one when the flying pickets descended when it was still a regional dispute. Scargill had lost previous ballots on pay claims and may have been paranoid about losing one although there is no evidence that a no vote would have resulted. Ultimately pits were closed in Nottinghamshire as well

A succesfull ballot may have resulted in more support from other unions and may have made some kind of compromise easier although it looked like a collision between the irresistable force and an immovable object in that no government is going to appear to succumb to what appears to be an overt threat to its authority although the bulk of the strikers were more concerned about their jobs than overthrowing governments. There is a treatement of this scenario in Brack and Dale's Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened

Finally supposing there had been no strike would the extent of closures have been less and the rate of closures slower
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