Thread by @copscampaign

Finally today at the #SpyCopsInquiry, Gareth Pierce, speaking for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). We will live tweet what she says in this thread.

Today's #SpyCopsInquiry will end earlier than planned as trade unionist Dave Smith @DaveBlacklist has been taken off the schedule after a legal challenge to his planned statement. Astonishing to see a victim of #spycops & #blacklisting gagged before the Inquiry is even a week old

Pierce: The NUM associates itself from what the other unions have said. We'll focus on the early 1980s to 1990s when miners saw the destruction of their industry & communities because of a political agenda.

Pierce: The clear facts go beyond the police & must look at the state itself. The NUM was est 1945, & in 1947 the industry was nationalized. In the 197u0s the NUM took industrial action to secure reasonable pay and safe conditions

Pierce: In the 1970s the NUM was strong & secure.. But the Thatcher government planned to destroy the union, using MI5 & police & selected media. Some were obvious, some we just learned of, more must still be hidden.

Pierce: The responsibility for the attack on the NUM lies with the state itself rather than one agency. The state deployed all aspects of its authority for political ends. The 1984-5 strike set the culture of Britain since.

Pierce: the 1984-5 strike saw the militarization of police & introduction of hostile police tactics like kettling. Police & MI5 were unlawfully involved in the criminal process to frame miners, informers, bugging, media lies, fabricating evidence

Pierce: The militaristic language of government was parroted by senior police; 'the enemy within' a threat to society itself

Pierce: Large pickets & secondary picketing were legal, yet police broke them up; pit villages were sealed off & curfewed; police lent each other officers, creating a de facto army

Pierce: At @orgreavejustice 95 miners were arrested, but the trial was abandoned due to overwhelming fabrication of evidence on a huge scale by hundreds of officers. Senior officer said they'd assumed powers to incapacitate people like a war movie without authority

Pierce: Police admit it was a preselected battleground at Orgreave. It was like Southall in 1979 when protesters were protesting about racism, with hundreds of injuries (& Blair Peach dead)

Piece: the communities are still profoundly affected by what happened. We've only just got Cabinet papers that confirm what we long suspected, that there was a government plan to destroy the mining industry all along

Pierce: Cabinet papers said there should be minimal paperwork about the plan. Head of the coal board Neil McGregor solemnly assured miners reports of plans to close dozens of pits were categorically untrue & NUM leaders were lying.

Pierce: The government picked a seemingly invulnerable industrial union, they planned to starve miners, withdraw benefit, to destroy the union & thereby the power of other unions. They sought 'fragmentation', to create division between miners to further undermine the NUM

Pierce: The government WANTED the strike. Police were told to make more arrests, the PM demanded severe sentencing & it to be publicised. Cabinet changed minutes to change police questioning quality of evidence to report as asking for speeding up trials.

Pierce: Cabinet papers said trials should be moved from Yorkshire to "friendly'' courts elsewhere. They created a climate of fear. The courts were intertwined with the political plan of the government.

Pierce: The NUM suspect collusion & spying of #spycops. We don't know if it was the actual SDS. But an ex Chief Constable referred to a meeting of Chief Constables where a secret intelligence unit was seen as necessary, going beyond Special Branch

Pierce: MI5 expanded during the miners strike, with lines between them and police becoming blurred. The NUM only has fragments of indications, rather than hard proof.

Pierce: The NUM it can tell this #SpyCopsInquiry that perhaps divisions of responsibility are artificial & inappropriate and there's a greater responsibility of the overarching state.

Pierce: The McLibel 2'all though trials & they libel case they didn't know the leaflet they were sued for was cowritten by #spycops . We must consider who else is in a similar position

theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21…

Pierce: The year of the miners strike was one of hardship, but the solidarity was extraordinary. But the state was explicit: if miners were the enemy, all who showed solidarity had volunteered for the enemy's side

Pierce: What happened to the NUM was an outrageously unlawful plan beyond any justification, with public order to used as an excuse.

With that, Gareth Pierce concludes. That's it for today & indeed the first week at the #SpyCopsInquiry.