ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the policies and attitudes of the Area leadership, particularly the Area’s relationship with the Labour Government and a right-wing dominated National Executive Committee. Having taken power in the Yorkshire Area the left saw its main task as maintaining and expanding the consciousness of the Yorkshire miners: consciousness had led to action and action to further consciousness. The Yorkshire Area’s scepticism of the Party leadership’s commitment to socialism seemed confirmed by the social contract. The leaders of the Yorkshire Area felt the miners had an obligation to show solidarity with any other group of workers engaged in a dispute with their employers, either public or private. The advent of a Conservative Government committed to free market capitalism, the curbing of union power and reductions in public expenditu re was a direct threat to the mineworkers and the coal industry.
