Britain was a major coal-producing nation. Coal had supplied the energy needed for the Industrial Revolution. By the mid-nineteenth century, Britain's coal output accounted for two-thirds of the world's total, but production had declined year by year after 1960. After the Conservative Party prime minister was elected in 1979, she carried out sweeping reforms of traditional industries, with the coal industry bearing the brunt.
Large numbers of mines were shut down, leaving miners unemployed. By 1984, another twenty mines had been slated for closure, bringing the number of unemployed miners to 3.2 million. Then a conflict broke out between miners and police outside a coking plant in Southwick County. The "flying pickets" blocked further coal deliveries to the plant on the grounds that it caused excessive environmental pollution.
Without coal, the plant could not operate. Workers whose livelihoods had been cut off came to the coking plant demanding answers, and even the chairman of the National Union of Mineworkers took part in the incident. The prime minister declared that she would never yield to "mobs" and dispatched three thousand mounted officers to suppress them, achieving the impressive result of three thousand against six thousand.
There were also widespread arrests. As long as someone had attended a gathering and been photographed by reporters or some other recording device, the police would identify and arrest those involved based on the photographs. Sometimes they did not even produce search warrants, arrest warrants, or grounds for arrest.
Before the PACE Act was passed, a "person" who had been detained by the police for two days without either being charged or brought before a magistrate received Habeas Corpus.
The police had not mistreated this "person," nor was there evidence that the "person" had taken part in a crime or was a "criminal suspect." After being