Summer's signing off
Buy used
£4.48
FREE delivery 21 - 22 July. Order within 12 hrs 8 mins. Details
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by WeBuyBooks
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Buy from the UK's book specialist with confidence. Now with Royal Mail two day tracking on all UK orders! Enjoy same or next-day dispatch from a top-rated and trusted Amazon seller.
Only 1 left in stock.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Seumas Milne
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners Paperback – 17 Sept. 2004

by Seumas Milne (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 214 ratings
on any 2 Qualifying items | Terms
Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984-85 miners strike "the enemy within." With the publication of this book, the full irony of that accusation became clear. Seumas Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain's miners' union. There was an enemy within. It was the secret services of the British state, operating inside the NUM itself.
Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destroy the power of Britain's miners' union. Using phoney bank deposits, staged cash drops, forged documents, agents provocateurs and unrelenting surveillance, M15 and police Special Branch set out to discredit Scargill and other miners' leaders. Planted tales of corruption were seized on by the media and both Tory and Labour politicians in what became an unprecedentedly savage smear campaign.
In this new edition, published for the twentieth anniversary of Britain's most important postwar social confrontation, new material brings the story up to date - and, in the wake of the Iraq war intelligence scandals, highlights the continuing threat posed by the security services to democracy today.
Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    440 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Verso Books
  4. Publication date
    17 Sept. 2004
  5. Dimensions
    1.32 x 0.36 x 1.98 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    1844675084
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1844675081
Next slide of product details

There is a newer edition of this item:

The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners
The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners
£21.99
(214)
In stock
Save 15% on Baby Einstein

Product description

Review

Riveting. It knocks spots off the usual 'whodunnit.' ― Guardian

One of the most remarkable demolition jobs ever. ― Spectator

An astonishing book. ― The Nation

The most important expose of contemporary political Britain I have read. -- John Pilger

A tribute to detailed journalistic investigation ... strips away the myths and lies. ― New Statesman

A real-life thriller. ― Evening Standard

Ground-breaking ... Milne reveals the extreme lengths to which the Conservative government was willing to go to crush the miner's union. ― Independent

About the Author

Seumas Milne is a columnist and Associate Editor on the Guardian and the paper's former Comment Editor. He was previously the Guardian's Labour Editor and a staff journalist on the Economist. He is the author of The Enemy Within and co-author of Beyond the Casino Economy.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso Books
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 17 Sept. 2004
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 2nd
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 440 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1844675084
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1844675081
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 431 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.32 x 0.36 x 1.98 cm
  • Best Sellers Rank: 58,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 214 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Seumas Milne

Seumas Milne

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
214 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find this book to be a brilliant read with well-researched content that provides all the facts. The writing quality receives positive feedback from multiple customers.

Select to learn more

ReadabilityInformation qualityWriting quality
21 customers mention ‘Readability’21 positive0 negative

Customers find the book highly readable and brilliant, with one customer noting it's particularly valuable for those interested in politics.

"Excellent book. Throughly recommend...." Read more

"Excellent and essential reading for all those who think Thatcher was a great prime minister who believed in anything but feathering her, her family..." Read more

"A brilliant read! At last I could read some of the truth about the dreadful politically motivated strike...." Read more

"In this brilliant account Seamus Milne details the involvement of the Thatcher government and the security services in the defeat of the miners..." Read more

20 customers mention ‘Information quality’20 positive0 negative

Customers praise the book's well-researched and factual content, with one customer noting how the author supports his written work with documented evidence.

"Well written and well researched...." Read more

"...Anyone with a brain however will find it an informative and slightly depressing read...." Read more

"Brilliant so factual pity know one in the country took much notice at the time!" Read more

"For those who want a thorough account of events during the UK miner's strike and its leader and activist, Arthur Scargill, 'The Enemy Within', is a..." Read more

7 customers mention ‘Writing quality’7 positive0 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book.

"...Well written. Informative. Frightening." Read more

"...Well researched and nicely written. Whatever your views this should be on your reading list...." Read more

"...Written well so it is an easy book to follow...." Read more

"...terms the way things were manipulated against the miners- excellent author." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Bronowski
    5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, detailed account that should be read by every British citizen.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 June 2016
    Verified Purchase
    In this brilliant account Seamus Milne details the involvement of the Thatcher government and the security services in the defeat of the miners strike of 1948/5 and the subsequent attempts to destroy the leadership of the union through a campaign of disinformation and defamation. It is a riveting read that leaves the reader chilled by the ease with which civil liberties and human rights can be ignored and the full force of the government and sections of the media can be used to undermine the legitimate actions of working people. It is a book that everyone should read, it is not just about the miner's dispute but about how Britain's democracy can be discarded when it suits those in power. You are left wondering how many other times the government acts against its own people when it arbitrarily and secretly deems them the 'enemy within'.
    9 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • SJK
    5.0 out of 5 stars Civil War
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    In his 'Preface to the Fourth Edition' of The Enemy Within, Seumas Milne confidently declares that the 'aftershocks of the miners' strike of 1984-5' (ix) are still being felt in 'Britain thirty years later' (ibid). He's not wrong. The conflict, waged like a civil war, 'pitted the most powerful and politicized trade union in the country against a hard-right Conservative administration bent on class revenge' (ibid). For most observers, the outcome was never in doubt, although Milne shows just how close society came to total collapse. In doing so, he exposes the connivance of the security services and politicians in breeding this industrial brinksmanship; he also reveals the lengths the government were prepared to go to in order to subvert, silence, and destroy Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers. That no one has 'ever been called to account for any of these abuses of power' (xvi) infuriates Milne, for the destruction of the coal industry was an unnecessary war driven by 'political revenge' (xxi) and Thatcher's tyrannical urge to break working-class solidarity. Both these points are true, and Milne spends the rest of his terrifying book explaining how she did it.

    Milne is in no doubt that the aftermath of the miners' strike paved the way for the triumph of Thatcher's neoliberal doctrine. But before she could dismantle the state and prioritise the wants of Big Business, she had to do away with Scargill, Britain's 'best-known trade unionist and unrepentant class warrior' (p.1). But why was she so keen on destroying Scargill? Well, because Scargill epitomised everything she hated, desperate as she was to 'avenge absolutely and unequivocally...[the Tory Party's] double humiliation at the hands of the miners in the historic strikes of 1972 and 1974' (p.6). To support this aim, Thatcher used all the powers at her disposal (whether they were legal or not) to ensure that the 'Facts were never allowed to get seriously in the way of a campaign that...offered the chance to destroy once and for all the symbol of militant class trade unionism that Scargill obstinately remained' (p.3).

    So just what, exactly, was the strategy for bringing down Scargill? Basically, the Daily Mirror (guided by the nefarious Robert Maxwell) and the Cook Report unleashed a rotten campaign to expose Scargill as an embezzler. Yet the allegations were first published in 1990, five years after the end of the miners' strike. So this begs the obvious question: why go after Scargill again, especially when he'd already been defeated in 1985? Because the Tories felt that Scargill was still an influential rabble-rouser and bogeyman and one who, despite presiding over a smaller union, still commanded the utmost respect of the hard-left trade union movement. By discrediting the Scargill of 1990 the Tories felt they were discrediting the Scargill of the 1980s. They also wanted to shift attention away from the final pit closures, which publically proved that everything Scargill had predicted in the mid-1980s was coming to pass. So that's what they did, they hounded him, in the faint hope that they could prove that 'the Robespierre of the British labour movement, the sea-green incorruptible, the trade-union leader that ''doesn't sell out'', had been exposed as a grubby, silver-fingered union boss lining his pockets at his members' expense' (p.42).

    And they nearly succeeded. Milne recounts the various intrigues in painstaking detail, a move which can make for torturous yet fully warranted repetition. There are numerous points in this book when the reader must stop to untangle the plenitude of threads that constitute this weird tapestry of lies. There are also a number of points when the reader must consult the 'List of Abbreviations' at the back, for this is an acronym-laden text populated by long-dead unions and union organisations. Anyhow, the main insults and slanders tossed at Scargill and his NUM associates are exposed for the fantastic concoctions they were. In fact, seeing the evidence on show, it makes you wonder how anyone could have believed the rubbish in the first place. That Scargill didn't shrivel into a paranoid ball of nerves is a testament to his character, because a lot of the stuff in this book reads like it's from the pages of an awful espionage novel. For instance, on page 343 alone, we are told of how someone 'repeatedly tried to force' Scargill's car off a road and down 'a steep incline', of how Scargill was walloped with an iron bar at a rally in Derby, which was completely missed by the masses of media present and which earned his assailant a 'nominal fine', and of how Scargill was 'shot at as he got out of the car in front of his Worsborough home'. Such, then, was the rather chilling persecution aimed at Scargill at the height of the miners' strike.

    Milne lays the blame for most of these incidents at the door of the secret service. He even goes as far as to say that 'Britain's secret state remains a dangerous political and bureaucratic cesspit, uniquely undisturbed by any meaningful form of political accountability' (p.371). The evidence here is certainly damning, and Milne reiterates his view that without Thatcher's 'personal go-ahead, the operation[s] would have been illegal' (p.310). But one thing stands out more than anything else in this book: Milne's utter hatred of Thatcher and her free-market fundamentalism. Milne is happy to attack all those who call her reforms a success in creating wealth and delivering prosperity, for they did not such thing. No, Thatcher redistributed wealth from the poor to the rich (the higher profits going hand-in-hand with higher inequality) and slashed the workers' share of national income through privatisation, deregulation and her assault on the trade unions. In short, she achieved nothing but socialism for the rich, who distributed the profits among themselves, and socialism for the poor, who shouldered the burden of the national debt.

    And we're still feeling the effects now, which is a point Milne reinforces in his 'Postscript to the Fourth Edition'. Here, he tells us that 'Two decades after The Enemy Within was first published, Britain's coal industry and miners' union have been all but destroyed; the country's power supply is in the grip of a profiteering private cartel; job and workplace insecurity has mushroomed; the security services are booming on the back of a ''war on terror'' without end; blacklisting of trade unionists and police infiltration of protest movements has flourished' (p.378), etc, etc. It's a grim litany of the disasters faced by the contemporary working class. Nevertheless, it also highlights the need for a truly radical agenda, and one which must act quickly to eradicate the insidious inequality unleashed by Thatcher and her Tory progeny. Whether it can be achieved remains to be seen. But, considering the composition of the current political forces, and their slightly differing versions of austerity, I wouldn't hold your breath. If anything, it seems like it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better...
    25 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Poppy Ann Miller
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent piece of investigative journalism
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 May 2015
    Verified Purchase
    For those who want a thorough account of events during the UK miner's strike and its leader and activist, Arthur Scargill, 'The Enemy Within', is a must. Seamus Milne supports his written work with documented evidence, including dates, times and places, of decisions and conversations between media, politicians, and union leaders, both in the UK and worldwide. An astounding piece of work. I found I had to re-read parts as the information is so comprehensive, I needed another look for it to sink in. One of, if not, the most comprehensive accounts of a crucial time in British history, illustrating the beginnings of the dismantling of the UK union movement.
    Highly recommended.
    6 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Mr. Paul James SMITH
    5.0 out of 5 stars Probably One Of The Best Books Ever
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 July 2018
    Verified Purchase
    I'm old enough to have lived through this period whilst working in Leeds.

    If I had known the full facts at the time, explained so well in this exceptional book my opinions would have been so different.

    Those foolishness enough to believe we live in a free democracy should read this and think carefully.

    Well written. Informative. Frightening.
    7 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • JK
    4.0 out of 5 stars You are left in no doubt who the true enemy within is
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 April 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This is a very interesting book that mainly seeks to address the manifold accusations thrown at Scargill and Peter Heathfield after the miners' strike. Whilst you may have your own opinions about Scargill, you are left in no doubt as to the relentless attempts by the establishment to destroy the reputation of an man completely innocent of the charges he faced. Although the book has a slightly polemical tone, it leaves no stone unturned and is incredibly detailed, especially in terms of the various financial dealings, although sometimes it is difficult to keep track of the figures involved. The better chapters are the ones concerning the crooked Maxwell, and how the lengths the security services went to, to undermine the miners. You are left astonished how the striking miners and their leaders were able to last out for a whole year given the full force of the establishment machinations they faced. Cleary, the author is of a left-wing persuasion but the book is not simply an anti-Thatcherite rant (Thatcher and Ian McGregor are barely mentioned), the Labour Party and other figures associated with the Labour movement come in for criticism too for their failure to support the miners' cause and rallying to vilify Scargill. The preface to the latest edition is also a brilliant critique of Thatcherism (and the myth that her policies were a necessary evil) and the unfettered capitalism that resulted in the 2008 economic crisis.
    23 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Margot
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Enemy Within. The War Against the Miners 30th Anniversary Edition.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 April 2014
    Verified Purchase
    A brilliant read! At last I could read some of the truth about the dreadful politically motivated strike.

    This is the story not about the enemy within the mining communities but about a Prime Minister and her cohorts determined to destroy the mining communities in an immoral manner.

    I would recommend this book to all who are interested in truth and to political activists determined to find the truth about Mrs Thatcher and her determination to destroy the trade union movement.
    6 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • Philip M Grice
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great read about corrupt British governent activities
    Reviewed in the United States on 23 May 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Everyone should read this book. It reveals how easily a right wing administration supported by state security can subvert the will of the people, even in a country such as Britain. The public must keep alert to these situations and Seumas Milne has produced a conclusive revelation of just how corrupt our so called democratic can be if we allow them to get away with it. A great read. Europeans and Americans need to read this book.
    Report
  • Lebera
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on 21 October 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Superb! A well researched view into the secret workings of the British establishment.
    Report
  • David J. Triggle
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on 26 August 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Another firstrate conspiratorial drama: wish that it had been longer to amplify many details.
    Report