General Strike Centenary Commemorations

Debate between Laurence Turner and Emma Foody

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to bring this Adjournment debate before the House to mark the centenary of the general strike of 1926. Twelve years after the general strike, the Welsh miners’ poet, Idris Davies, asked,

“Do you remember 1926? That summer of soups and speeches,”

which was a reference to the bitter months endured by the miners and their families after the general strike ended. He also referred to the strike itself, which he called

“The great dream and the swift disaster”.

I am really grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker for granting parliamentary time so that we can answer that question in this place and do so in the affirmative, just as it has been answered at events across the country during the past month.

The general strike remains the most extensive confrontation in our national history between organised labour on the one side and employers and Government on the other, and it remains contested history.

[Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important debate on the general strike before the House. Does he agree that when we remember the general strike as the national event that it was, we should also reflect on the countless local stories of solidarity, mutual support and sacrifice that defined so many communities, such as those in my constituency, home of the train wreckers? A local group of miners derailed the Flying Scotsman and suffered severe consequences as a result. It is such an important part of our labour movement and our national story that we remember those local actions as well.

[Laurence Turner]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for sending me a copy of the documentary on the Cramlington train wreckers ahead of this debate. It was moving to see those men in their later years. It is telling that the general strike tends to be remembered as local history, and there will be much to say throughout this debate about the general strike in Birmingham and elsewhere.