[4] He joined the Young Communist League in 1955, becoming its Yorkshire District Chair in 1956 and shortly after a member of its National Executive Committee.

In a 1975 interview with New Left Review Scargill said: I was in the Young Communist League for about six or seven years and I became a member of its National Executive Committee responsible for industrial work.

Scargill opposed civilian nuclear power and, during the first Wilson ministry, became highly critical of the government's energy policy.

After a Labour Party conference speech on energy policy by Richard Marsh in July 1967, Scargill said: I can honestly say that I never heard flannel like we got from the Minister... he said that we have nuclear power stations with us, whether we like it or not.

This was a complete reversal of the policy... that was promised by the Labour Government before it was put into office... this represents a betrayal of the mining industry.

[9] When Bullough (unwell at the time) attempted to rule Scargill as "out of order", he was voted out by the area's delegates and a strike was declared across Yorkshire on the issue.

[10] His major innovation was organising "flying pickets" involving hundreds or thousands of committed strikers who could be bussed to critical strike points to shut down a target.

Scargill won widespread applause for his response to the disaster at Lofthouse Colliery in Outwood, West Yorkshire, at which he accompanied the rescue teams underground and was on site for six days with the relatives of the seven deceased.

[9] At the subsequent enquiry, he used notebooks of underground working from the 19th century, retrieved from the Institute of Geological Sciences in Leeds, to argue that the National Coal Board could have prevented the disaster had they acted on the information available.

[9][11] A few months later, the president of the Yorkshire NUM died unexpectedly, and Scargill won the election for his replacement; the two posts were then combined and he held them until 1981.

During this time, he earned the esteem of significant sections of the left and the British working class, who saw him as honest, hard-working and genuinely concerned with their welfare,[12] and he was also respected for improving the administration of the compensation agent's post.

In 1974, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that led Prime Minister Edward Heath to call a February general election.

[13] Scargill was involved in a High Court case in 1978 that set a precedent in UK labour law, known as Roebuck v NUM (Yorkshire Area) No 2.

On the appointment of Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB in 1983, Scargill stated, "The policies of this government are clear – to destroy the coal industry and the NUM".

[21] Many politicians, including the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock, believed Scargill had made a huge mistake in calling the strike in the summer rather than in the winter.

He had been a Communist and retained strong Marxist views and a penchant for denouncing anyone who disagreed with him as a traitor... Scargill had indeed been elected by a vast margin and he set about turning the NUM's once moderate executive into a reliably militant group... By adopting a position that no pits should be closed on economic grounds, even if the coal was exhausted – more investment would always find more coal, and from his point of view, the losses were irrelevant – he made sure confrontation would not be avoided.

Exciting, witty Arthur Scargill brought coalmining to a close in Britain far faster than would have happened had the NUM been led by some prevaricating, dreary old-style union hack.

[27]In January 2014, the Prime Minister, David Cameron stated, "I think if anyone needs to make an apology for their role in the miners' strike it should be Arthur Scargill for the appalling way that he led the union.

His comments followed a question in the Commons from Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who said the miners and their families deserved an apology for the mine closures.

Scargill, along with veteran left-wing Labour MP Tony Benn, campaigned to free strikers Russell Shankland and Dean Hancock from prison.

It was alleged that, of the money donated from Libya, Scargill took £29,000 for his own bridging loan and £25,000 for his home in Yorkshire, but gave only £10,000 to the striking Nottinghamshire miners.

[36] In September 1990, the Certification Officer brought criminal charges against Scargill and Heathfield for wilfully neglecting to perform the union's duty to keep proper accounting records.

[37] The prosecution brought by the Certification Officer was rejected in July 1991 on the grounds that it would be inappropriate to use the material provided in confidence to Lightman's enquiry.

[37] The South Wales area leader, Des Dutfield, moved that Scargill should stand down and face re-election, but the motion was defeated.

Former Scargill loyalist Jimmy Kelly, a miner at the Edlington Main pit near Doncaster in the 1980s, said he was astonished to learn of the attempt to buy the flat.

[43] In February 2012, Scargill won £13,000 in a court action against the NUM, primarily for car expenses, and for the earlier temporary denial of membership.

In the 1997 general election, he ran against Alan Howarth, a defector from the Conservative Party to Labour, who had been given the safe seat of Newport East to contest.

An article published in The Times in August 2015 stated that Scargill had spoken to the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union conference in June 2015, and that he was due to appear alongside Jeremy Corbyn at the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign in September 2015.

[55] In 2017, Scargill spoke at an event in Cardiff setting out how British manufacturing could be rebuilt after Britain had left the European Union.

[57] Scargill supported the 2022 United Kingdom railway strike, joining an RMT picket line in Wakefield on 21 June 2022.