George Galloway to join Arthur Scargill at Doncaster Miners' Strike anniversary march

Mr Galloway, who swept to victory in last week’s Rochdale by-election, will attend the march through Hatfield and Dunscroft on Sunday with a contingent from the Workers’ Party of Great Britain.

The march will meet at the Broadway Hotel in Dunscroft at 11.30am with a parade led by a band leaving at 1.30pm for the former Hatfield Colliery.

It will be followed by speeches at The Pit Club, with Mr Scargill, 86, expected to address supporters at around 4.15pm.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the bitter 1984-85 conflict which pitted Mr Scargill’s National Union of Mineworkers against Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and saw police and pickets in a series of violent clashes as miners fought to stop a series of pit closures.