Ian Lavery Ian Lavery Ian Lavery (born 6 January 1963) is a British Labour Party politician and former trade union leader from Northumberland who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wansbeck since the 2010 general election. Born and raised in Ashington, Lavery began work in the construction industry after leaving school before becoming a mining apprentice. Noted for being the sole apprentice to refuse to work during the miners' strike of 1984-1985, he gradually rose up the ranks of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and was chosen to succeed Arthur Scargill as NUM President in 2002. Once elected to
National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) established in Newport, Monmouthshire in 1888 but did not function as a unified, centralised trade union for all miners. Instead the federation represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the existing local and regional miners' unions whose associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation, founded in 1898, joined the MFGB in 1899, while the Northumberland Miners' Association and the Durham Miners' Association joined in 1907 and 1908, respectively. In January 1945 the MFGB was superseded by the National Union of Mineworkers. Within the organisation, each coalfield continued to exercise a degree of autonomy, having its own district association, president,