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
Union of Democratic Mineworkers Union of Democratic Mineworkers The Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) is a British trade union for coal miners based in Nottinghamshire, England. Established in 1985 after a constitutional crisis in the National Union of Mineworkers, the UDM was given its certification on 6 December 1985, although it had effectively been in existence since the Nottinghamshire area of the NUM voted to secede from the federal union on 6 July 1985. After the events of the strike in 1984-5, the Nottinghamshire area of the NUM was involved in a number of disputes with the National Executive Committee that led to a