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June 21, 2022

The Times – Labour left opens party divide by backing RMT walkouts

Left-wing Labour MPs vowed “solidarity” with striking railway workers as they promised to join picket lines across the country today.

Sir Keir Starmer has tried to steer a middle course on today’s walkouts, neither condemning the strikers nor embracing their actions.

Mick Lynch, the RMT’s general secretary, yesterday accused Starmer and his team of “standing to one side and waiting for somebody to tell them what do”. He urged them instead to “ride that wave of resistance” as “a way to connect to working-class people in working-class communities so they can get their votes back”.

But MPs on Labour’s left went much further than Starmer and endorsed the RMT’s strikes. John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, said: “I will be joining picket lines tomorrow” because “the union’s basic requests are completely reasonable”.

Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, shared a photo with Lynch and expressed “solidarity with RMT members taking action to protect jobs and pay”. She urged support for “workers fighting against job cuts, against real pay cuts, for safety and security for all of us”.

Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, shared a photo with Lynch and expressed “solidarity with RMT members taking action to protect jobs and pay”. She urged support for “workers fighting against job cuts, against real pay cuts, for safety and security for all of us”.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, who lost the 2020 Labour leadership election to Starmer, also expressed “solidarity” with the RMT workers, adding: “All rail workers ask is for no compulsory redundancies, wages to be protected against the cost of living crisis and negotiation on terms and conditions.”

Support for the RMT was not confined to the trio of senior members of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Nadia Whittome, 25, elected in 2019, shared an RMT document urging “the entire labour movement and the working people to rally to the support of the RMT and our members in this struggle”. Beth Winter, also elected in 2019, proclaimed “solidarity” with RMT members.

Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary, accused union bosses of “acting as if they are fighting a class war from several decades ago”.

He said that “hitting fellow workers trying to get to their jobs” was “as daft as you can get”.

More than a quarter of a million people will be unable to work today because of the rail strikes, a think tank warned (Andrew Ellson writes).

The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that London will be the hardest hit area this week with an estimated £52 million loss of output.

Karl Thompson, an economist at the CEBR, said: “We think that these worker absence costs could cut up to 0.1 percentage points off the second quarter growth figure, increasing the risk of recession.” However, he added the expansion of home working during the pandemic would soften the blow.

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