Prime minister David Cameron declared in Parliament on 12 January that he was "happy to look at" plans for new anti-strike laws, to come on top of the Thatcher laws which already restrict workers' rights in Britain more than in any other big wealthy country.
Boris Johnson, the Tory mayor of London, and the bosses' federation CBI have already called for harsher laws, specifically a law to ban strikes unless the ballot shows a 40% (CBI) or 50% (Johnson) majority for strike among all those entitled to vote, not just among those voting.
On that criterion of a majority, neither Johnson nor Cameron would be in office! Very few MPs would have made it to Parliament.
Until now the government had just said it had "no plans for new legislation". In Parliament on 12 January, Cameron repeated that, but said: "“I am happy to look at this argument".
The same day, Cameron co-signed an article with Boris Johnson in The Sun denouncing unions which have talked of striking around the time of the Royal Wedding.
Union leaders scandalously allowed Labour to govern for 13 years without repealing Thatcher's anti-union laws. It is urgent now to turn round the union stance on these laws, from one of occasional speeches for the record deploring them to an active campaign for workers' rights.
