As Labour MPs back rail action, fight to make Labour the party of strikes!

Posted in Off The Rails's blog on ,
Photo shows a Labour Party banner on an RMT picket line

In the period since RMT announced strikes in the dispute with Network Rail and mainline TOCs, a number of Labour MPs have made statements, of varying degrees of strength, in support of those strikes.

MPs on the left of the party, such as John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Nadia Whittome, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Dianne Abbott, and many others, have all publicly and strongly supported the strikes. That support is welcome, but it's also expected. Perhaps less expected has been the statements of support from MPs not associated with the party's left, and even some from the Labour right.

Lisa Nandy, the Shadow Secretary for Levelling Up, said that, although Labour "wanted to avoid strikes" and was "on the public's side", it was "also on the rail workers' side", stressing that "they’re dealing with the same pressures that everyone else is – the cost of food, the cost of soaring inflation rates, taxes going up, and they’re really struggling to make ends meet."

Nandy said: "I’ve stood with our rail workers just like I stood with junior doctors when they protested against the treatment that was being meted out to them by the government, and our nurses as well.

“The way that you create good public services is not to attack the people who run those services, is not to attack those people who work day in, day out in order to try and keep them going – the way you do it is to support them."

When her comments were reported in the Guardian, Nandy's office contacted the paper to row back somewhat from this support, suggesting a more equivocal position. But the comments, on their face at least, do suggest support for the strikes.

Karl Turner, MP for East Hull, said: "I unashamedly back workers. We are called the Labour Party for a reason. We are the party for workers." Turner is by no means on the left of the party, but he is a member of RMT's Parliamentary Group and has strongly supported the union in its campaign for justice for sacked P&O seafarers.

Perhaps most surprising of all were comments by Wes Streeting, widely seen as a "New Labour" throwback, and, by some on the centre and right of the party, a potential future leader, who said on Question Time that, if he were a member of RMT, he would have voted for strikes too, and that the workers were right to "defend their terms and conditions".

Some have suggested Streeting doesn't really mean it, and is merely playing to a section of Labour's base. Even if this is the case, the fact he felt it necessary to make some public statement of support for the strike is a positive sign.

The right-wing press responded to various Labour MPs' support for the strikes by highlighting that some of them had received financial support from RMT, suggesting their backing for the strikes had somehow been "bought". In fact, RMT using members' money as part of a democratically-determined political strategy to support the work of MPs who are committed to promoting pro-union policies is perfectly legitimate, and, given that it is subject to scrutiny and change by RMT members, far "cleaner" than the de facto purchasing of political favours by wealthy backers of the Tory party.

Labour leader Keir Starmer, in keeping with his apparent fear of taking any political stance more decisive than reaffirming his love of the Union Jack, has limited himself to saying that the strikes shouldn't happen and the dispute should be resolved by negotiation. Whether frontbenchers Nandy and Streeting have been licensed by the Starmer leadership to present a more pro-strike public face, while other Labour figures emphasise the position of "wanting to avoid strikes", we cannot know.

What we can determine is how we use the opportunities that political support, even of a circumspect or faltering type, provides. The endeavour of socialists in the Labour Party should be to demand that statements of support from individual MPs are turned into action by the party as a whole. We aim to make Labour the party of strikes, to make it a matter of political instinct that every elected Labour politician supports workers taking action, and the mobilise the resources of the Labour Party to actively support disputes - from fundraising for strike funds, to mobilising local members to support picket lines, to pursuing policy and legislation in council chambers and Parliament in support of the demands of strikes. In particular, this means confronting Labour administrations where they are directly backing bosses in disputes with workers, as Sadiq Khan does on TfL.

Activists can do this by taking proposals to local Labour Parties and other Labour committees, and by encouraging workmates and fellow union members to join Labour and help mobilise local parties to back strikes. Momentum, the left network in Labour, should also use its resource to help.

Aiming to make Labour the party of strikes will set activists on a collision course with the Starmer leadership which, whatever MPs close to it might say, is desperate to avoid political controversy or differentiating Labour too sharply from the Tories, for fear of alienating the Tory voters it believes it can win.

Although the fact that RMT is not affiliated to Labour means it cannot pursue that effort in a direct, structural way, its can use its links to Labour MPs, and mobilise its members that are individual members of the Labour Party, to do so. Activists in TSSA and Aslef, which are affiliated to Labour, should fight for their unions to use its links to Labour to win the party to a more active support for strikes.

Unions must also demand that Labour acts on its conference policy to campaign against all legal restrictions on the right to strike, and to oppose the imposition of the Tories' proposed "minimum service" laws. Unions must also call for Labour authorities that control transport providers, such as the Labour administration in London's City Hall, to commit in advance to setting "minimum service" levels at zero should the laws be imposed.


  • More: An article by an RMT rep from 2017, making a similar argument

  • The AWL, Labour and the Left

    This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
    By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.