Keir Starmer is struggling to contain the fury from unions and left-wing MPs in his UK Labour Party after he fired a shadow minister who had joined a picket line and conducted a round of media interviews in support of striking rail workers.
The Labour leader on Wednesday dismissed Sam Tarry from his post as a transport spokesman, with the opposition party citing a breach of the “collective responsibility” required in Starmer’s top team. Tarry’s appearance on the picket line came just a day after Starmer had suggested senior party members shouldn’t do so.
But the decision to sack Tarry incensed union leaders and Members of Parliament on the left of the party. John McDonnell, a key ally of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, who Starmer has suspended from the party, told Sky News on Thursday the decision is a “severe mistake.” He accused Starmer of “misreading the mood of the public” and backed calls for a general strike.
The strikes are a sensitive issue for Labour, which is trying to balance supporting the interests of the party’s traditional backers in the unions while avoiding stoking worker unrest, which could leave Labour open to political attacks and damage its standing with the electorate. The party has not officially supported the industrial action, but has urged ministers to get involved in negotiations to avoid the strikes.
The controversy comes at a bad time for Starmer, who wants to present Labour as a legitimate government-in-waiting while the ruling Conservatives face the turmoil of picking a new leader after ousting Boris Johnson earlier this month.
The Tories typically accuse Labour of being free-spending and soft on workers’ rights, and there’s still a perception within the opposition that going too far to the left on political issues will cost it votes — especially after Corbyn led them to their worst defeat since 1935 in the 2019 general election.
For Starmer the judgment in firing Tarry will have been been weighed up against the public perception of Labour’s ability to govern at a distance from the unions, which make up a large proportion of the party’s funding. He’ll also have calculated that firing a junior member of his team is unlikely to do him much harm among the British electorate.
The party said in a statement that members of the front bench had to reflect agreed positions of the party. “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line,” it said.
Tarry had been picketing at Euston station in north London as 40,000 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) workers staged a stoppage.
Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, said on Twitter that it was a “huge own goal” for the opposition party to “turn a Tory transport crisis into a Labour story.” The decision was also criticized by Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association General Secretary Manuel Cortes, RMT chief Mick Lynch and Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham.
Labour Party veterans also took issue. Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tweeted a photo of himself addressing striking miners in 1984, when he was the party’s transport spokesman. Diane Abbott, a Corbyn-backing Labour MP, tweeted a video showing Labour government ministers visiting a picket line in 1974.
“Keir Starmer will pay an electoral price for his failure to support striking workers,” Abbott said on Twitter.
Kier Starmer is so afraid of being labeled Corbyn 2.0 and yet he should have known exacxtly how this was going to look with not just left wing labour members but with the entire country. They cannot get their house in order and release statements, if Sam Tarry was sacked for making up policy then that is the information that should have been released first but it wasn’t and we had to hear from other people and twitter accounts that he had been sacked.
He’s shown all union members that he doesn’t support us.
Voting labour is a waste in my constituency but even so till he’s gone I’ll not be voting for them. He’s no better than a scab.
I’m fucking tired of hearing how workers rights are somehow ‘left wing’. They aren’t, they ascend left/right tribalistic bullshit. If you work for a bank or trading institution and they raise your salary are they suddenly left wing? The entirety of the Conservative mp’s gave themselves a pay rise this year, does that make them left wing now?
As mentioned elsewhere; Starmer’s political game is weak.
It was an entirely avoidable drama. The damage is already done now, doesn’t matter if he comes out saying “he broke media policy” because the media and unions have already pushed that he’s been sacked for joining the picket line.
That’s all the public will take onboard. In short, political own goal.
I always thought it was a silly idea to ban your frontbenchers from attending picket lines.
But that doesn’t mean what Sam Tarry did was okay, he deliberately did his own media round without telling his boss, Lou Haigh, or the leadership, and made up party policy and promoted himself to Shadow Transport Secretary for good measure.
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Keir Starmer is struggling to contain the fury from unions and left-wing MPs in his UK Labour Party after he fired a shadow minister who had joined a picket line and conducted a round of media interviews in support of striking rail workers.
The Labour leader on Wednesday dismissed Sam Tarry from his post as a transport spokesman, with the opposition party citing a breach of the “collective responsibility” required in Starmer’s top team. Tarry’s appearance on the picket line came just a day after Starmer had suggested senior party members shouldn’t do so.
But the decision to sack Tarry incensed union leaders and Members of Parliament on the left of the party. John McDonnell, a key ally of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, who Starmer has suspended from the party, told Sky News on Thursday the decision is a “severe mistake.” He accused Starmer of “misreading the mood of the public” and backed calls for a general strike.
The strikes are a sensitive issue for Labour, which is trying to balance supporting the interests of the party’s traditional backers in the unions while avoiding stoking worker unrest, which could leave Labour open to political attacks and damage its standing with the electorate. The party has not officially supported the industrial action, but has urged ministers to get involved in negotiations to avoid the strikes.
The controversy comes at a bad time for Starmer, who wants to present Labour as a legitimate government-in-waiting while the ruling Conservatives face the turmoil of picking a new leader after ousting Boris Johnson earlier this month.
The Tories typically accuse Labour of being free-spending and soft on workers’ rights, and there’s still a perception within the opposition that going too far to the left on political issues will cost it votes — especially after Corbyn led them to their worst defeat since 1935 in the 2019 general election.
For Starmer the judgment in firing Tarry will have been been weighed up against the public perception of Labour’s ability to govern at a distance from the unions, which make up a large proportion of the party’s funding. He’ll also have calculated that firing a junior member of his team is unlikely to do him much harm among the British electorate.
The party said in a statement that members of the front bench had to reflect agreed positions of the party. “This isn’t about appearing on a picket line,” it said.
Tarry had been picketing at Euston station in north London as 40,000 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) workers staged a stoppage.
Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, said on Twitter that it was a “huge own goal” for the opposition party to “turn a Tory transport crisis into a Labour story.” The decision was also criticized by Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association General Secretary Manuel Cortes, RMT chief Mick Lynch and Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham.
Labour Party veterans also took issue. Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tweeted a photo of himself addressing striking miners in 1984, when he was the party’s transport spokesman. Diane Abbott, a Corbyn-backing Labour MP, tweeted a video showing Labour government ministers visiting a picket line in 1974.
“Keir Starmer will pay an electoral price for his failure to support striking workers,” Abbott said on Twitter.
Kier Starmer is so afraid of being labeled Corbyn 2.0 and yet he should have known exacxtly how this was going to look with not just left wing labour members but with the entire country. They cannot get their house in order and release statements, if Sam Tarry was sacked for making up policy then that is the information that should have been released first but it wasn’t and we had to hear from other people and twitter accounts that he had been sacked.
He’s shown all union members that he doesn’t support us.
Voting labour is a waste in my constituency but even so till he’s gone I’ll not be voting for them. He’s no better than a scab.
I’m fucking tired of hearing how workers rights are somehow ‘left wing’. They aren’t, they ascend left/right tribalistic bullshit. If you work for a bank or trading institution and they raise your salary are they suddenly left wing? The entirety of the Conservative mp’s gave themselves a pay rise this year, does that make them left wing now?
As mentioned elsewhere; Starmer’s political game is weak.
It was an entirely avoidable drama. The damage is already done now, doesn’t matter if he comes out saying “he broke media policy” because the media and unions have already pushed that he’s been sacked for joining the picket line.
That’s all the public will take onboard. In short, political own goal.
I always thought it was a silly idea to ban your frontbenchers from attending picket lines.
But that doesn’t mean what Sam Tarry did was okay, he deliberately did his own media round without telling his boss, Lou Haigh, or the leadership, and made up party policy and promoted himself to Shadow Transport Secretary for good measure.