The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire argues Sir Keir Starmer should listen to the unions calls on workers’ rights after the departure of Angela Rayner triggered a reshuffle
Trades unions want better job rights, higher wages, turbo-boosted public services, the scrapping of the Tory poverty-creating two-child benefit cap and a wealth tax imposed.
So Keir Starmer should be popping down to Brighton for this week’s TUC annual Congress to pick up a few bold ideas to revitalise his struggling Labour government instead of staying away.
Because lurching to the right and shuffling the Cabinet deckchairs after union darling Angela Rayner left home isn’t the answer to a haemorrhaging of hope, trust and electoral support. Starmer fatally dilutes promised modern rights at work, laws that would stop folk being exploited and mistreated as disposable cheap labour. By doing so, Starmer would sign the government’s death warrant.
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Downing Street insists that isn’t the plan, the Prime Minister himself pledging last week that the package of employment protections piloted by Rayner would be delivered for the benefit of future generations. The reshuffle, however, sparks fears of weaker vital operational codes being drafted in the months ahead.
Justin Madders, an employment minister on top of the detail, was moved away and Jonathan Reynolds relieved of duties as business ecretary, the Durham pit village lad now sidelined as Chief Whip. He has been replaced by Blairite ultra Peter Kyle.
Alarm bells are ringing loudly in the ears of instinctively loyal union heads who believe a deal is a deal and worry Starmer may yet betray them to woo the insatiable, voracious beast that is the business lobby.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak’s appeal to the PM to show he’s on the side of working people is a challenge that should be accepted clearly, or Starmer would inadvertently give Nigel Farage’s Reform bandwagon another push. Harold Wilson, once cited by Starmer as his favourite previous Labour premier, declared the party was a crusade or it was nothing.
Boat crossings are an issue, currently a huge one hammered as a wedge by Farage, but “smashing the gangs” as Starmer vowed to do isn’t a magic potion. Security at work, fatter wage packets, a healthy NHS, lifting kids out of poverty and funding a fairer country are prizes that win Labour hearts, minds and, of course, votes.
Relations as ever are strained between the industrial and political wings of a disputatious Labour movement. Starmer isn’t instinctively hostile to unions the way Blair was.
Far from it. His goal must be to keep them onside, starting with delivering the full-fat pledge on jobs rights rather than going lite on the issue.