In my humble opinion, it’s official: Mick Lynch has done more for the workers in the last few days than Keira Starmer for more than two years as Labor leader.
You know, the real Labor Party, designed to represent working people who are currently facing spiraling inflation, explosive energy bills and real wage cuts – the clue is in the name, Cair.
Lynch, secretary general of the RMT union, swept the floor in front of both politicians and journalists as he defended this week’s railroad workers’ strike – and patiently explained as a saint why it was necessary.
As for the media circle; he came, he saw, he won. Introduce a bunch of holiday memes, with Mick Lynch cast as Chuck Norris, and videos of him in Tory’s “Body Body.” His Wikipedia entry has been changed to read: “He holds the record for the most ass handed out during his media appearances on June 21, 2022.”
Actor Hugh Laurie tweeted: “I don’t know enough about the railway dispute. I only notice that Mick Lynch from RMT cleaned up every media picador who tried his luck today.
A steady, unperturbed presence, Lynch is simply not subject to “nonsense,” as Tory MP Jonathan Gallis tried to understand that RMT and the attackers were not interested in veterans or that they had to apologize to doctors and nurses. You can smell despair, and in a way I sympathize with Gallis, an MP from Stoke-on-Trent North, because everything seems so transparent to me.
Quick! Introduce our favorite NHS (where nurses are forced to use food banks, but don’t mention it a bit) and the brave armed forces! This will make Joe Public rise up against people who have the audacity to use their power to negotiate after negotiations failed in a raging tornado of a cost of living crisis!
Mick Lynch doesn’t rise to any of this. He manages to make it quite obvious that his tolerance for the bull **** is low, but he will only get excited when he really needs to. He sets out his points with clarity and enough passion to become a socialist pin-up, but without being accused of hysteria or, you know, too revolutionary. It also helps that – in my opinion – he is on the right side of the dispute.
Until Lynch, Keir Starmer looks every inch like a cardboard man. Gray and tasteless, he seems more concerned with what the Tories might say than actually advocating working people — those he should serve.
He is the politician whose leadership manifesto, the platform of 10 promises on which he is running for election, includes “strengthening the rights of workers and trade unions”.
If anyone needs a refresh, it says, “Work side by side with unions to stand up for working people, deal with precarious work and low pay. Repeal of the Trade Unions Act. Oppose Tory attacks on the right to take industrial action and the weakening of rights in the workplace. “
It is then ridiculous that he openly refused to support the railway strikes and banned his front bench from the picket lines.
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Mick Lynch’s refusal to apologize for doing his job – fighting for the fair pay that railroad workers deserve, which every worker deserves, while Starmer essentially ignores his – is a stark reminder of the deep and constant disappointment of the past few years under his leadership.
It seems to me that since Starmer first began to show that he has no intention of fulfilling the promises he made to be elected to party membership, he has taken out Corbyn’s project – and abandoned common sense, leftist principles that he can simply make this country work for more people than a handful of rich elites – hope was dangerously scarce.
An analysis of Google search data shows that searches for “join the union” increased by 184 percent in the United Kingdom on June 22. This is the highest level in more than a year, according to recruitment experts Workello. This means that workers care about their rights and support each other. The message seems to be that if we don’t, no one will do it for us – neither this government nor the current Labor leadership.
Mick Lynch quickly became a national treasure. The iconic moment when he confronted Labor Baroness Chapman and told her “I don’t even know who you are” was gold on social media. Maybe it’s because we’ve been so incredibly hungry for dynamic, left-wing Labor over the last few years, but to me, Lynch feels like an ice-cold jet of water hitting the parched throats of people lost in the desert.
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