Train drivers will be striking on the first day of the Tory Party conference this weekend. It’s obviously in order to make a political point, even if union leaders deny it. They’re terrified of being accused by government ministers of identifying with one or other political standpoint and in particular with a socialist one. Never mind that the Labour Party, which their union, ASLEF, helps to finance, feels exactly the same way...
But even if this one strike day by train drivers won’t be decisive in the fight to win a pay rise (it will be the 13th 24-hour strike in the 16 months since this dispute first began!), it certainly shines a spotlight on Tory rail policies - or the lack of them!
Indeed, amid the hoo-hah over the future of the high speed rail-link, HS2 (meant to link London and Manchester to the “Northern Power House”), the Tory conference is, quite coincidently, being held in the former Manchester Central Railway Station building...
This huge station was shut in 1969, a victim of the vicious Beeching railway cuts of the 1960s, which reduced Britain’s track by over a third, closed down half of all train stations and cut 67,700 jobs.
Beeching caused massive detriment in every respect, not least because of the environmental damage which accrued, from then onwards, as freight moved from rail to road - although of course, the road construction industry and car and truck-manufacturers were big winners.
So, while the future of a fully-completed HS2 remains in question (its cost can only escalate, but surely that’s the point, under this capitalist system: to make the contractors and subcontractors filthy rich!?), Sunak has already announced his intention to extend the deadline for the ban on petrol and diesel car sales by 5 years, from 2030 to 2035...
Sunak is covering his Brexit tracks
It’s an odd calculation on his part. Will this policy really generate votes, as he hopes, based on the reaction by Uxbridge’s electorate against the Mayor of London’s ULEZ charge?
While the media made a big deal of his policy change, since it postpones climate change targets and keeps CO2-emitting cars on the road 5 years longer, it caused little more than “irritation” among the big capitalist car makers. Of course they don’t give a damn about “net zero” targets. But as car workers will know, plans were already in place to end diesel and petrol car production in 2030 and make the switch to electric vehicles.
Sunak’s sudden change in policy just brings Britain into line with the rest of Europe, however. What’s more, car giant Stellantis, which intends to build only EVs at Liverpool’s Ellesmere Port, had already written to the government over the lack of electric charging infrastructure, which was unlikely to be in place even within 10 years.
However, like other car makers, its main worry was not the 2030 deadline, but EU tariffs to be imposed on British-made EVs, if less than 45% of parts originate in Britain. These were/are due to come in next year! First and foremost, Stellantis et al want a delay in their imposition. Whether Sunak will be able to persuade EU leaders to postpone this Brexit requirement, remains to be seen. This is not something he is advertising. His motto seems to be “let bad news cover bad news, and please forget about Brexit”.
Steady as she goes... to the right
The ongoing strikes - even though they’re more sectional than ever and fewer and further between - remain really bad news for the government. It has set itself up as final arbiter in the railway dispute - having itself frozen pay for 4 years and decided to cut jobs and conditions, and close the ticket offices.
The situation feels quite surreal. Tory spokespersons keep referring proudly to their Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 which became law in July. And the top union leaders play right into their hands, complaining that the Act is an unprecedented attack, not only on employment rights, but on human rights - and that it breaks international law - as if the government ever cared a damn about that!
As everybody knows, “minimum services” aren’t provided, even at the best of times in public services - as the doctors who will strike again on 2-4 October, along with radiographers, repeatedly point out. By passing this latest anti-union law, the Tories may have pleased their anti-working class electorate and reactionary back-benchers, but in reality, it’s “all sound and fury, signifying nothing”, and will just backfire on the government if it tries to make use of it.
In the meantime it has handed union leaders and the likes of Labour’s Angela Rayner, a free gift... These guys now have something to shout about, as Rayner did last week at TUC conference, railing against the Tories and promising to repeal this law - all the while trying to entice workers into Labour’s electoral dead-end. Of course, she wouldn’t have wanted an effective strike for or against anything, in case it rocked the system’s boat, since Labour has no intention of changing its course. Workers on the other hand, not only have every reason to rock it, but to sink it...