UNION leaders issued a stark warning today, urging the new Labour government to deliver real change as thousands lined the streets at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in Dorset.
Trade unionists taking part in the annual procession marched to brass bands and chanted “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” and “Keir Starmer you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
They then cheered Bibby Stockholm refugees as they took centre-stage alongside general secretaries Matt Wrack (FBU), Paul Nowak (TUC) and Sharon Graham (Unite).
TUC president Matt Wrack said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer must raise expectation that Labour will use its overwhelming party majority to deliver the “significant change” the public wants to see.
“We want to see our rights restored, we want to see public services restored, we want to see homes rebuilt we want to see our wages rebuilt and restored after 14 years of attacks,” he said.
“I say this to the new Labour government as a Labour-affiliated union: this government needs to start to offer hope, because there are some stark warnings within that election.”
Noting the historically low vote share for Labour and high support for Reform in this month’s general election, he said: “What we cannot afford is further disillusionment within traditional Labour voters.
“Unions have to be central to that, our job is to organise and campaign with a Labour government for our members to restore our rights and improve our wages.”
Mr Wrack also called for the Bibby Stockholm barge to be closed and for no renewal of its government contracts.
“I want to see a government that doesn’t pillory and attack refugees and migrants,” he said. “Refugees are welcome here.”
“We also want to see a rapid change in the policy [concerning] the slaughter in Gaza,” he added.
“If you cannot rely on government and the UN then we have to build our mass movement here and across the world to say [we] will not tolerate that slaughter anymore and we will take action to end it.”
Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike, he demanded an investigation into the Orgreave scandal and the quashing of all outstanding convictions against miners for actions taken during the strike.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said Labour must use its Commons majority to deliver the same “deep and ambitious change” that saw the creation of the NHS following the 1945 election.
He said: “The Tories might be gone but their toxic, damaging legacy is all around us.
“Labour need to take that 172-seat majority as a vote from the British public that they want to see deep and ambitious change in this country.
“They should learn from our history. That 1945 Labour government took a country battered by war, facing huge economic challenges and they rebuilt Britain from the bottom up.
“We need that same ambition from the Labour government today and it can start by implementing that manifesto in full, bringing our railways back where they belong, in public ownership.
“They can start with a massive wave of in-sourcing so that we fund public services, not private profit.
“They can start by creating that new publicly owned energy company and they can start with a real industrial strategy that creates and protects jobs including £2.5bn to save Port Talbot and British steel. Let’s save our steel in this country.”
Calling on the union movement to “seize the moment of hope,” Mr Nowak said the most important thing Labour can do in the next 100 days is live up to their commitment to deliver a new deal for workers in full.
“Ignore the employers’ lobby, ignore the Amazons of this world, deliver those rights in full,” he added.
“I say this to Amazon and to every other dirty employer in this country: we are coming for you. We are going to unionise you and we are going to win.”
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said “inequality is a political choice,” adding: “We have a Labour government and it’s good to see intent … we must make absolutely no apology for reminding Labour that it must be a government that fights for workers and our communities.
“Britain is broken. It’s on its knees and tinkering around the edges is not going to be good enough.”
Noting it was 190 years since the Tolpuddle Martyrs were convicted for trying to unionise, she said: “Friends, the flame flickers anew, the rebirth of the trade union movement is at hand.”
One of the asylum-seekers held on the Bibby Stockholm barge urged Labour to close the “prison-like” accommodation.
He had been seeking asylum in Britain for 14 months and on the barge for two months and 10 days.
“My family in my home country and under fire, under war, I’m the only one who will support them and they are waiting,” he told the Morning Star.
“I cannot work, I cannot get money, I cannot even help myself. It’s such a prison because you have a lot of restrictions.”
“We are treated like criminals if you like … we are just applying for asylum.”
He said of attending the festival: “You feel like you can share your voice. You are so welcome, you feel like a real human being.”
