SOCIALIST Campaign Group MPs and RMT leader Mick Lynch crowded onto the Port of Liverpool dockers’ picket line in the morning drizzle today.

Mr Lynch said to cheers that struggles like the dockers’ showed “the working class is back” and said Unite’s record of successful strikes was inspiring other unions in struggle.

Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne told the dockers, who have been on pickets since September 20, that they had the “solidarity of the city and the world,” pointing to the stream of cars and lorries honking in support and the banners from dock workers’ unions in other countries.

John McDonnell said dockers should know there were still Labour MPs in Parliament willing to stand with them. Chants of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” burst out when the former Labour leader took the mike.

Unite national officer Bobby Morton reminded workers that it was the anniversary of the start of the 1995 strike that saw dockers, including himself, walk out for two-and-a-half years.

He slammed anti-union laws that meant workers in foreign countries could take solidarity action — pointing out a ship that had docked in Liverpool was turned away in Rotterdam last week — but British workers at other docks were banned from taking such action. But he pointed to ongoing disputes elsewhere like at Felixstowe, saying there was a prospect of co-ordinating strikes across ports.

Dockers are on strike at the Port of Liverpool for higher pay. The union says employer MDHC made over £30 million in profit last year and is owned by the Peel Group, whose biggest shareholder is “tax exile” billionaire John Whittaker, so can well afford a pay rise matching inflation.