UNIONS must walk a tight-rope dealing with a right-wing Labour government, a senior trade unionist has said.

TUC president and Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack made the statement at the Morning Star’s fringe meeting at the TUC Congress today.

He highlighted that “one of the biggest challenges we face” in a Keir Starmer-led government is how the labour movement can take advantage of the “significant improvements” it has promised. 

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko said Sir Keir Starmer’s solution to what he correctly labelled as economic and societal “black holes,” leading to August’s racist riots, were “bound to make everything worse.”

“Labour’s case on the macro economic policy is simply contradictory,” he said. “It’s that Tory cuts and privatisation of the last 14 years have ruined public services, so we need more cuts and privatisation in order to fix the mess.”

He said it would be “a very big mistake” for unions to rely on striking behind-closed-doors deals with Labour, instead of organising grass-roots national demonstrations against cuts.

RMT president Alex Gordon said many of Labour’s economic policies “bear an uncanny resemblance to those of its defeated and demoralised Tory predecessors” and that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to keep Tory spending policies “means the same but worse, as society and the economy continue to deteriorate from the cumulative impact of austerity.”

Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary Fran Heathcote said it was “an absolute disgrace” that the government would not lift the widely condemned two-child benefit cap and suspended seven Labour MPs for backing this in Parliament.

The Budget will be “the defining moment in the new government,” she added, saying: “Is it going to rebuild public services and living standards or will it unleash a new wave of austerity?”

National Education Union national president Phil Clarke said Labour’s majority was “very vulnerable” and had a “government of contradictions.”

He urged unions to focus on growing its membership to pull ministers left, saying: “Our number one priority is getting out house in order. They are selling Congress House – have we heard any discussion about that serious indication of where our movement is?”

Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said the government’s attitude towards workers will reflect the Royal Borough of Greenwich threatening its housing maintenance teams with fire and rehire for not accepting a 17 per cent pay cut.