RISHI SUNAK’S plans to cut 70,000 Civil Service jobs are a national security risk that union will fight “tooth and nail,” TUC general secretary Paul Nowak told the PCS annual conference today.

He said: “We fought against Boris Johnson’s plan to slash 90,000 civil service jobs — and we were successful.

“And we will fight tooth and nail against Rishi Sunak’s plan to cut 70,000 jobs to fund increased defence spending.

“We know it’s a bad idea when Jacob Rees-Mogg may think this is ‘excellent policymaking.’

“These back-of-the-envelope proposals will damage the state, undermine our democracy and do nothing for our national security.

“They must be defeated — and if we stick together and fight together, they will be defeated.”

Last month, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt defended the plan to slash Civil Service jobs to fund an increase in defence spending to 2.5 per cent of national income by 2030.

In today’s address, Mr Nowak also warned PCS that “there is still a long way to go to secure fairness for your members,” with Civil Service pay now worth less than when Harold Wilson was prime minister — he left office in 1976.

“Civil servants have suffered real-terms pay cuts of 23 per cent since 2010,” said the TUC general secretary.

“And one in five of your members at the DWP is claiming benefits, with one in 10 doing another job or dependent on foodbanks.

“It says everything about Tory Britain that the government’s own workforce isn’t paid enough to live on.”

He praised the PCS Safe Passage campaign for showing that there is a “humane alternative to the government’s disgraceful migration policies” that doesn’t involve PCS members “being sent to Rwanda to do the Home Office’s dirty work.

“The Tories’ culture wars are a desperate attempt to detract from their terrible failures on wages, living standards and public services,” Mr Nowak added.