Think Labour are on your side? Brexit and rail strikes prove they don’t care about you
IF you raise an eyebrow when Keir Starmer says he’s “on your side”, this is the week you will be proved right.
With Labour’s backing, the unions have called the biggest rail strikes in this country since 1989.
The disruption will cause enormous frustration to millions of people as train services are shut down or reduced to a bare minimum.
The Labour-backed unions plotted this strike so it has the worst impact possible. It is going to be national, so it will affect people across the whole country.
And they have staggered the strike days — Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday — to cause maximum disruption across the rail network.
It will not just be those who rely on the trains who will suffer.
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The strikes mean the roads will be clogged up and other ways of getting around, such as the buses, will be packed.
People will miss out on their medical appointments.
And after all the difficulties our children faced during the pandemic, they now face disruption to their GCSE and A-level exams.
FAMILIES TO FEED
Keir Starmer has made a big call with these strikes. He has decided whose side he is on. And it is not the side of Sun on Sunday readers.
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Analysis that this newspaper has published today shows Labour have received a whopping £10million from unions threatening to bring the country to a standstill.
In this clear test of leadership, he has proved the old adage of, “He who pays the piper calls the tune”.
So when you are struggling to go about your daily life next week, think about that but also about the other big calls he got wrong.
He was wrong to deny the will of the people, and seek time after time to block Brexit.
He was wrong throughout the pandemic in repeatedly calling for more unnecessary and damaging lockdowns.
And he was wrong again this month in voting against our plans to stop dangerous small boat Channel crossings where smugglers are sending innocent people to their deaths.
The truth is Keir Starmer and his colleagues claim to represent working people, but their priorities are completely detached from what matters to working people.
It is partly because they are detached from everyday life themselves.
Labour imagines a country where everyone can work from home, sitting on Zoom.
But millions simply cannot. Most people have to get to work on time otherwise they will lose their job or lose business.
Keir Starmer has made a big call with these strikes. He has decided whose side he is on. And it is not the side of Sun on Sunday readers.
People have families to feed, and jobs that have to be done.
But it is also because Labour is relaxed about a country where the political demands of forces such as trade unions are more important than people’s day-to-day concerns, such as building a business or paying the bills.
For them, the disruption is a tool to make a political point — and the real- world impact does not matter.
The unions will say it is about pay. But the average rail worker earns £44,000. That is more than the average police officer, nurse or care worker.
They also get gold-plated pensions. That means many of them will still earn more in retirement than many working people do in employment.
There is an alternative.
This Government is taking steps to modernise and improve the railways.
It is good news for commuters and for leisure users, too.
As we rebuild together after the pandemic, we cannot afford outdated practices. We just need to get on with the job.
As we face one of the toughest cost-of-living squeezes we can remember, we should not let Labour get away with holding the country to ransom like this.
The Conservatives have launched a campaign to oppose the disruption next week. It is called Stop Labour’s Strikes.
If you believe we should keep moving forward — not turn the clock back to the broken Britain of the past — then I urge you to sign up. Just Google “Stop Labour’s Strikes”.
WOKE WARRIORS
And when it comes to what sort of country you want to live in, remember the decision Keir Starmer has made in backing these strikes, in putting the political interests of the Labour Party ahead of the national interests of the country.
It does not bode well for the future.
If Nicola Sturgeon asks him to choose between keeping our nation together or a separatist referendum as the price for her propping him up in power, whose side would he choose?
If hard Left Corbynista Labour MPs ask him to choose between bowing to their ever more extreme demands as the price for their votes, whose side would he choose?
And if the Labour-backing woke warriors and the cancel culture brigade pressure him to ratchet up their anti-British agendas on our great institutions, whose side would he choose?
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This week Keir Starmer chose the strikers over the strivers. And in doing so he has shown his true values.
The only way to keep on track is with the Conservatives, who are on your side, and who are getting on with the job.