Comrade Len: The Tories are like Nazis
UNION firebrand Len McCluskey sparked outrage yesterday after accusing the Tories of being like the Nazis for seeking to reform strike laws.
Mr McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, said the Trade Union Bill’s stipulation that supervisors on picket lines should wear armbands was reminiscent of the regime inside Dachau.
He said he would never wear an armband on the picket line, whatever the law states – likening doing so to being a Nazi concentration camp prisoner.
Mr McCluskey said trade union members interned at Dachau, a concentration camp for political prisoners opened by Hitler in 1933, had to wear armbands bearing a red triangle.
He told Labour delegates that if such legislation was imposed in a country such as Russia, there would be vocal opposition across the political spectrum.
In a furious speech moving a motion condemning the Bill, Mr McCluskey said: ‘Let me make one thing clear. Whatever the law says, I will be on the picket line when Unite members are on strike.
‘And I will not be wearing an armband with a red triangle like the trade union prisoners – that’s what the Nazis did, trade unionists in the concentration camps of Dachau. We won’t be doing that.’
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘Comparing the Government to a National Socialist regime that murdered millions of people is just plain mad. The Labour Party should disassociate itself from these remarks immediately.’
Mr McCluskey, who won a huge standing ovation after his speech, told activists in Brighton the legislation was ‘unnecessary, illiberal and spiteful’. And he said it was driven by ‘crude class resentment’ of the Tory Right-wing.
The Unite leader also attacked the Bill for changes which would make it harder for Labour to raise money from the unions.
‘This is a direct attack by a party in government to take away funding from its main opposition party,’ he said. ‘If this was happening in Russia there would be outcries in the media. Democracy is something all of us should believe in.’
Mr McCluskey raised the prospect that, if the anti-strike laws go ahead, his union would defy it, adding: ‘We will always support our membership – if that takes us outside the law, so be it.’