ANOTHER of Keir’s top team fails to condemn walkouts
ANOTHER Labour frontbencher refused to condemn the rail strikes yesterday, even suggesting the unions ‘are not the enemy’.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves twice dodged the question of whether or not she would vote to walk out if she was in the militant RMT union.
On the BBC’s Sunday Morning politics show, when asked if she backed the stoppages, Miss Reeves said: ‘I don’t want to see strikes but nor do people who work in the rail industry.’
Asked if she was ‘on the side of the rail workers’, she said: ‘Look, I totally understand why people in the rail industry feel that things are just not working for them.’
Miss Reeves was also quizzed over RMT demands for a pay rise in line with the RPI rate of inflation of 11.1 per cent.
She replied: ‘They are not the enemy here, they are looking to secure a good deal for their workers.’
Last week health spokesman Wes Streeting said he would join the strikers if he were in the RMT while Lisa Nandy, levelling up spokesman, said her party was ‘on the rail workers’ side’.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has so far said only that the strikes ‘shouldn’t go ahead’ but has stopped short of condemning them.
But some MPs in the divided party, including ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell, have pledged ‘complete solidarity’ with the strikers.