Rail action could continue ‘indefinitely’ as Braverman warns against travelling abroad

STRIKES on the railway will continue “indefinitely” unless ministers back down on key demands, union boss Mick Lynch has threatened, as travellers face misery this Christmas.

Industrial action across the rail network is planned for Dec 13, 14, 16, 17 and 24-27. Mick Lynch, the head of the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union (RMT), warned that industrial action on the railway would continue unless ministers backed down on demands to remove guards from trains.

“[Strikes] will be indefinite if that is their position,” he said, adding the union “would go down on this issue”.

“They may as well come in with a fish and slap me around the chops with it”

The warning came as Suella Braverman said travellers planning to head abroad at Christmas should “think carefully” about doing so because of the risk of “serious disruption” from Border Force strikes. Mrs Braverman said families going abroad would find their plans “impacted” by the eight days of strikes by members of the PCS union from Dec 23 to New Year’s Eve. Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff will be affected.

The Home Office has put on standby 600 military personnel who will be dispatched to airports to take over passport checks on inbound travellers but airports and airlines are braced for cancellations of up to 20 per cent of flights, depending on the effectiveness of the Government’s contingency plans and scale of the walkout.

Mrs Braverman told broadcasters: “It’s very regrettable that they have made this decision to potentially strike over critical times in the run-up and following Christmas and New Year.

“If they go ahead with those strikes there will be serious disruption caused to many thousands of people who have holiday plans. I want to urge people who have got plans to travel abroad to think carefully about their plans because they may well be impacted.”

Travel operators reported Christmas holidaymakers had already started cancelling their bookings because of renewed uncertainty over travel.

Hopes of avoiding painful rail strikes this Christmas were skewered by a lastminute demand that RMT agrees the train network should be switched to driver-only operation (DOO).

The Daily Telegraph reported this week that the DOO condition, inserted in an offer by train operators late on Sunday, came at the request of Downing Street. Some 20,000 RMT members at the organisation are now voting on a deal that averages a pay rise worth 9 per cent over two years.

The RMT is encouraging its members to vote against the offer.