‘Britain is broken for many people' | Mick Lynch on the future of the left, Labour & trade unions

if this Labour Party doesn't recover in the next two years, it could be the end of the Labour Party. I think he's got a problem. Nobody understands what Keir Starmer is. They don't understand what the message and theme of this Labour government is. I think Keir Starmer will face a challenge and I would certainly be interested in that challenge. The movement that built the NHS, that built university education, built the welfare state and all of that stuff that we cherish in the Labour movement, I don't think that the Greens have got that kind of ballast behind them. Is Britain

broken? I think it's broken for many people but there are many people that Britain works very nicely for. If you own a subcontracting outsourcing company it's working really great for you. He's got to come out and sell his wares, he's got to come out to the trade unions and say this is my message. It's not a six month message. There's got to be some of that. But this is my message for a future Burnham Labour government.

Maybe it'll be a Burnham Rainer government. We don't know how these things work. Nick Lynch, very nice to see you again because I've seen you on the picket line. Do you miss the picket line? Well it depends on the weather because it could be the dispute that you saw us in went from all four or five seasons I think at the time so I don't miss that getting up ungodly hours but I do miss the camaraderie and the solidarity for the members and the support of the members of course. Are you being a good

pensioner? I'm being a good pensioner I've taken my railway pension scheme and my RMT scheme and I'm living on those means and I'm glad to say because of our trade union and the traditional final salary pension schemes I have a reasonable income retirement which is what we want for all workers. And our youngest Newsnight viewers should know how to translate that that a person retiring could earn the same money in

retirement as the day they walked out the door? Well not quite, it's usually a fraction of it but it's related to your final earnings, a defined benefit we call it in technical terms, but it means that you'll get above the state pension and you should have a reasonable income and now people are telling us that there's this great division between boomers, which may be me and you, Paddy, you're a bit younger than me, but,

and the next generations. I don't think that's the case. I think people are just being robbed by the employers and by the system to give them worse pensions so that the employers get away with not providing properly for their staff.

Would you give some of the benefits enjoyed by people like you and me to younger people? For instance, should there be free travel for someone of 19 in their first job? Should there be a pension contributory scheme with an employer versus no pension scheme? Well there certainly should be good pensions and they should be related to... But would you take money from the pensions? Because you know there's this triple lock for you.

I don't believe in Robin Peter to pay Paul. But would you keep the triple lock? Well, you need a system that's balanced across the generations. But you're going to protect you, the boomer, and say push off to the youngster? Well, the triple lock needs to be examined. And it wasn't... for earnings-related pensions. And if people had good occupational pensions,

employer pensions, then we would have less pressure on the state pension. The employers have got away with it since Thatcher. They've been allowed to divest themselves of good occupational pension schemes and put it all on either poor schemes or schemes that

depend on the vagaries of the market, which is why people are getting a raw deal. And people need a square deal across the economy. But you know we're in the news business Mick, do you accept that the triple lock will probably be broken? Well I think it needs to be reviewed and we need to ensure that... Well you can't review it and leave it the same so would it be reviewed? Well if it's to be reviewed you should be because they're... Well yes you could just say yes you could be blunt with me yes change triple lock.

Well I wouldn't just get rid of it for the sake of it because the Daily Express and the Daily Mail think that should be the case. What I would do is make sure that pensioners don't live in poverty and make sure we get a comprehensive pension schemes across occupational schemes and the state scheme. But Michael Gove said on Newsnight. It needs to be reviewed He's all it must be true then isn't it? Well, if you're Michael Gove we won't be getting reviewed and you won't be affected by it Can you just give me a straight answer what we I'm giving you a straight answer Should the triple lock be broken to favor the poor younger poorer people?

No, it shouldn't just be broken right, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't review how we provide for people in retirement. And that means a comprehensive scheme right across people's working lives so that employers have to pay for people's retirement, pay their share, which is what they used to do. And the way that news works in this country is they make people forget the benefits that we used to have. And big employers, responsible employers employers used to pay for their workers' retirements and they don't have to do that anymore because they've put it all

on private schemes which give all their money to the market and the financial institutions. Now do you enjoy the hard earned benefit of some free rail travel? Which friends of mine who worked in your industry and believe me I'm'm not being patronizing I did have a lifelong friend who was a train driver and he loved the fact that he'd earned some free travel yeah we do you have some free we used to get free travel that we inherited from British Rail which is a good deal I get it as well because I've worked for British Rail and

it was a negotiated part of my terms and conditions. But I'm not being pushy, I just wonder where you like to go on it? Do you have a favourite route Mick? Do you go away, do you have a camper van? What is your retirement, what does it look like? Well my retirement recently has been a lot of DIY, doing up the house, which I haven't done for 10 years.

But yeah, a fair bit of travel, me and my wife like to go away, we're off to see our friends in the North East a few weeks ago. We'll be going to Ireland again. We spend a lot of time going around Ireland, doing meetings, going to festivals, meeting people, meeting relatives. So we'll be doing a tour of that. And we have a favorite rail line in the UK. My favorite rail line is the line home.

So it's anything through Paddington station, my hometown and back to the greeny suburbs of Ealing and put my feet up and watch Newsnight when I get in. But think of the beautiful Anshan Coast, have you ever done that? I've never done that one, that would be one I'd like to do. I like the journey from Dublin to Cork, but I like all journeys, I like the railway. You have to pay for that, that's not a BR scheme.

Well I do get discounted travel on Irish Rail. Do you? Yes, because of the European wide railway workers schemes. The thing is, many viewers will say, good, you've worked for 45 years in a working class job and I'm not saying you shouldn't have it, I'm just curious about your life. Well people should get it, that was part of the benefits of being a railway employee and there weren't great wages on the railway back in the day. They were quite poor wages really but you got benefits such as a defined benefit final salary pension

scheme, sick pay that other people didn't used to get and concessionary travel on the railway. Because there is a difference of opinion now about conditions isn't there because the train unions, Aslef and the RMT which is your former home, they've diverged on what this latest number of days a week is and it's said to be the only time a union's fought against doing fewer days,

which the RMT appears to be doing.

Well, we're not against fewer days, what we're in favour of is getting an agreement and the difficulty of what this dispute is about is the employer has settled with one of the unions, that represents just over half the people and not settled with us and now they've sought to impose conditions on our members which we don't accept. They asked us to take a vote on it, we took a vote and it was overwhelmingly rejected and now they're seeking to impose it and often trade unions disputes are about imposed change from management which is

what the main dispute was about a couple of years ago so we don't want that. I'm sure our negotiators are keen to get back around the table and we can get a settlement, but we can't accept imposition. And the majority of train drivers on the Underground, including Aslef members, in a vote rejected that deal. Because I spoke to a guy running a pub who said it's just stopped his trade.

The tube strikes. Yeah, well that's inevitable I'm afraid, when there's a big tube strike. You don't sound very sympathetic. Well I'm sympathetic. Well you're not, you said it's inevitable. Well it's inevitable when you get a dispute. Management knew this dispute was coming.

What so did the drivers do? They made the decision to impose this deal when we had a strike mandate. We could have left that mandate aside if they hadn't imposed the deal. Is there a way to get there without a strike? Could you call off the strike? Well it's not you anymore, could you, could you, those who've come after you, could they just do this in a fairer way to the people who live in the capital who run businesses and say we're going to take our dispute over here and we're

not going to stop your trade? If unions don't reserve the right to strike and use that mandate every now and again, management will just impose all sorts of changes on them, which is what happened in the main rail dispute that viewers will remember. But the thing is there's been a big change in the public attitude to the doctors' strike. The doctors are on strike, the bin men are still on strike, the refuse collectors in Birmingham, the drivers. The public position is changing. Do you acknowledge that?

I don't blame the public for being annoyed about industrial disputes but there are two sides to the dispute. Management can change their position. We have a set of conditions on London Underground which can stay in place while these changes are negotiated. Instead they're seeking to bring them in without agreement. So I'm sympathetic to the public and we always apologise for the disruption we're causing. But I'd have to apologise, or we'd have to apologise to our members if we just let things

be imposed on them that they don't want. Well would you come back on Newsnight and meet the publican I met? Would you have a word with him on the telly? Yeah, I've met all sorts of people who joined the dispute. I know you're not shy but I don't... It probably should be the current General Secretary rather than me. Well let me ask you why all these strikes are happening under a Labour government?

Well the industrial realm doesn't go away just because there's a Labour government. And the Labour government and this Labour Mayor in London has not taken steps that the unions would like. He's still got thousands of outsourced low-paid cleaners who he promised to us would be in source to London Transport. He's got thousands of contractors working on the track and he hasn't taken the steps that we would like to see. Now that doesn't mean we entirely disagree with Sadiq Khan but Labour politicians have got to learn they're not immune to the vagaries of

what goes on in the industrial realm. And Keir Starmer hasn't done that much to satisfy the unions. The Employment Rights Act has been diluted considerably and it hasn't delivered everything we want, but it's a step forward compared to where we were under the Tories. So life doesn't go away just because you hope it will do and some of your acquaintances are in power. Do you think Keir Starmer will go away? Well I think Keir Starmer is on one of those four-inch bars in the Olympics and he's

going to have to do somersaults to stay on it at the moment as we've seen in Parliament and elsewhere. I think he's got a problem. Nobody understands what Keir Starmer is. They don't understand what the message and theme of this Labour government is. You know, whether you like Thatcher or not, you knew what she was about, privatisation of the economy and all that kind of stuff. Nobody knows what Keir Starmer believes in. Nobody knows what Rachel Reeves particularly believes in. They mention growth every now and again but it's an abstract concept. It's not saying to young people I'm going to get

you a meaningful apprenticeship, I'm going to get you a trade, I'm going to get you a future in industry, I'm going to get you a well-paid job where you can rely on benefits and you may work under a, got a good chance of working under a union agreement which will secure your future. People aren't feeling that. People are feeling that this society is confused, it's disordered and unorganised. That's the way I think working people feel and maybe middle class people feel that as well.

A lot of people feel undermined by the way the system operates. I don't think the system works, it just operates of its own logic. I think that's what Labour have got to do. This is what they need to say, we're going to change this country in your favour so that every person in this country gets a square deal. I don't think anyone knows what the Labour's message is for the next three years, if they

went that far, but let's say two and a half, two years, two years. I don't think anybody knows what they're going to be about in this period. Do you regret your sort of quasi-endorsement? Because I think you said people need to grow up, was your phrase. People kept telling me that we should get rid of Starmer at that time, two months before the election. But you said people need to grow up.

Have you changed? Have you grown up? No, we needed to get rid of the Tories. Well, you did. The country desperately needed to get the Tories out. Do you need to get rid of Keir Starmer? Do you need to get rid of Keir Starmer? I think Keir Starmer will face a challenge, and I would certainly be interested in that challenge. If he wins it, he wins it. I don't think he will win a real challenge

from a properly coordinated group of people inside the local elections. Would you back Angela Rayner? I'd back Angela Rayner when we see her agenda, if she suits what RMT and other trade unions and what we think working-class people need in this country. Would you vote Green? I'm not voting Green in this election because I still believe in the Labour movement. I believe there's a political wing of our movement, the Westminster wing, and the local authorities, of course, and all the assemblies and national governments. And there needs to be a strong trade union element.

I'm not convinced that the Greens have got that sort of heft behind them, whereas an entire movement, the movement that built the NHS, that built university education, built the welfare state, and all of that stuff that we cherish in the labour movement, I don't think the Greens have got that kind of ballast behind them.

And that doesn't mean they can't be part of that labour movement and it doesn't mean that trade unionists and socialists shouldn't engage with them. I think they should. And maybe they'll become part of a bigger labour movement in the future because the main thing we've got to do is defeat reform. It's funny because when you were saying the system didn't work I was interrupting you

not to stop you speaking but just because that's quite close to the reform message to say Britain's broken. Are you saying from a left wing perspective that Britain is broken? I think for many people this country doesn't work properly. So many people do not have educational prospects. Even the people that had those prospects have now got massive debt. The world of work is completely insecure for the majority of people. They don't have any tenure, it's an old-fashioned term, but they don't get a job and think I can stay with this job,

I can make my life better. Even in the big institutions like the NHS, thousands and thousands of people are working for private subcontractors in even our big public sector bodies. That is undermining working-class people. So we need to stabilise the community. Is Britain broken? I think it's broken for many people, but there are many people that Britain works very nicely for. If you own a subcontracting outsourcing company,

it's working really great for you, because you get to cream off the state's assets through privatisation. I've asked you about Angela Rayner. I must ask you about Andy Burnham, because he's done some things with the buses in Manchester.

He's tried to bring transport clearly back under the confines of an elected council, away from private operators for instance. No, well they're still with private operators but it's just under franchises. So the problems of private operators are still there. It's better than the system where it's the Wild West and private operators do what they want.

But it's just a form of regulation of private bus companies. So Andy Burnham's not one of your favourite Labour leaders? I like Andy Burnham. He's worked on our campaigns. He identifies with people who've got issues, trade unions and other people in our community. But he's got to come out and sell his wares.

He's got to come out to the trade unions and say, this is my message. It's not a six-month message, there's got to be some of that, but this is my message for a future Burnham Labour government. Maybe it will be a Burnham Rainer government, we don't know how these things work. But it's got to have a clear message that our communities are going to improve, the world of work is going to improve and we are going to have a coherent strategy for growth under a proper industrial plan.

I mean the last manifesto I think was called change. Yeah but what is the change? That's what nobody knows. You can call something change. What is it that we've changed? Well I'm just wondering if you think Labour will be changed? What is the risk for the Labour Party as run by Keir Starmer? How high is the stake? Well I think this party is the creation of Blair and Mandelson.

And these are the inheritors of it, right? This is unchallenged Thatcherism that we've had for 45, 46 years now, an undiluted form of Thatcherism. And now we're in mature or decaying Thatcherism, where housing is in crisis. The NHS is in crisis.

Most of our public institutions institutions like the water companies, the water boards as we had before Thatcher destroyed them. This is all maturing now into a festering mess. And what the shame for Labour, and I think it's influenced by Mandelson in particular, is that they've got no answer to it. They say let's have tighter regulation, let's have an off-com and an off-this and an off-that that's somehow going to bring these massive multinational investment companies

to task. And we've seen the drama about what's happened to the post office from Royal Mail, we've seen the drama on the water companies in the last few weeks on the other channel by the way. BBC should be making some of these programmes. We've seen the scandals that are happening now because of mature Thatcherism. And the shame is that Rainer has no answer. What is the alternative that Labour's going to offer?

What is the public sector going to be like, the utilities and so on?

I can give you one. They did lift the cap on child benefit, the number of children.

So they say, if they were here- They were forced into it. Well, they still would say, a government person would say, we've lifted x million children out of poverty.

Did they do that or not?

They did do that. But they were forced to do it by their backbenchers.

Right.

But the thing is, you can't. It wasn't Reina's message. That's cakeism. cake if you can't eat it. Exactly, but the thing is it sounds such a fierce criticism from you that I wonder if you think Labour might, this government might blow it. I think if this Labour Party doesn't recover in the next two years it could be the end of the Labour Party.

Labour parties have declined, the Socialist Party in France has virtually gone, the Labour Party in Ireland has disappeared, used to be one of the strongest elements in the political stratosphere, and that's gone. Labour parties do go into decline and trade unions look elsewhere ultimately. So do you think they might just disaffiliate in greater numbers from the Labour Party? Well the vast majority of trade unions are disaffiliated. I know that. There are only 11 trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party. They happen to be the

bigger ones in the main. Right, but I just I didn't know the number was 11 and I'm often educated by you Mick but I'm just wondering do you think that a number of 11 could become smaller within 12 months? If this party keeps going the way it is, if this government goes the way it is and doesn't get an agenda. So the energy unions have got some issues, we've got a small energy section in our union but they're very worried about the future.

We've been talking about just transition from North Sea oil and gas to the alternative energy systems. Nobody has done a thing about it. Thousands of people are going to lose their jobs in the energy sector. The issue for the trade unions is how do we make transition and it is with any technology. When technology changes or improves and we've got the AI issue to deal with, that's going to affect every job in the economy. We need to have a controlled system and a plan of how you transform the British working class into a new re-tooled, re-skilled, re-educated and I dare say re-programmed in that context workforce where they get a

square deal. Do you think that reform might get to the workers ahead of Labour? They will make some noises, like many right-wing populists have but they will destroy the working class. That's your prediction. They will destroy... They might persuade the working class. They're on record as saying they're going to get rid of the Employment Rights Act. But they might persuade working-class voters don't you think that's how...

They might well persuade working-class voters using division. Unite have already met reform, have they not? I believe they've met them in the Birmingham area because they may be in power in a few weeks time. And somebody will have to deal with that issue. I've had to meet lots of people I don't like in my life.

Well look at this.

As a trade unionist. And you have to deal with the people that have got the power. If our members are working for reform councils and even a reform government in the future, we have to deal with that government. I wonder if we're really skirting around, it's always great to have time with you, time is going to be short now, I wonder where we should say class is.

Do you feel that Britain is still really run on class lines? Do you think that the Labour government looks like a working class government? Well Paddy I'm the sort of socialist that believe that all societies run on class lines. It's a class system. Capitalism creates a class-based system. I'm not afraid of saying that. It doesn't make me particularly left-wing. It's just the truth. If you depend on a wage or on your earnings to maintain your lifestyle you are working class. You have to get out of bed and go to work. If you can live on the means of production, if

you own society, you're not working class. So the vast majority of people in this country are working class. There are strata in there, there are people who are better off working class and people that are virtually destitute in the working class. We have to make sure we have a society that deals with all of that and delivers for all of those people and allows the people at the bottom to get a way forward, to find a way where

they get secure jobs, prospects, and a brighter future. Nobody is offering that at the moment. Who makes your heart beat faster, your lefty heart beat faster on the world?

You can have anyone you like in the whole world, any country, any leader, you hear them and you go...

I don't particularly believe in leaders. I'm cynical about anyone that wants to be Prime Minister.

Well name one, name someone.

I haven't got a hero. I'm not that sort of person where I go, that's a hero, I must follow them. Well no, but... If you just believe in leaders, it means you don't know where you're going. What you need to do is have a movement and people that represent that movement, represent the ideas that our movement was built on, of creating a better society for everyone. And you don't worry about it, it's the policies that matter. I'm not worried about who is the leader of the Labour Party.

Eventually they will go, but the ideas of the Labour Party and the Labour movement should be the ones that we're following. What Blair and Mandelson and that crowd achieved was the destruction of those ideas that brought us all the benefits that we have in this society. And we need to rebuild that movement and not worry about who's actually got their hands on the tiller.

And you know what I'm going to say, because you know the script, three election victories in a row is what they brought the Labour Party. Yeah and they're bringing it to its destruction. They brought us more Thatcherism. They didn't deal with the housing crisis. But the public voted for them. Yes they did. So what does that mean? The public voted for Thatcher consecutively. That's right but the public then voted for Tony Blair and Dordon Brown. And as I said at the beginning, we're dealing with 45 years of unadulterated Thatcherism now.

And that's what's caused the corruption and the decay in this society, where we can't trust the water, we can't breathe the air, and we can't look after our elders properly. And our major institutions of the state are in decline. That is Thatcherism, and it was delivered by Thatcher and Major and Johnson and Blair and Brown and now Starmer. I don't think you sound very retired to me

I don't think you sound very retired to me Mick Lynch, thank you very much for coming back on Newsnight. Okay. Thank you