Keir Starmer has been accused of making a “severe mistake” and stoking an unnecessary row by firing a shadow transport minister over his comments on rail strikes.
The former shadow chancellor John McDonnell told the Labour leader to “come off the fence” and stop alienating voters. He claimed there were unprecedented levels of anger at the lack of solidarity with workers taking industrial action.
Starmer sacked Sam Tarry on Wednesday for giving a series of interviews from a picket line outside Euston station in central London that were not in line with party policy. McDonnell said Tarry was supporting a just cause by standing with those protesting about below-inflation pay rises.
McDonnell called it a “silly situation” and asked: “What was he supposed to do? Go on there and wear a gag?”
Unlike during the last rail strike, shadow ministers were not banned from attending picket lines. But Tarry was sacked for telling broadcasters it was “not acceptable to offer below-inflation pay rises” to workers because it would mean a real-terms pay cut.
Tarry was told Labour’s official position was that it was for ministers and unions to negotiate terms.
But several Labour MPs who held senior positions under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership ridiculed that reason.
McDonnell said Labour had a chance to “gain an advantage in the polls” given Tory leadership candidates’ attacks on each other, but that Starmer had invented a “completely unnecessary row”.
McDonnell forecast there would be a “wave of industrial action” as union after union balloted for strikes during the year, meaning Labour’s current position was not tenable. “We’ve got to come off the fence and be on the side of a just cause. The workers, I think they’ve got it right,” he told Sky News.
Starmer had misread the mood of the general public, was alienating voters and causing unprecedented levels of anger in the Labour and trade union movement, said McDonnell.
A coordinated general strike by unions would be “the most effective thing to do”, McDonnell said. He argued Labour MPs should be present on picket lines across the country when it happened.
A Labour source said Tarry’s media interviews were done without his boss, the shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, or Starmer’s office knowing in advance. “This represents a total breakdown of discipline and put the leadership in a position where it was impossible to do anything else,” they added.
A party spokesperson said Tarry had breached the collective responsibility rule of having media appearances authorised in advance.
Diane Abbott, who was shadow home secretary under Corbyn, also criticised Starmer for taking action against Tarry.
“All Labour MPs should support these fully justified strikes,” she tweeted. “Going on protests, supporting picket lines, putting our side of the story to the media is socialism 101 for MPs.”
Abbott posted a series of tweets from senior Labour MPs showing them on picket lines – including John Prescott offering solidarity with miners in 1984 and the then minister Shirley Williams at the Grunwick factory in 1977.
John Prescott on the miners picket line in 1984. No doubt Starmer would have sacked him #RMTSolidarity https://t.co/DqCE4pzupE
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) July 28, 2022
“If Starmer had been Labour leader then, no doubt, he would have sacked them,” she said.
Repeating Starmer’s leadership campaign pledge to “work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people”, Abbott added: “Now he is sacking MPs for going on picket lines.”
Tarry, who is in a relationship with the Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said in a statement he did not regret his actions. “As a Labour politician, I am proud to stand with these striking rail workers on the picket line in the face of relentless attacks by this Tory government,” he said.
“It has been a privilege to serve on Labour’s frontbench for the past two years and to have had the opportunity to speak up for hard-pressed workers who deserve so much better than the treatment they’ve received from this corrupt and out-of-touch government.”
