TUC says government’s proposed anti-strike law ‘wrong, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal’
Paul Nowak, the new general secretary, has attacked the government’s proposed anti-strike law (see 3pm) as “wrong, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal”. In a statement he said:
This is an attack on the right to strike. It’s an attack on working people. And it’s an attack on one of our longstanding British liberties.
It means that when workers democratically vote to strike, they can be forced to work and sacked if they don’t. That’s wrong, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal.
The announcement offers nothing more to help with this year’s pay and the cost of living crisis.
Key events
Early evening summary
Sunak got in first yesterday (report here, and text of the speech here), and Starmer delivered his this morning (report here, and text of the speech here) – although, as he pointed out, Labour booked the venue and scheduled their speech first. Sunak set out five pledges, two of which he promised to achieve this year, and the others he implied would be done by the time of the next election. The promises were widely dismissed as unimpressive, because with the exception of an ambiguously-worded one on small boats, they were all outcomes that are likely to happen anyway. But it sounded like a transactional deal with voters, and Sunak was setting himself as someone who could go into an…
