Labour mayor Andy Burnham has taken a swipe at Keir Starmer over the sacking of a frontbench MP who joined a picket line, warning that he must be “careful” about the impact on the party’s image.
The Greater Manchester mayor – often tipped as a potential successor to Starmer as leader – said Labour must not allow itself to be seen as “a party that undermines working people fighting to protect their incomes in a cost-of-living crisis”.
Starmer today defended his decision to sack Sam Tarry as shadow transport minister, insisting he was not dumped for joining striking rail workers on an RMT picket but for “making up policy on the hoof” over pay.
The dismissal of Mr Tarry – who is the partner of deputy leader Angela Rayner – sparked fury among union bosses and left-wing Labour MPs, with the head of the GMB describing it as “a huge own goal” and Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham saying it was “an insult to the trade union movement”.
Manuel Cortes of the TSSA transport union, where Mr Tarry formerly worked as an official, said the Labour leadership needed to “wake up and smell the coffee”, adding: “If they think can win the next general election while pushing away seven million trade union members, they are deluded.”
Today, Mr Burnham told GB News: “Labour needs to be careful here. We can’t ever be a party that undermines working people fighting to protect their incomes in a cost-of-living crisis.
“If we’re not careful, that’s how we might come over. There’s a real issue out there now for people in terms of wages and energy bills that keep rising.
“People are going to have to fight to protect their incomes and Labour should be supporting people to protect their incomes.”
Speaking during a visit to Birmingham on Thursday, Sir Keir said it was a “straightforward” decision to sack Mr Tarry after the Ilford South MP said in a round of TV interviews from the picket line that all workers should get pay rises in line with inflation.
“Sam Tarry was sacked because he booked himself onto media programmes without permission, and then made up policy on the hoof, and that can’t be tolerated in any organisation because we’ve got collective responsibility,” said the Labour leader.
“So that was relatively straightforward.”
He added: “The Labour Party will always be on the side of working people, but we need collective responsibility, as any organisation does.”
Asked whether shadow ministers would be allowed to join picket lines in upcoming strikes if they did not make any unauthorised media appearances, Sir Keir said: “We take each case as it comes.
“My criticism is really of the government because it’s inevitable, I think, when you’ve got a cost-of-living crisis, that so many working people are concerned about their wages. I understand that, I understand the concerns.”
The Labour leader dodged the question of whether he backed Mr Cortes’s call for a general strike if Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss presses ahead with draconian anti-union laws as prime minister.
Calling Ms Truss’s policy “completely wrong”, Starmer told reporters: “Of course trade unions are right to stick up for support and negotiate on behalf of their members. I’m fully supportive of that, working with our trade unions.”
Labour’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell described the punishment of Mr Tarry as a “severe mistake” and backed calls for a general strike, accusing Sir Keir of “misreading the mood of the public”.
“This is an unnecessary dispute and whoever has advised Keir Starmer on this, I think he has made a severe mistake,” he told Sky News.
Asked about the general strike proposed by RMT general secretary Mick Lynch, the former shadow minister said he supported “co-ordinated action”.
Asked if he was worried about the prospect of the Unite union withdrawing their funding from the Labour Party, Sir Keir said the relationship between the two “is historic, it is present, and it will be the future of the Labour Party”.