Liz Truss’s stubborn militancy promises more disruption and division for Britain

Although talk of a British general strike is still the stuff of overheated media commentary, the wave of strikes in key sectors of the economy through the summer will be almost as disruptive, and as bitter, as anything since the great tragic miners’ strike of 1984-85.

In an advanced, highly interdependent modern economy it does not take much, or many unhappy unionised workers, to cause disproportionate damage to a delicately balanced industrial machine. So it has proved with the highly effective industrial action on the railways, and so it is about to be with the strike of workers at the country’s largest container port, Felixstowe. Add in disputes in hospitals – already under unbearable pressure – in courts, the postal service and elsewhere, and the country will soon live up to that old political slogan, “Britain isn’t working”.

A mere 1,900 workers at Felixstowe find themselves in an enormously powerful position in relation to their numbers. They have the capacity, because of their pivotal position and because of Britain’s dependence on imports and exports to make a living, to cause significant disruption to supply chains and to add to the costs of businesses, large and small, throughout the economy. In the kind of belligerent language favoured by ministers and their allies in the press, they can “hold the country to ransom”.

At a time when the international movement of anything from food and gas to superconductors and cars to the UK has been interrupted by Brexit, Covid and war, a docks strike would be beyond mere inconvenience, if sustained over a long period.

For some, the Felixstowe dispute is a further sign of an upsurge in union “militancy”. If so, then it is not down to some sudden socialistic awakening of worker consciousness, dormant for decades, as if Mick Lynch of the RMT had arrived like Lenin in Petrograd. Rather, it is simply a consequence of rapidly accelerating inflation, on a scale many of working age today have no direct experience of.

The dockers, like so many other groups of workers, are striking to maintain their living standards, a legitimate and understandable motivation. They’re not known for their militancy – it has been a long time since they were last “out” – and, like any other section of society now, all they are doing is trying to offset the highest price inflation since the 1980s, 13 per cent and heading higher. 

Energy, rents, mortgage bills, food costs and fuel are exerting a squeeze on household budgets, and with predictable effects as people attempt to defend their families’ living standards. Whatever the political leanings of their union leaderships, the dockers and the railway workers are not motivated by some Trotskyist zeal, but by the size of their gas bills.

These are not “wildcat” strikes but ones where the union is obliged to give an employer notice, and with a very high threshold required in a secret, independently verified postal ballot. Much the same goes for the postal staff, barristers, nurses and others slated to take strike action as the long hot summer drags on.

With the continuing prospect of drought, crop failures, energy shortages and a winter harder than any the country has seen since the war, the next prime minister, still a long fortnight away, will be faced with formidable challenges to their authority.

If Liz Truss does indeed win the increasingly stale and predictable Conservative leadership contest, then the country is set for some considerable friction. This is partly due to what seems to be a headstrong, wilful and reckless streak in Ms Truss’s personality. Put simply, she seems to be looking for a fight with the unions – and there is no shortage of battlegrounds.

She has threatened to “ban” effective strikes on the railways by insisting on minimum services, a little-noticed proposal in the 2019 Conservative manifesto. She sounds as if she’d be minded to extend that to other sectors and to tighten yet again the ballot thresholds to endorse industrial action. There seems little doubt she would resist pay demands in the public sector and provoke even more disputes across local authorities, central government and public bodies.

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

It is Ms Truss, rather than Mr Lynch, who is going to be – indeed wants to be – the stubborn militant in the coming months, but she may well be forced into humiliating defeat in due course. Even if she “wins” in some sense against the strikes, it will feel a pyrrhic victory, considering the wider public sympathise with their fellow citizens’ shared plight.

Given that her unfunded tax cuts will stoke inflation, she will almost certainly make the framework of industrial relations even worse, strikes more widespread and many more staff look to unions for protection. Inflation approaching 20 per cent will induce panic far beyond the Bank of England and Whitehall.

Ms Truss’s obduracy, so reminiscent of Mrs Thatcher and so popular with her activists, is going to add to a sense of national malaise, born of division and strife. It is already apparent that the UK is ceasing to function in the way it used to, a land where public services are collapsing, home heating is unaffordable, and routine shortages, strikes and inflation are seemingly out of control.

A country that cannot issue its own passports and where the food banks cannot cope with the pressure of demand cannot be judged much of a success after 12 years of Conservative-led government. Ms Truss is going to find that Britain is becoming much more difficult to govern. It is not obvious she is up to the job.