Frances O’Grady: “Boris Johnson’s bullying must galvanise us to defend democracy”

Boris Johnson is treating MPs “like fags in a public school” by trying to "bully" his way to a no-deal Brexit, according to Frances O’Grady.

Spending time with Trades Union Congress leader you get used to plenty of laughter, but she is far from amused by the Prime Minister’s administration.

Speaking at Congress House in central London the week the PM said he would shutter Parliament for several weeks, O’Grady repeatedly zeroed in on his privileged background and education.

Accusing him of following “codes of dishonour drawn from certain public schools”, she said he must have learnt “in the debating chambers of Eton” to use people’s lives “as bargaining chips”.

Mr Johnson’s senior aide Dominic Cummings does not escape criticism either. O’Grady calling him a “very ruthless” man who is banking on “scaring people into submission”.

And she revealed how she sees the battle over no-deal as actually about “something bigger”, adding: “This is about our democracy, and I think we need to be clear there is no mandate for no-deal, this is the PM versus the people.

“As I remember, the Prime Minister's hero Winston Churchill was always very clear and said he was 'the servant of MPs', and it seems to be that Boris Johnson is treating MPs like fags in a public school and he’s the Master. It's authoritarian.”

Her anger at the Tory government is fuelled by the messages she gets from the 5.6 million members from the TUC’s 50 affiliated unions, who say no-deal is a huge threat to their jobs and a "disaster" for the country.

Accusing the Government of “not being straight” with people, she said there is no way enough work is not being done to prepare for it. “Our people are on the frontline, they’re in the ports, they’re in the lorries, they’re in the NHS, you would think if there are effective preparations in hand, if the workers don’t know about it you've got to doubt whether it is there”, she explains.

“We know so much of this is Peter Pan ‘clap your hands if you believe’, and we know that’s not good enough.”

She has been in to the Cabinet Office to see Michael Gove to hear about the preparations for no-deal.

It’s safe to say her fears were not allayed, saying she told him any amount of preparation “doesn’t change the substance” of the problems, and “mitigating risk is not the same as removing it”.

Adding: “So even if you believed that they had everything in hand, which we know from our members...and we know from the Yellowhammer report, it is not all in hand, but even if it was all in hand that doesn’t deal with the substance of the issue.”

Mr Gove’s so-called “rapid rebuttal unit” on Brexit stories in the media also came under fire, saying she told him: “I think some of us would prefer you to get your head screwed on, stop no-deal and start getting serious about Britain's future and how we built a Britain where workers get their fair share.”

And she hit out at the Government’s claims no-deal warnings are scaremongering, saying doctors tell her “they’re really really worried about what this will mean for drugs, what this will mean for staff, there are already big recruitment problems and retention problems”.

“And we know disinvestment is accelerating,” she explained. “We've never said Brexit is the only reason why the car industry is struggling, but we know it’s getting worse and it's not just shutting down plants, it's rationalisation so even if they are not shipping out altogether it's a radical reduction”.

O’Grady was speaking as the TUC revealed a combination of low pay, insecure work and austerity are fuelling household debt.

She said she hopes it is “a bucket of cold water over people”, adding that we're now seeing debt levels “higher than where they were in the lead up to the financial crash”.

“If you throw no-deal into that mix then you know it’s all very well the Prime Minister and his Brexit preparation chief Michael Gove talking about 'bumps in the road,' well these are going to be earthquakes to families because you haven’t got savings to tide you through, you're in debt, you're in the red,” she said.

And the ERG also get both barrels, accused of having “more testosterone than feeling” and of constantly shifting the goalposts on what they want to be able to back a Brexit deal.

“Well first of all it was a time-limit on the backstop, then it was scrap the backstop altogether, and now it’s the backstop isn't enough”, she adds.

Accusing no-deal of being “a choice”, she added: “Yet again we are seeing workers’ jobs and livelihoods being used as bargaining chips.

“That may be something you do in the debating chambers of Eton, but this is about real people and it seems to me that any responsible Government would not simply contemplate throwing real people even deeper into debt.”

Turning back to Britain’s most famous Old Etonian, she said “the new tenants of No10 are ruthless and effective but I don't think they are invincible”, adding that their strategy “can backfire, and they may have overplayed their hand”.

Downing Street and Mr Cummings have adopted a “bullying approach” to Brexit she argued, adding: “I feel personally very clear about this, that there is a playbook, and the playbook involves stunning people into submission. Scaring people into submission.

“Some might say these are kind of codes of dishonour drawn from certain public schools in this country, it's the bullying approach.”

Adding: “So the question is, do people fall over in the face of that kind of intimidation? Or does it galvanise them to defend democracy?

“To defend their democratic right to have the time and the opportunity to stop a no-deal, which would be disastrous for their constituents.”

O’Grady, who joined the Labour Party aged 15, refused to be drawn on whether she had a direct message for its leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying the TUC is “calling on everybody in the House and outside, regardless of their political party and whichever way they voted in the referendum, to stop no-deal because that’s one thing all decent people would be able to agree on, that frankly it's irresponsible and I think despicable to gamble with people's livelihoods”.

 

 

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