Keir Starmer is under pressure to sack a Labour shadow minister after he defied an order not to joine a rail strike picket line.
Sam Tarry, the Shadow Minister for Buses and Local Transport, stood alongside striking workers at London’s Euston station on Wednesday morning.
He defied Starmer’s ban on joining the picket line in support of striking rail workers.
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The Labour leader had again ordered his MPs to stay away, after failing to prevent some from joining the protests earlier this summer.
The Labour leader said on Tuesday: “The Labour Party in opposition needs to be the Labour Party in power.
“And a government doesn’t go on picket lines, a government tries to resolve disputes.”
Tarry told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “If we don’t make a stand today, people’s lives could be lost.
“Some of the lowest-paid workers are on strike today in the rail industry, safety-critical workers, workers who make sure our railways get people to work and do so safely.
“It can’t be accepted anymore that people just have to accept that inflation is out of control. The Government’s doing nothing on the cost-of-living crisis.”
Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds said it is up to the whips to decide whether Tarry loses his job for insubordination.
Asked what Starmer should do about his minister defying his orders, Dodds told Sky News: “Ultimately, as I said, it’s a decision for that individual, but I’m sure that the whips will be looking at this in terms of it being a disciplinary matter.
“But, quite frankly, for me, the big issue here is why, in England, we’ve got people’s transport being disrupted so substantially with industrial action.”
She accused the Government of “increasing division, not sitting down with the unions, with the employees getting a resolution.”
Tory demands for Tarry to be sacked could be saving him.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps predicted that Starmer will sack Tarry as the Conservatives sought to use the row to claim Labour is on the side of the striking workers.
Shapps told Sky News: “It’s clearly in direct defiance of Sir Keir Starmer, who told his front bench that they shouldn’t be on picket lines.
“No doubt he’ll want to remove him from his job.”
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