YOU will recall we have been saying we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more. Sadly that also applies to trade unions when they pump out a piece of propaganda that is breathtaking in its arrogant assumption that people will just react to their dog whistle cry of "nationalise and centralise".
Step forward rail union Aslef, who put out a press release at the weekend “calling on voters in Scotland to help return a Labour government at Westminster and bring the railway in Scotland back into public ownership.”
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Apart from the fact that a “Labour government”, presumably with an overall majority, is looking like an addled fantasy, Aslef have been more than a bit disingenuous.
Scottish full-time organiser Kevin Lindsay said: “The SNP showed its true colours – as Tartan Tories – by voting with the Conservatives at Holyrood to keep our railway in the hands of the privateers. If you want a publicly owned railway in Scotland – and most people do – then vote Labour in the General Election.”
First of all, the motion Labour put at Holyrood on October 2 did not actually refer to nationalisation - “that the Parliament believes that the Scottish Government should not extend the current ScotRail franchise beyond its first expiry date in 2022.”
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Secondly, the Scottish Government amendment that day clearly stated that the Scottish Government “does not consider rail franchising fit for purpose ... and calls on the Parliament to support the overdue and necessary change to full Scottish public sector control of the structure, governance and operation of the Scottish railway system.”
Aslef backed Better Together and was the first union to back Brexit (source: Morning Star) and Lindsay is a former Scottish Labour Party vice-chair, so no one should be taking any lessons from them on anything, frankly.
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