Union boss Mick Lynch is a media star – and
Labour has much to learn about why
Jeremy
Gilbert
The RMT leader’s clarity and conviction are a surprise
only because old union hands have long been sidelined
Thu 23 Jun
2022 16.04 BST
This week,
the RMT union leader, Mick Lynch, has done something that no political figure
has achieved since Brexit tore the nation apart in 2016. He has united
progressive opinion, from the revolutionary left to the liberal centre, in
praise of his deft and devastating media interviews – almost all of them in the
face of hostile questioning.
In part
this is simply because Lynch is a brilliant communicator and strategic thinker,
as would be expected of the leader of a union whose cadres have long been noted
for their acuity, intelligence and determination. But it is also because
millions in Britain find it refreshing to hear a socialist perspective on
current events articulated with clarity and conviction. Lynch puts the case for
collective action with a precision and a lack of moralism that is both
appealing and vanishingly rare. He also points out the harm done to workers and
consumers by excess corporate profits: a blindingly obvious point that almost
no mainstream commentator makes.
As a media
phenomenon, the most immediately striking thing about Lynch is that he seems to
subvert some of the more tedious expectations of contemporary political
culture. Balding white men of around 60 are no longer expected to espouse
radical politics; and if they do, they are absolutely not supposed to do it in
an accent that marks them as coming from the southern English working class.
But these expectations have always been based on cliches and stereotypes,
deliberately cultivated by a political and media class that has marginalised
the political left for decades. Many of us, when we hear Lynch talk, don’t hear
the voice of a unique new celebrity, but of people that we’ve been talking to
and learning from all our lives. We should question why we hear their voices on
British TV so rarely.
It’s
important to approach an issue like this carefully. On the one hand, historians
such as Selina Todd have pointed to the decline in the general presence of “working
class” people from various areas of public life – the arts, politics, the media
– since the high point of the 1970s. This is partly a direct consequence of
defeat of organised labour by Thatcherism. Conservative commentators at that
time hated the fact that trade union leaders had become household names, and no
aspect of our current culture would have pleased them more than the fact that
this is no longer the case.
On the
other hand, the nature of social class itself is complex and constantly
changing. The expansion of universities and graduate employment has meant that
far more people are effectively recruited into the professional classes from
non-professional backgrounds than was once the case.
And so,
since the 1980s we have seen the consolidation of a professional class of
senior managers, politicians and media operatives, who tend to share a culture
and an outlook, whichever political parties or institutions they may be
attached to. Its members tend to be socially liberal, but also utterly
committed to the assumption that socialism, and even traditional social
democracy, are political philosophies that died with the 20th century. This
social group draws members from among the privately educated and from the most
successful products of state education, and it occupies the positions of power
in many institutions today: from the BBC to the parliamentary Labour party.
What it
doesn’t tend to include is many committed trade unionists, many people whose
vowel-sounds haven’t been honed at elite universities, or many who are willing
to put corporate profits into question when giving interviews about the nature
of price inflation. While at one time it was the Labour party itself that was
supposed to be the vehicle for bringing such people into public life, for much
of the Blair period and beyond it has prevented these people from reaching
positions of power, with the exception of the period of Jeremy Corbyn’s
leadership. Recent controversies such as that in Wakefield, where the
constituency Labour party complained that local leftwing candidates were
sidelined in favour of party-approved outsiders, suggests Keir Starmer won’t
break the long-term trend. This is partly why we so rarely hear from the likes
of Lynch today.
There is no
question that Lynch is a singularly astute figure, or that his union has much
to teach the rest of the labour movement and the organised left about how to
educate and motivate its members, and how to cultivate a strong and articulate
leadership. But in my experience, there are many such seasoned trade unionists
all over the country, who rarely if ever find a public platform. These old union
hands have a degree of insight, acuity, patience and analytic expertise that
would frankly embarrass most professional academics, and every single
professional political commentator that I can think of. If the press continues
to shut them out, the unions should put some money into giving them a platform:
would a YouTube channel devoted to their voices be too expensive to run? The
public audience is clearly there, and nobody would ever be pleasantly shocked
by a Mick Lynch interview again.
Jeremy Gilbert
is professor of cultural and political theory at the University of East London
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