The militant ‘Lynch mob’ unionists threatening to hold the Queen to ransom: RMT bosses calling for Tube walkout include gun-toting Tory hater, Putin apologist and leader on £124,000 salary who said ‘all I want from life is a bit of socialism’
- RMT is notorious for being Britain’s most militant union, led by fat cat radicals
- Leader Mick Lynch today boasted strike would cause ‘significant disruption’
- His fellow union leaders are notorious for a string of inflammatory comments
The militant RMT union barons threatening to sabotage the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend with yet another Tube strike include a Putin apologist, a Tory hater who vowed to ‘throw a party’ if Boris Johnson died, and a Marxist who previously echoed Kremlin propaganda by describing Ukraine as being ‘held to ransom by neo-Nazis’.
Completing the ‘Lynch mob’ is union leader Mick Lynch, who once sighed ‘All I want from life is a bit of socialism’ – while collecting a salary and benefits package worth £163,468.
MPs have criticised Britain’s most militant union for staging their most disrespectful stunt yet, as members plan to walk out of Euston and Green Park stations on Friday, June 3, with the strike affecting the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Victoria lines.
It will cause ‘significant disruption to people wishing to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee’, warned union bosses, after choosing to disrupt Green Park, which sits half a mile from Buckingham Palace.
General Secretary Mick Lynch – who once sighed ‘All I want from life is a bit of socialism’ – collects a salary and benefits package worth £163,468
RMT Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley poses in a Soviet-style soldier’s hat with an assault rifle
Lynch announced the plan to disrupt London Underground services in a statement released today, boasting that the action would cause ‘significant disruption to people wishing to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee’.
In March, he organised the worst Tube strikes in five years – with two days of walkouts against changes to jobs, pensions and working conditions.
Lynch was once considered a centrist compared with former general secretary Bob Crow — but, after taking charge, he said: ‘The unions have got to make a militant stand – and use the strike weapon wherever it’s appropriate’.
He left school at 16 and trained as an electrician but was blacklisted due to union activity, so joined the railways.
Another high-ranking member of the RMT union is its general secretary, Eddie Dempsey, a Putin apologist and senior member of the Communist Party backing pro-Russian separatists.
Dempsey shared glowing praise for Luhansk rebel Aleksey Mozgovoy in an obituary following his death in 2015, and even visited the Donbas region of Ukraine seven years ago, where he posed for a picture with the pro-Russian separatist commander.
Writing in far-right Russia Insider, Dempsey lavished praise on the ‘charismatic’ Mozgovoy, described the violent Luhansk separatists as communist ‘volunteers’, and brandished the West’s efforts to broker peace in the region as a ‘US-orchestrated coup’.
Labour MP Chris Bryant urged Dempsey to apologise after his links with Mozgovoy emerged earlier this year.
RMT official Eddie Dempsey visiting Alexander Mozgovoy, a nationalist, misogynistic paramilitary leader in the pro-Russian militias during the war in eastern Ukraine
Dempsey addresses members of the United Voices of the World trade union outside the High Court in February
Dempsey, who pockets a total package worth £108,549 from the RMT, was also among the signatories of a Stop the War coalition statement last week that criticised NATO’s ‘disdain for Russian concerns’.
The statement caused a huge split within the Labour Party after 11 of its MPs backed it, before withdrawing their support after an intervention from Sir Keir Starmer.
Left-wing parliamentarians who backed the statement were reportedly threatened with losing the whip, with one Labour frontbencher slamming the Stop the War Coalition as ‘Putin apologists’, the Telegraph reported.
Another RMT fat cat who has been criticised for his comments over Ukraine include its president, Alex Gordon, a longstanding Marxist who has previously echoed the Kremlin’s propaganda by branding the country ‘a failed state held to ransom by neo-Nazis’.
Following Moscow’s invasion of Crimea, the militant former train driver protested outside Ukraine’s embassy in London in 2015 while wearing the black and orange Ribbon of St George, a symbol of Russian military valour.
Gordon presides over the RMT’s ruling national executive committee. But he is also a major figure in the Communist Party of Britain, sitting on both its executive and political committees.
Another RMT fat cat who has been criticised for his comments over Ukraine include its president, Alex Gordon (middle – black jacket), a longstanding Marxist who has previously echoed the Kremlin’s propaganda by branding the country ‘a failed state held to ransom by neo-Nazis’
The 55-year-old is also chairman of the Marx Memorial Library in North London, where Communist dictator Vladimir Lenin worked during his exile from Russia.
Steve Hedley, the RMT’s long-time senior assistant general secretary, has also been criticised for his stance on Russia, with an image circulating in previous years which showed him brandishing an automatic rifle and wearing a Soviet-style fur hat.
Hedley attracted nationwide criticism during the early stages of the pandemic after saying he would ‘throw a party’ if Boris Johnson died from coronavirus.
The union said it would investigate him and he was back at work by the end of the year.
Andrew Bridgen, Tory MP for North West Leicestershire, today told MailOnline the strike threats suggested certain RMT leaders had ‘more respect’ for Putin than they did the Queen.
The RMT has previously said: ‘The union has a clear policy of opposing the war in Ukraine and has called for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops.
‘Both Eddie Dempsey and Steve Hedley have supported that position.’
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