Keir Starmer is right to take a firm line in NHS pay talks

Editorial: Going on strike within days of a general election is a political act – and, as the Labour leader tells The Independent, junior doctors will not get the 35 per cent pay rise they are demanding

If elected, Keir Starmer will be under immediate pressure to settle the junior doctors’ pay dispute (PA)

Both sides in the shadow pay dispute that is likely to become a real negotiation after 4 July are engaged in pre-match trash talk. The junior doctors are on strike until Tuesday morning, in pursuit of a claim for a 35 per cent pay rise, which they claim merely restores past real-term pay cuts.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer, who is likely to be prime minister on 5 July, has told The Independent in an exclusive interview: “We’re not going to pay 35 per cent. We’ve told them that upfront. They know that.”

The Independent disagrees with the junior doctors’ tactics. Going on strike within days of a general election is a political act. Worse than that, it is futile. It puts pressure neither on the outgoing government nor, directly, on the incoming one. It is purely for show. It is unnecessary, and it undermines public support for the junior doctors’ justified cause.