Calling in the army to break strikes is a sign of government weakness – not strength

Editorial: The British army should not be used in the way the police were during the miners’ strike of 1984-85

Sooner or later, the government will have to engage more energetically with the unions (AFP via Getty)

A cold snap in December is hardly a political act, or a surprise. But this year, the usual seasonal paralysis on the roads does add to a sense of national malaise in Britain. Nine hours on the M20 seems to be the unwelcome record so far. A little more of the wrong kind of snow, and the RMT won’t need to bother going on strike. The national mood is getting grimmer.

The average household is already fretting about the impending turkey shortage (caused by the resurgence of avian flu), cutting back on the weekly shop, postponing a house move, and whether to turn the heating on – and we have now been advised by a cabinet minister to avoid travelling abroad this Christmas, leaving aside the chaos expected to affect domestic rail services.

Many poorer families have it even worse, as they are forced to choose between heating and eating. Food banks, cynically rebranded by some as “food pantries”, can’t cope. The homeless have it worse still, as we start to see the first sub-zero temperatures of the winter.

The macro-stats are equally dispiriting: the economy shrank over the last three months, confirming the slide into recession, and the chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that inflation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Brexit, obviously, isn’t working. The UK is suffering from outbreaks of scarlet fever and is running out of penicillin. Even our recent national distractions are no longer available: England and Wales are out of the World Cup. As the old song doesn’t quite go, it’s beginning to look a lot like crisis, everywhere you go.

Adding to the impression that nothing in Britain works terribly well is the wave of strike action scheduled for the coming weeks: trains, hospitals, ambulances, the post, border controls and even driving tests are all being disrupted by industrial action. Indeed, the cold reality that events are running out of control for the government is confirmed by the convening of Cobra meetings to organise military intervention.

When ministers have to call in the army to maintain vital public services, it is a sign not of strength but of weakness. If the government cannot settle pay disputes without recourse to military assistance, then things really have gone wrong.

The overstretched men and women of Britain’s armed forces, hardly well-rewarded themselves, are being deprived of their Christmas leave in order to break strikes, simply because the likes of Rishi Sunak, Mark Harper, Jeremy Hunt, Steve Barclay and Suella Braverman can’t keep a lid on industrial relations.

No doubt the troops will obey orders and assist where necessary, but there are simply too few of them to make much practical difference, and they cannot be deployed on strike-breaking duties indefinitely. They, and their commanders, might also tell their political masters that they didn’t join up to drive ambulances or check passports, and that they do not wish to be resented by the large number of their fellow citizens undertaking peaceful, lawful industrial action – or by the general public, who have some sympathy for the strikers. They are not a temping agency.

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Ben Wallace should inform his colleagues, more forcibly than he has, that they shouldn’t abuse the privilege of being able to rely on HM forces in an emergency. The troops should go back to their barracks, go home on leave, or resume active duty as soon as possible if they don’t want to be called scabs and have to force their way through picket lines of paramedics and nurses. The British army should not be used in the way the police were during the miners’ strike of 1984-85, which left a lasting residue of bitterness.

Sooner or later, the government will have to engage more energetically with the unions and find a way to end the crisis that doesn’t rely on the army acting as scab labour. As with similar waves of industrial action in the past, the strikes won’t go on forever, and some compromises will have to be reached. That is how these disputes end.

The sooner the government ends the crisis, the less likely it is to end up humiliated and weakened. The public want an end to the disruption, and they want their leaders to talk to the Royal College of Nursing, the RMT, the CWU, the PCS and anyone else involved. Beyond that, ministers should devote some attention to working out how Britain is going to solve its labour shortage, which is in part responsible for the current inflation and the bargaining leverage the trade unions now have at their disposal. To revive an apt Tory slogan from a previous era: “We can’t go on like this.”