It is very disappointing and I totally condemn the planned strikes from August 8th by the RMT trade union that will heap further misery on long-suffering train passengers. This follows the previous strike action and their long-running disruptive action in their dispute with Southern Rail.
A recent full council meeting at Crawley Borough Council discussed a political motion that Labour had tabled. My suspicions that this motion was all about political grandstanding in support of their union masters and not about any real action or concern for rail passengers, were confirmed when listening to speeches from Labour’s councillors. Their speeches were all about attacking the government, attacking our MP, attacking the private sector and attacking the management of Southern Rail, but they were full of praise for the trade unions.
At this meeting, Labour councillors shamefully rejected two sensible Conservative amendments to the motion, one which inserted the words “and the relevant trade unions” after the words “Southern Rail” in the following line of their motion: “Crawley Borough Council calls on the Government to take whatever action it can to encourage the management of Southern Rail to put an end to the dreadful failure in service”.
The other amendment we put forward was an addition which was to recognise and support the work of our local MP Henry Smith and the all-party parliamentary group that has been set up to scrutinise Southern Rail’s performance. All Labour councillors also voted this amendment down in what I can only describe as being churlish. This showed that Labour is only interested in playing politics, not in getting solutions.
What is very clear is that Labour in Crawley are a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. Their complete failure to accept that the RMT have any responsibility whatsoever for the on-going problems at Southern Rail is absurd, while their failure to ever condemn any strike action is shameful. Meanwhile, Henry Smith MP continues to apply pressure on all those responsible and I welcome that last week he met with the Rail Minister Paul Maynard MP at Three Bridges Station.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
3rd August 2016