TRANSPORT workers called on the new Rail Minister yesterday to “pull the plug” on Govia Thameslink’s “basket case” operation of Southern Rail.

The government has revealed that it can strip GTR of the Southern franchise if its new drastically reduced timetable is deemed to have breached agreements on planned cancellations.

Rail union RMT urged Rail Minister Paul Maynard not to let GTR “off the hook” by accepting the company’s claim of a “force majeure” — defining levels of cancellation as an extraordinary event beyond GTR’s control.

Former rail minister Claire Perry revealed the firm had claimed force majeure over its emergency timetable slashing 341 services in a written answer to Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins before she resigned, saying the company has to provide evidence that the cancellations were down to official or unofficial industrial action.

GTR blames the RMT for the spate of cancellations because of industrial action it is taking to preserve safetycritical guards on trains. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said there was “no excuse whatsoever for the government wasting any more time in pulling the plug on the basket-case Govia Thameslink operation.

“It has failed, it continues to fail and they should be terminated with immediate effect and Directly Operated Railways [the government agency which turned the East Coast Mainline around] be drafted in to sort out the chaos they have unleashed.”

He warned that if the government allow GTR “to bend the rules yet again to avoid termination it would be a gross betrayal of their responsibilities to the hundreds of thousands of people caught up in this colossal privatisation failure.”

Mr Maynard said: “The situation with Southern services absolutely must improve and I am pleased that it is beginning to reinstate some of the trains suspended to manage the impact of the RMT action.

“Changing the management will not help because that would not address the issues in dispute and would only cause further disruption. We have been clear that the real solution is for the RMT to bring this dispute to a close.”

A GTR spokesperson said: “Force majeure forms part of our contract as it does with every operator.”