LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer must start representing the working class or “step aside” as Labour leader, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said ahead of the party’s annual conference. 

The rail union leader warned that working people are facing the “most militant right-wing government” in their lifetimes, as he addressed a rally hosted by former shadow chancellor John McDonnell in Liverpool on Saturday night.  

“I just wish that the people that are meant to be representing us were as bold and radical as [the Tories] have shown in the last two or three days,” he said.

“[The government] is all about redistribution of wealth, unfortunately it’s going the wrong way. 

“They are going to take all that money from us, working people … and transferring that money they get from you to the super rich.”

Mr Lynch said that the government was making the poor pay for the cost-of-living crisis, saying that this amounts to a “class struggle.” 

“If Starmer can’t understand that, he needs to wake up and get another job!” he exclaimed. 

The Labour leader has sparked anger among trade unions and the left of the party, who accuse him of failing to support striking workers. This intensified over the summer when Mr Starmer ordered shadow ministers not to join picket lines. 

“We have to tell the Labour Party, you have to put your shoulder to our wheel as working-class people, and if you can do that we will support you, and if you can’t you need to get out the way, and let someone else who can,” Mr Lynch said. 

The RMT leader made the comments at the Working Class Strikes Back rally at the World Transformed, a radical festival which runs every year alongside the main Labour conference. 

The rally also heard from John Lynch, a senior shop steward for Unite at the port of Liverpool, where workers are striking in a dispute over pay, Labour MPs Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome as well as housing, climate and anti-racism organisers. 

In a passionate address, Ms Sultana also criticised the Labour leadership for “not being clear on which class it represents.” 

“Go on strike, I’ll be with them on the picket lines, and no Blairite can tell me otherwise,” she said.

In the face of the cost-of-living crisis and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini-budget,” which she described as an “unprecedented attack on the working class,” Ms Sultana urged the crowds not to despair.

“Change is in the air … there is so much hope and inspiration from trade unions and workers who are fighting the fight,” she said.