ANTI-STRIKE measures to be tabled in Parliament tomorrow “smack of nazi Germany,” Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said yesterday.

As news emerged that the current wave of transport strikes is spreading, the train drivers’ union leader warned the government was targeting unions because of their effectiveness in resisting the Tories’ class war.

“I think it’s shameful that this Tory government is coming after the one group of people — the trade unions — who are able to stand up for ordinary working people as well as the poor and the weak, the oppressed and the dispossessed,” Mr Whelan said.

“It smacks of Germany in the 1930s when trade union leaders and activists were rounded up and imprisoned and, in some cases, executed.

“The nazis banned unions and strikes in 1933 and that is what the Tories are trying to do now. They want to effectively neuter the unions — the only part of civil society now able to fight back — in Britain.”

“The Tories are trying to smash the trade unions because they know we are the only thing that stands between them and the class they represent and a return to Victorian values.”

The laws will ban strikes unless ballot turnout reaches 50 per cent. Ballots involving so-called “essential services” — the railways, hospitals, schools and fire brigades — will be declared invalid unless 40 per cent of eligible workers vote yes.

At the Durham Miners’ Gala last weekend labour movement figures savaged ministers for refusing to implement existing provisions for online balloting, which would likely see turnouts rise.

Mr Whelan’s union brought London to a standstill last week when it took joint action with fellow rail unions TSSA, RMT and Unite over new rostering patterns to be brought in for 24-hour Tube services. His union’s ballot would have easily topped the proposed threshold.

A second dispute, over destaffing at First Great Western, is now set to follow the same approach of joint action, with TSSA balloting its members for walkouts.

“This is yet more evidence that the company are failing wholesale to listen to the serious issues that are being raised by their staff,” RMT general secretary Mick Cash said.