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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2018 :: RMTnews
16
25 YEARS OF
NEO-LIBERAL
IDEOLOGY
The Tory government under
John Major considered
“smashing the unions” as a
“priority” objective of
privatising British Rail, the
Morning Star newspaper has
revealed.
Newly-declassified Cabinet
Office files from the early 1990s
released by the National
Archives also reveal a rift
between then-Transport
Secretary Malcolm Rifkind and
arch-Europhile Prime Minister
John Major over the shape that
the new privatised railway
should take.
Mr Rifkind favoured
prioritising the sell-off of British
Rail’s Intercity sector as a
“vertically integrated” business
covering both track and train.
However Major preferred
splitting the railway up into
Top “priority” of Tory
privatisation of rail in
1993 was to “smash the
power of the unions” new
documents reveal