Mick Lynch: the greatest prime minister we never had

The following is a short letter from Canary reader Sarah Gale. Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, has announced his retirement at the age of 63.

Elected in 2021, Lynch led the union through significant industrial actions, notably the extensive rail strikes from 2022 to 2024.

Prior to his tenure at RMT, he worked as a qualified electrician and was blacklisted for union involvement, leading him to co-found the Electrical and Plumbing Industries Union in 1988.

Lynch expressed pride in the union’s resilience against challenges, stating “We can all be proud that our union stood up against the wholesale attacks on the rail industry by the previous Tory government and the union defeated them”.

The RMT has initiated the process to elect a new general secretary, with the election concluding in May 2025.

Possibly the greatest prime minister we never had, is retiring. Mick Lynch, the working class lad from Paddington, left school at 16 and then proceeded to eloquently perform common sense verbal gymnastics with brazen truth twisters, who, when they failed to outsmart him, then resorted to slander and the proverbial grasping at straws.

Mick amplified the voices of poorly paid and precariat workers everywhere and not just his RMT union members.

I was fortunate to meet him twice, once at an ‘Enough is Enough’ rally in 2022 and then on the march to save the ticket offices in 2023 where I saw many hopeful faces proudly holding up placards saying, “Mick Lynch for Prime Minister.” You couldn’t meet a more authentic bloke; he looked chuffed when I gifted him a copy of Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and informed me, “that’s my bible.” 

Mick, like all readers of the Canary I’m sure, refuses to believe that a fairer society is impossible – a society where everyone can and does thrive. Mick epitomises the celebrated quotation from the Welsh thinker and writer, Raymond Williams:

To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.

I wish Mick Lynch a well-earned retirement and hope he lives to see the words of another great man, albeit a fictional one, come to fruition:

The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.’

Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Featured image via the Canary