TRADE unions hold the key to revitalising Britain’s tanking economy, the RMT young members’ conference heard today.

SOAS professor of economics Costas Lapavitsas cited statistics showing declines in manufacturing and a rise in services jobs over the past four decades.

He said: “I’ve been in this country for 45 years, I’ve never known it in a worse situation.

“Basically growth has been going down every decade and the worst decade was the 2010s, an appalling decade – and this one is shaping up to be worse.

“It’s obvious that Britain needs shaking from below.

“Trade unions are the only part of society that seems to have some life in it. 

“The top is plugged in immobility, it needs to be shaken and it needs radical proposals from below. If Britain ever needed it, it’s now.”

He added Britain was no longer democratic as it has the people “at the top who control and speak for the media and nothing in-between … the mass at the bottom.

“The key thing here is of course the idea of populist sovereignty which has been lost,” he said.

“Dealing with the problem here and now, we need to recreate these institutions.

“This union here is one of the main ones. We need more of that otherwise it’s empty, the democratic process.

“The kind of industrial policy we want is an industrial policy that will make sure that jobs are created in sectors that can also ensure rapid growth of productivity by investment. It’s for us to work out what this means.”

The left’s biggest weakness is being “populated by people who unfortunately don’t see eye-to-eye with the working class,” the professor added.

“They don’t look like them, they don’t dress like them, they don’t eat like them – that’s the biggest problem for the left right now and you can see it with the Labour Party.”

The expert said its “ideological confusion” was a result of being cut off from the working class, adding: “What’s [shadow chancellor] Rachel [Reeves] going to do for people? Nothing from what I can tell now.”

He told the Morning Star that he was confident of a left-wing resurgence as “capitalism is a bankrupted social system.

“Labour reorganises itself and puts new things on the table ... we  must not lose heart.”