THE Tories face more humiliation at the hands of trade unions this summer, Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan warned today.

Ahead of his speech at the TUC Protect the Right to Strike rally in Cheltenham tomorrow, Mr Whelan told the Morning Star that right-wing ideologues would not stand a chance against an even more “energised” working class when many of the pay deals struck during last summer’s wave of industrial action run out.

“We’re very much in a situation where this government couldn’t beat the working class, couldn’t turn them over,” he said.

“Most of the deals that were done in the various sectors were one-year deals and so, inevitably, they will be going back again and the government’s still here with the same attitude on pay. We are going to find ourselves in another period of solidarity, but what we have done is energise people.”

In a warning to the Labour Party, which is widely expected to win the forthcoming general election, the Aslef leader added: “I think there is a real shift in emphasis about what people demand going forward and what they expect of a Labour government because they haven’t had it from this government.

“If you treat people with dignity, you get less action.

“The difficulty will be you can never give everybody everything, but we can update and repeal most of the anti-trade union legislation as a building block to getting rid of all of it in future.”

The Aslef leader also told of his “wry smile” when a threat to stage five extra says of strike action led state-owned train operator London North Eastern Railway (LNER) to back down from imposing minimum service levels on his union’s members earlier this month.

“This is not just a blow for the rail unions. They are intending to introduce this to seven other areas, so if it can be demonstrated it can’t work here, it can possibly be demonstrated it can’t work elsewhere,” he said.

“Naturally, you have a wry smile and you thank everybody for all the work they’ve done to get you to that position and then you sit back and think, well this is a war and it’s only one battle.”

Mr Whelan said that there was “massive pressure from the DfT [Department for Transport] and the government for somebody to do it, while they were saying publicly, no, it’s down to the employers.”

“But the real problem is what you do with freight,” he added, noting that post-Brexit trade deals were failing to stem “managed decline.”