Rishi Sunak has just announced a general election for 4 July 2024.

Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union general secretary, said: 

“The Tories have spent 14 years attacking the rights of working-class people and smashing public services to pieces.

“They are a government of millionaires, acting in the interests of an out-of-control billionaire class. Tory rule has brought us nothing but poverty, chaos and a divisive agenda of scapegoating.

“Now is the time to kick these vandals from office and bury them for a generation.

“The Tories are currently waging war on workers with the Minimum Service Levels Act, which effectively bans workers, including firefighters, from striking to protect their jobs and wages.

“The FBU will fight to win a Labour government which reverses these authoritarian attacks on unions, and ensure that pay and public services are properly funded.

“We look forward to Keir Starmer delivering the New Deal for Working People in full within 100 days of entering 10 Downing Street. Our role as trade unionists will be to ensure this pledge is delivered.”