The outgoing RMT head dismantled pundits one by one on live TV, and showed a new generation why we need trade unions

Mick Lynch is the trade union icon who nearly wasn’t. Leaving school at 16 to train as an apprentice electrician, he worked in construction until being blacklisted for his union activities. Unable to find work in the building trade, in 1993 he took a job at Eurostar and became involved with the RMT. Construction’s loss was to be the labour movement’s gain.

Lynch was elected general secretary of RMT in 2021, and a year later, the UK’s first national railway strike since 1989 catapulted him into the public eye. He quickly became the face of a revitalised trade union movement. More than that, to his supporters – like those who bought T-shirts with his face on them – he became the combative, unapologetic working-class leader the left has been missing.

Polly Smythe is labour movement correspondent at Novara Media