Dennis Skinner turns down pay rise and urges Scots to vote No

In an interview with the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, Dennis Skinner, veteran Labour MP, has said that he’ll turn down a pay rise until the government “unfreeze[s] the pay of working-class people” and “restore[s] free collective bargaining” And that won’t be for a very long time”.

Skinner’s remarks come after Marcial Boo, chief executive of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, argued over the weekend that MPs should get a 10% pay rise next year, taking their salaries up to £74,000. Skinner said that this announcement, which took place just before the start of the annual gathering of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) was “intended to insult and designed to get a reaction”. In response, he said he would refuse to accept the pay rise until, as a show of solidarity with working-class people who have suffered the most under the Tory’s economic policies.

82-year-old Skinner – also known as the Beast of Bolsover – went on to comment on the impending Scottish referendum. He put forward an impassioned case for people in Scotland voting ‘No’ against independence, explaining:

“I can’t understand some of the trade unionists falling for flag-waving in Scotland. It’s meaningless. We’re citizens of the world…I can’t remember anybody in the Scottish NUM saying to me they had a different agenda. The problems in Scotland were the same as the problems in Derbyshire, Durham, Yorkshire, South Wales and Kent. Nationalists divide working people when we should be united.”

Skinner’s book about his life ‘Sailing Close to the Wind’ will be serialised in the Mirror this week and weekend before it is published next week.