The witch-hunting bully Keir Starmer appointed as Labour's rail minister

Peter Hendy abused his position as head of Network Rail to bully a rail engineer out of his job for raising safety concerns. Just weeks later Keir Starmer appointed him as Labour's rail minister!

Keir Starmer has appointed a bully as Labour’s rail minister.

Peter Hendy, a Tory-appointed member of the unelected House of Lords, was appointed as Keir Starmer’s rail minister in July, despite being mired in a bullying scandal.

Hendy abused his position as head of Network Rail to get the award-winning rail engineer Gareth Dennis sacked from his job at the Systra engineering and consultancy group for raising safety concerns about Euston Station in London.

In a letter to Gareth Dennis’ employers, Hendy threatened to withhold public contracts from Systra.

The extent of Hendy’s witch-hunt is made clear in internal Network Rail emails seen by Politico, in which he demanded "please check whether we have … and or are currently employing him as we should stop. Accusing [Network Rail] of operating the station unsafely is unacceptable".

When it emerged that Dennis was employed by the Network Rail subcontractor Systra, Hendy ordered his officials to "write directly to their CEO" to demand "disciplinary action".

A week later Hendy asked officials "how did we deal with him?" and then the following week he wrote directly to Systra with his implied threat that public contracts could be withheld from the company over Dennis’ safety concerns.

Dennis was suspended in May 2024 and fired in July.

In reality the safety concerns he raised about overcrowding at Euston were entirely legitimate, and reflected the findings of the government transport regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).

A September 2023 ORR report stated that Network Rail have "failed to implement, so far as reasonably practicable, effective measures to prevent risks to health and safety of passengers (and other persons at the station) during passenger surges and overcrowding events at London Euston Station".

Concerningly, Starmer’s decision to appoint Hendy as Labour’s rail minister means that he now has control over the ORR.

How likely is it that rail regulators are going to dare to raise legitimate safety concerns about the rail network when they know Hendy has a track record of bullying people out of their jobs for doing exactly that?

After this bullying scandal broke a few days ago, Starmer has decided to keep Hendy in position, just like he’s refused to withdraw the whip from the lawless slum landlord Labour MP Jas Athwal.

Starmer is brazenly running a two-tier disciplinary process in the Labour ranks.

His allies can do whatever they like, bully people out of jobs, admit breaking the law, operate slums, spew bigotry and abuse …

But politicians from the left of the party are purged over absolute bullshit like talking to Britain’s most lauded living film director about film, supporting striking workers, opposing genocide, and voting against child poverty.

Starmer’s decision to turn a blind eye to the bullying behaviour of his rail minister also bodes badly for workers’ rights under his government.

The Labour Party was founded to protect workers (the clue is in the name), yet here we have the party leader circling the wagons to protect a bully who witch-hunted a worker out of his job for raising legitimate safety concerns.

How is anyone ever supposed to take Labour seriously when they speak about strengthening workers’ rights or protecting whistle blowers from retribution, while they’re protecting a witch-hunting bully like Hendy?

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