The leader of the British Fire Brigades Union (FBU) pledged on Saturday night to overthrow Prime Minister Tony Blair's New Labour project as the bitter dispute widened into an ideological confrontation between union bosses and the government.
In a move that will make the strike one of the most grave political battles in Britain since the miners' dispute of the 1980s, Andy Gilchrist of the FBU said that the government had "ensured and provoked" a strike and that it was time for the trade union movement to consider whether it should fund the Labour Party.
"I'm quite prepared to work to replace New Labour with what I'm prepared to call Real Labour," Gilchrist said at a rally in Manchester.
His comments brought immediate condemnation from the government with one minister accusing the FBU leader of "losing the plot."
It has also emerged that the government is now planning to introduce new legislation which will force through modernization of the fire service whether firefighters, who are due to walk out again on Wednesday for a second eight-day strike, agree or not.
Underlining the government's resolve to smash the strikers, a White Paper to be introduced in the New Year will be the first legislation on the service since the last Fire Services Act of 1947.
It will require firefighters to learn paramedic skills, a move that will be resisted by the health unions, and will order them to work jointly with other emergency services.
A controversial no-strike clause will be "open for discussion" the source said, revealing that the two sides in the dispute were now further apart than at any point in the past two months.
Government officials expressed surprise that Gilchrist had made such an overtly political speech, during which he also announced that the FBU will be talking about planning strikes in the New Year and beyond, possibly into the summer.
The government immediately hit back.
"He said that this was an industrial dispute," said one source. "Now we see it for what it really is -- a political battle about the future direction of this country."
Gilchrist strongly denied that his remarks were political or that his aim was to bring down the Blair government.
"I fundamentally refute that what I am about or what the union is about is wrecking Mr Blair's career or bringing the government down," Gilchrist said.
"I don't want to and I have no plan to do so. This is not a political strike. It is a simple dispute about firefighters pay. All the provocation and politicization has come from the government," he said.
He said he believed it was legitimate to raise the issue of the need for Labour to refocus on its founding principles.
But despite his protestations, the FBU leader appeared determined to deliberately extend the breadth of his attack against the government beyond the issue of the 16 percent salary increase, which has been rejected.
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