Boris Johnson’s admiration for Donald Trump will lead to workers’ rights being ripped up if the Conservatives win the general election next month, the leader of Britain’s trade unionists has warned.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said a lack of detail in the Tory party’s manifesto disguised a hidden agenda of US-style deregulation of the sort favoured by the US president.

In an interview with the Guardian, O’Grady said: “We are very concerned that Boris Johnson will use Brexit as an opportunity and a licence to rip up workers’ rights.

“But it is worse than that. His infatuation with Donald Trump could drag us to an economic model that is really bad for working people. Trump has got his fingerprints all over the Tories.”

O’Grady said the election provided a choice between two competing philosophies, adding that fundamental rights were at risk.

“The question is what is going to happen in Britain under Boris Johnson – not just a hard Brexit but a turn towards the US and a Trump way of organising working life.”

O’Grady said that in the US it was far more common for workers to be on zero-hours contracts, there was no national protection against the sack, no statutory sick pay, no holiday pay and no maternity pay.

“Is that the model we want to follow? We know that Boris Johnson is a big admirer of Donald Trump.” In a reference to the president’s love of golf, she said: “We talk about becoming Trump’s poodles, but you could say there is a risk of becoming Trump’s caddies.” Read more

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