A non-alcoholic beverage may not be sold as gin, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled today in a case that could have wide-ranging consequences for a growing sector catering to health-conscious consumers. The case involved a drink being sold as Virgin Gin Alkolholfrei. The Luxembourg court ruled that wording violated an EU law that says gin should be produced with ethyl alcohol and juniper berries, with a minimum alcoholic strength by volume of 37.5 percent.  The law is meant to protect gin producers from competition and consumers against confusion, the court said in a statement. The gin judgment comes as plant-based meat products gear up for a potential labeling fight, depending on whether a controversial “veggie burger ban” makes it through inter-institutional negotiations. A German association for combating unfair competition brought the case against PB Vi Goods, which manufactures the gin copycat. A German court referred the case to the Court of Justice, which found a “clear prohibition in EU law” because the beverage does not contain alcohol. The product can be sold, but not as “gin,” regardless of whether or not it uses terms like “non-alcoholic” or “virgin.” The top EU court has upended consumer trends in the past: it ruled against calling plant-based products “milk,” “cream,” “butter,” “cheese” or “yogurt”’” in 2017.

STRASBOURG — Less than 24 hours after the European Parliament voted to ban plant-based foods across the EU from using names like “burger,” “sausage” or “steak” — the institution’s canteen in Strasbourg served up a “vegan burger” as its healthy lunch option. The prohibition was slipped into a wider reform of EU farm rules via an amendment spearheaded by French lawmaker Céline Imart of the conservative European People’s Party. While supporters pitched it as a win for transparency and recognition for livestock producers, NGOs blasted it as “just dumb” and a blow to sustainable diets. The timing of Thursday’s lunch menu was not lost on lawmakers and their aides, several of whom messaged POLITICO in uproar or mockery.  “A day after the highly controversial ban, it seems like the chefs in the canteen have decided upon some civil disobedience,” quipped Dutch Green MEP Anna Strolenberg. “Let’s see what daredevils still order a veggie b***r.” By early afternoon, the burgers were sold out. “They hid them,” joked one Parliament official. A second official said the canteen had simply run out and insisted menus are “established in advance by the contractors in full respect with legislations in place.” Staffers were split on quality. “Wait, is this just veggies on a bun? If they’re taking the piss, then I think it’s hilarious,” said an assistant to a liberal MEP. Lowie Kok, spokesperson for the Greens, was lukewarm on the quality. “For a seasoned vegan, I’m used to waaay worse in the canteen. In Brussels, they can’t do anything properly vegan. So this is … edible,” he said. Another aide, shown a photo, cracked: “EPP was right, all the way.” Despite the lunchtime comedy, the deep-seated political fault lines are evident on the prohibition. Even inside Imart’s own political family, there were dissenters. EPP chief, Manfred Weber, distanced himself from the ban, calling it unnecessary. Herbert Dorfmann, the group’s point person on agriculture, went further and voted against the measure. “I don’t really think there is a danger that somebody wants to buy a meat sausage and gets a veggie sausage,” he told POLITICO. “We should have some trust in the consumer.” Asked if he tried the burger, he replied:  “Not a fan of the canteen.”

LONDON — The case against two men accused of spying for China collapsed because the government refused to label Beijing a “threat to the national security of the U.K.,” the director of public prosecutions said Tuesday evening. In a rare intervention, Stephen Parkinson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, said his agency tried “over many months” to obtain evidence from the government that China posed a national security threat but was not successful. Christopher Cash, 30, a former researcher for a Conservative MP, and Christopher Berry, a 33-year-old teacher, were due to face trial this month on charges of breaching the Official Secrets Act between December 2021 and February 2023 by spying for China, which they strongly denied. The charges were dropped last month after the CPS said the “evidential standard for the offence indicted is no longer met.” Writing to the chairs of the Commons’ Home and Justice Select Committees, Parkinson said a 2024 High Court decision meant an “enemy” under the Official Secrets Act includes “a country which represents at the time of the offence, a threat to the national security of the U.K.” Despite receiving further witness statements in light of the judgment, “none of these stated that at the time of the offense China represented a threat to national security.” Parkinson added: “By late August 2025 it was realized that this evidence would not be forthcoming.” Even though the CPS does not usually comment on the factors leading to a case collapsing, Parkinson said he was “now able to provide further information to contextualize the position” as “government briefings have been provided commenting on the evidential situation.” CRUCIAL TIMING Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former DPP, said any evidence must be based on the previous government’s stance towards China because that was when the offenses were allegedly committed. “If you’re prosecuting someone on the basis of what the situation was in 2023, you have to prosecute them on the basis of what the situation was in 2023,” the prime minister told reporters on a plane to India. “You can’t change the situation afterwards and then prosecute people on the basis of a changed situation.” The Conservatives previously referred to Beijing as a  “systemic competitor” and an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge,” but never as a threat. Environment Minister Emma Hardy insisted the CPS dropped the case independently of the government and rejected accusations of pressure about labeling China an enemy or that National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell had anything to do with the decision. “We’re constantly re-evaluating our relationship with every single country,” Hardy told Sky Wednesday about not calling China a threat. “At the moment, our consideration is that China is a challenge.”

When a Donald Trump-appointed judge delivered a stinging rejection of his effort to put National Guard troops on the ground in Portland, the president had some regrets. “I wasn’t served well by the people that pick judges,” Trump vented Saturday. His gripe came four months after he similarly sounded off about the “bad advice” he got from the conservative Federalist Society for his first-term judicial nominations — a reaction to a ruling, backed by a Trump-appointed judge, rejecting his power to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners. “This is something that cannot be forgotten!” he said on Truth Social. While Trump and his allies have spent all year leveling pointed attacks at Democratic judicial appointees, labeling them rogue insurrectionists and radicals, the president is increasingly facing stark rejections from people he put on the bench — including at least one from his second term. The brushbacks have come mainly from district judges, who occupy the lowest level of the three-tiered federal judiciary. So far, it’s been a different story among Trump’s three most powerful judicial appointees: Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. That troika, along with the high court’s three other conservatives, has handed Trump numerous short-term victories in emergency rulings this year, often lifting injunctions against Trump policies issued by district judges. The White House leaned into that bottom-line success in a statement to POLITICO that attributed Trump’s defeats to Democratic appointees and sidestepped questions about the defeats dealt by Trump’s own picks. “The Trump Administration’s policies have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court as lawful despite an unprecedented number of legal challenges and unlawful lower court rulings from far-left liberal activist judges,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “The President will continue implementing the policy agenda that the American people voted for in November and will continue to be vindicated by higher courts when liberal activist judges attempt to intervene.” Trump allies also emphasize that district court judges tend to require the approval of home-state senators, leading presidents to nominate more moderate picks than they might otherwise in states dominated by the opposing party. Still, in some cases in which Trump-appointed judges have heard Trump-related cases, they have gone further than simply ruling against his policies. They have delivered sweeping warnings about the expansion of executive power, the erosion of checks and balances and have criticized his attacks on judges writ large. One Trump appointee rebuked the president and his allies for a “smear” campaign against the judiciary. “Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen wrote in a recent ruling, “this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.” Rulings against the administration by Trump-appointed judges have come in some of the most high-profile cases of Trump’s second term. Here’s a look at the most notable examples. NATIONAL GUARD CALL-UP U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a first-term Trump appointee in Oregon, ruled that Trump’s effort to put National Guard troops in Portland was “untethered” from reality and risked plunging the nation into an unconstitutional form of military rule. DEPORTING GUATEMALAN CHILDREN U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly, a first-term appointee in Washington, D.C., rejected the Trump administration’s claim that it was trying to reunite unaccompanied Guatemalan kids with their parents when it abruptly loaded hundreds of children onto buses and planes for a middle-of-the-night deportation effort. That explanation “crumbled like a house of cards,” he wrote, after the Guatemalan government contradicted the claim. Kelly blocked the immediate deportations, saying they appeared to violate the law. RESTRICTING THE AP’S WHITE HOUSE ACCESS U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden said the White House had unconstitutionally evicted the Associated Press from Oval Office events over its refusal to adopt Trump’s “Gulf of America” label. McFadden’s ruling was later put on hold by an appeals court. Notably, Trump has mischaracterized this ruling twice in recent days during public remarks, claiming that McFadden, a first-term appointee, not only sided with his restrictions on the AP but endorsed his relabeling of the Gulf of Mexico. Neither McFadden nor the appeals court reached such a conclusion. TRUMP’S TARIFF POWER Few issues are as central to Trump’s economic agenda as his power to levy tariffs at will against U.S. trading partners he claims are ripping off the country. But Timothy Reif, a judge he put on the U.S. Court of International Trade, joined two other judges in ruling that Trump lacked the legal power to impose such sweeping tariffs, a traditionally congressional authority. A federal appeals court later agreed with the panel, and the matter is now pending before the Supreme Court. SUMMARY DEPORTATIONS UNDER THE ALIEN ENEMIES ACT Several Trump-appointed judges joined a nationwide legal rebuke of the president and his administration over efforts to abruptly deport Venezuelan nationals using Trump’s wartime authority under the Alien Enemies Act. U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. was the first to label the effort “unlawful.” Two other first-term Trump appointees, U.S. District Judges John Holcomb and Stephanie Haines, ruled that Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was legitimate but that the administration’s effort to speedily deport its targets violated their due process rights. RETURNING DANIEL LOZANO CAMARGO Among the targets of Trump’s Alien Enemies Act order was Daniel Lozano Camargo, a Venezuelan man who had been residing in Texas. Unlike others whom the administration abruptly sent to El Salvador under that order, Lozano Camargo was protected by a 2024 settlement requiring the government to resolve his pending asylum claim before deportation could occur. U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a first-term Trump appointee in Maryland, ordered the administration to facilitate the man’s return to the United States — following the lead of her colleague on the Maryland bench, Obama appointee Paula Xinis, in the similar case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. MANDATORY DETENTION OF POTENTIAL DEPORTEES The Trump administration has sought to vastly expand the use of detention for immigrants facing deportation — seeking to deprive bond hearings for all potential deportees, even if they’ve spent decades living in the United States. Dozens of judges have found the abrupt shift illegal, saying the move is potentially subjecting millions of people to being locked up while they fight to remain in the United States. In recent days, several Trump appointees have joined their ranks. They include first-term appointees: Dominic Lanza of Arizona, Rebecca Jennings of the Western District of Kentucky and Eric Tostrud of Minnesota. Kyle Dudek of the Middle District of Florida, whom Trump appointed this term, was confirmed to the bench just two weeks before ruling against the administration. TARGETING THE MARYLAND BENCH Cullen’s stinging assessment of Trump and his allies’ attacks on judges came in a remarkable legal attack by the Trump administration against the entire federal district court bench in Maryland. The administration sued the judges there over a blanket policy to delay all urgent deportation cases for 48 hours to give the court a chance to act before litigants were deported. The administration said the rule infringed on executive power to execute immigration laws. But Cullen rejected the administration’s lawsuit as defective and the improper way to seek relief from an administrative process it disagreed with. OTHER REJECTIONS U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, another Washington, D.C.-based first-term Trump appointee, has turned down the administration on multiple fronts — including an effort by the Justice Department to use Trump’s pardon of Jan. 6 defendants to cover unrelated crimes. She also granted an injunction requiring the administration to disburse funds it had withheld from the National Endowment for Democracy. Another first-term Trump appointed judge, Mary McElroy of Rhode Island, repeatedly rebuked the administration in recent weeks for abrupt funding cuts to homelessness programs and public health grants. Last week, she blocked the administration from repurposing $233 million in FEMA grants from blue states over what those states said was punishment for refusing to assist with immigration enforcement.

Donald Trump wants to enjoy a long weekend of golfing. Good luck with that. The U.S. president lands in Scotland, his mother’s birthplace, on Friday for the first time since his return to the White House. On the itinerary is time at his Turnberry and Aberdeen golf resorts, plus meetings with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Scottish First Minister John Swinney.  But with colorful protests expected, Trump’s trip has prompted a security operation as big as Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022. Up to 6,000 officers will shield the most powerful man in the world from what are expected to be significant demonstrations. The Scottish Police Federation has already queried whether adequate resources are in place to manage such a huge operation. So what do those closest to the action think about the circus coming to town? POLITICO grilled seven plugged-in Scottish politicians of all stripes on the flying visit — and asked where Trump should go if he does manage to venture away from the golf course. ELAINE STEWART, LABOUR MP FOR AYR, CARRICK & CUMNOCK Elaine Stewart has only been the Labour MP whose patch covers Trump Turnberry for just over a year — but she isn’t daunted by the president’s arrival.  “He’s been here before,” Stewart says. “That same spectacle happened when he was president the first time.” Despite concerns around policing, Stewart — who recalls the last presidential Trump trip to Scotland — says she’s confident this visit will go off without a security hitch. “There was security on the beaches and the roads and there were loads of police everywhere,” she says. “Loads of people … watched because it’s something that they thought they would never see again,” Stewart mused. “But here we are.”  Stewart has been meeting farmers in her local constituency — who say they benefit directly from Trump’s presence. “[The resort] sources all his meat and his seafood and vegetables locally,” she says. The U.S. president loves a grand gesture and a prime bit of real estate — so Stewart recommends a trip to the clifftop Culzean Castle just a few miles from Turnberry.  Dating back centuries, the stately home has a suite gifted to former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower for his military leadership during the Second World War as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. ALEC CLARK, INDEPENDENT DEPUTY LEADER OF SOUTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL  Trump’s presence will generate global attention — but Alec Clark will have to deal with the local reaction long after the president has jetted back to America. The independent deputy leader of South Ayrshire Council, whose ward includes Trump Turnberry, is in a sunny mood about the trip, praising the funds that Trump’s company has plowed into the tiny rural village. “The actual investment that goes into Turnberry year after year, week after week, day after day, is tremendous,” Clark says, lauding the more than 400 people employed “in a rural area where every job is like gold dust.”  The estate unsurprisingly became a huge attraction after Trump entered politics, and Clark has noticed that “tourists are stopping there to take photographs of the hotel.” He ascribes Trump’s “sympathetic stance” toward Scotland to his mother’s Scottish roots. On the itinerary is time at his Turnberry and Aberdeen golf resorts. | Robert Perry/EPA As police prepare for protests, Clark defends such dissent as “one of the things you’ve got to handle” in a democracy. “It’s only courteous to listen, because people can protest … but the only way to make a difference is to discuss,” he reflects. If Trump does have some time away from the golf buggy, Clark reckons he should pop along to the Robert Burns museum in Alloway, a suburb north of Turnberry, to learn more about the poet and view some original manuscripts. “Burns is history,” Clark says. “Burns is the National Bard of Scotland. He’s known all over the world.” BRIAN WHITTLE, TORY SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT MEMBER (MSP) FOR SOUTH SCOTLAND  Brian Whittle is no stranger to presidential big beasts rolling into town. Prior to entering the Scottish Parliament to represent South Scotland — which includes Turnberry — the Conservative MSP ran an event management company that organized a visit to Glasgow by Bill Clinton. When U.S. presidents come to Scotland, they don’t travel lightly.  Clinton’s trip in the mid-2000s after leaving the White House involved three months of preparation, Whittle said, including many meetings with the U.S. Secret Service and British spooks in MI5 and MI6. “If that’s the level of security required for a former president of the United States, a current president, especially one with Donald Trump’s current reputation … would be even greater, much greater than what I had to deal with,” he says. Given that Trump’s visit — billed as a private trip — is a tad spontaneous, Whittle isn’t surprised there’s been a “bit of scrambling around to make sure all the protocols are in place.”  “No matter where he goes, there’ll be protests,” the Tory MSP says. “That’s part of the deal, that’s part of the job.”  But he urges Scots not to get too excited. “On one level, this story is about: Somebody owns a bit of property and is coming to see a property.” Whittle says Turnberry is a “massive asset” that encourages global visitors. “If you go down there, it’s always busy as a venue,” he adds. WENDY CHAMBERLAIN, LIB DEM MP FOR NORTH EAST FIFE  As a former cop, the Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, Wendy Chamberlain, is thinking about the “day-to-day” impact on policing of the Trump team rolling into town. “These are huge logistical challenges for police forces,” she says. “One of the challenges of it being private is there seems to be a lack of knowledge about what’s actually happening.” Keir Starmer’s Westminster administration has been at pains to cosy up to Donald Trump. | Pool Photo by Ludovic Marin via EPA Chamberlain is the chief enforcer of House of Commons discipline for the centrist Liberal Democrats, who have built a brand around calling out Trump. “There always has been quite an active protest movement, sometimes with a good deal of humor as well, which is very Scottish,” Chamberlain says. But she understands why Starmer and Swinney — both from center-left parties — would meet with the right-wing Republican firebrand. “You have to look past the individual that’s in the role of the president of the United States — and look at the role itself,” she says. MERCEDES VILLALBA, LABOUR MSP FOR NORTH EAST SCOTLAND  Starmer’s Westminster administration has been at pains to cosy up to Trump. Not everyone in his party is happy. Mercedes Villalba, a Labour MSP for North East Scotland, which covers Trump’s Aberdeen estate, is a fierce critic of the U.S. president’s foreign policy — especially in the Middle East.  Her constituents will show support for “the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” she says, with the Palestinian flag flying above Dundee’s City Chambers, a place twinned with Nablus in the Occupied West Bank since 1980.   “Our region’s rich history of solidarity at home and abroad is alien to Donald Trump,” Villalba said. To her, Trump is a “convicted felon who has pledged to turn Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ and continues to send weapons to a state credibly accused of genocide.”  Villalba has no doubt her constituents “will make their opposition to the U.S. president’s visit abundantly clear,” and hopes Swinney demonstrates “the same commitment to peace and justice” during his own expected meeting with the U.S. president. TESS WHITE, CONSERVATIVE MSP FOR NORTH EAST SCOTLAND  Northeastern Scotland sits on vast quantities of gas and oil — but the British government is wary about the climate impacts of getting stuck in. Having worked in the energy sector for three decades, Tess White, a Tory MSP for the region, hopes the president’s trip will spark “widespread recognition” of the dangers of switching to renewables too quickly.  Trump has long complained about Scotland’s wind turbines. White said she hopes that “President Trump will do in two days what the SNP have just failed to do in over a decade,” aiming a shot at Scotland’s ruling Scottish National Party. She reckons Trump should visit the government-run renewables investment body GB Energy in Aberdeen — to see for himself that it’s “really not a serious vehicle for strengthening and improving our oil and gas industry.” White also blames “very, very” stretched policing around the visit on the SNP. “Police officers are under immense strain with millions of hours in overtime being notched up,” she warns. When in town, White recommends Trump try some Angus beef (“the best in the world”) and additive-free locally grown fruit. Northeastern Scotland sits on vast quantities of gas and oil — but the British government is wary about the climate impacts of getting stuck in. | Robert Perry/EPA TORCUIL CRICHTON, LABOUR MP FOR NA H-EILEANAN AN IAR  Torcuil Crichton has served as Labour MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar since last July. The Western Isles include Lewis, where Trump’s mother Mary Anne MacLeod was born in 1912.  “People in Lewis are very proud of Mary Anne MacLeod and that entire emigration generation of islanders who left in their thousands during the hungry 1920s and made America great,” Crichton said. “Mr Trump is a son of Lewis,” he added. “While oceans separate our politics, any island exile is embraced on their return. “Every prodigal son is welcomed home.”

LONDON — Unions founded Britain’s governing Labour Party. But that doesn’t mean they’ll always have its back. A year into Keir Starmer’s government, union reps can point to some big wins, including a dedicated workers’ rights bill and the cooling of several pay disputes that had simmered under the previous Conservative government. Yet unions are still pressing Labour for more, and ministers are quickly discovering that a flurry of above-inflation pay hikes is not enough to satiate them. A Labour MP on the left of the party, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said relations between Labour and the unions were now “strained to a degree” because of the stagnant state of the British economy. “There’s a fairly widespread sense of unhappiness about the direction of the country, and that obviously reads on to the Labour Party,” they said of the current union mood. STRIKING A BARGAIN  Labour won the July 2024 elections by a landslide, running on a ticket of “change”. On labor relations, the need for a shift was obvious. Under the Conservatives, millions of working days were lost as train drivers, doctors and teachers all walked out over pay and terms, while the government, citing concerns about Britain’s shaky public finances, resisted. Labour wanted to show swift action — and a jolt to straining public services — by settling pay claims with numerous public sector workers who were demanding the restoration of their pay to historic levels. Teachers received a 5.5 percent pay award, train drivers were handed a 15 percent multi-year uplift, and resident doctors got a 22.3 percent rise over two years on average. “It was an important signal of intent from the government,” reflects Trades Union Congress General Secretary Paul Nowak. His body represents 48 affiliated unions and roughly 5.5 million workers. “It was good for our members, but more importantly, it was good for public services and the people that rely on them.” A much-hyped Employment Rights Bill is also going through parliament. It promises to end some of the more insecure forms of work, ban “fire and rehire” schemes, and grant workers the right to challenge unfair dismissal from the day they start employment. Unions have welcomed involvement with the legislation, although some critics remain. The Labour MP cited above said the bill was far from perfect: “It doesn’t really deal with the collective rights which workers need to protect themselves fully.” TIGHTEN THE PURSE STRINGS  Union reps say that Labour has been much better at communicating with unions than its predecessors, although they argue this was a low bar to clear. “It’s been night and day in comparison to our relationship with the previous Conservative governments,” says Nowak. “This is clearly a government that actually sees a positive role for unions in a modern economy and sees us as part of the solution.”  Yet consulting is not the same as acting, and last year’s pay settlements may have already set a precedent. Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ tight fiscal rules mean this is an expectation the government is unlikely to meet. “We know how tight the fiscal position is, but we also know we’ve got a crisis in our public services that have been underfunded,” argues Nowak, who points to problems in recruiting and retaining staff. Britain has a series of independent pay review bodies tasked with examining the economic picture and recommending salary hikes for many public sector workers. Still, it is ministers who ultimately decide who receives the increases. This year, the body for resident doctors recommended a far more modest 5.4 percent increase for 2025-2026. Health Secretary Wes Streeting backed that call — and faced an immediate backlash. The British Medical Association, which represents doctors, branded the hike inadequate as it did not restore real-terms pay to 2008 levels. They’re already balloting members for strike action that could last at least six months, at a time when the government doesn’t need the headache. “The bedside manner is much better, but the NHS is still really sick,” says Emma Runswick, deputy chair of council at the BMA. “We have an NHS which is hemorrhaging staff because it’s eroded their pay so badly and it treats them so poorly.” Streeting, who is expected to unveil a 10-year reform plan for the publicly funded National Health Service this week, is urging doctors not to strike and instead to “work with the government.” But unions shouldn’t expect much. Although the health secretary says his door is open, Streeting has stressed there are no further funds for pay increases. “If you’re going to base yourself as the party who founded the NHS … where’s the action to back that up?” Runswick asks. A summer of strikes could make the growth Reeves desperately covets even harder to achieve. | Andy Rain/EPA-EFE For Labour MPs with a union background, this kind of punchy approach isn’t too surprising. “I don’t think that kind of rhetoric is uncommon in the trade union movement,” says Labour MP Steve Witherden, a former teacher who remains in a teaching union. “They’re obviously setting themselves up for a negotiating position.” “Even a trade union leader [who] might want to be able to be favorable to the Labour government … will be feeling the breath of their members down their necks,” says the Labour MP quoted at the top of this article. The Labour government, by standing firm against union demands, is betting that public opinion has shifted since past disputes. A YouGov poll of 4,100 adults in May found that 48 percent somewhat or strongly opposed resident doctors striking, compared to 39 percent somewhat or strongly supporting them. That’s a fall in support since a comparable YouGov poll was conducted last year. “If it’s a profession they admire and like and think makes a significant contribution, they tend to be favorable toward strike action,” says YouGov’s Head of European Political and Social Research Anthony Wells. But he adds: “While people hugely value doctors, doctors are also already seen as being relatively well paid, so they get far less support for strikes than nurses do.” “There’s an awful lot more that needs to be done,” said left-wing Labour MP Ian Lavery, a former National Union of Mineworkers president, regarding union discontent. “They’ve got to get their heads together.” It’s not just healthcare staff getting antsy. Refuse workers in the city of Birmingham have been on strike for over 100 days due to pay disputes, and the Unite union recently extended that strike mandate until December. National Education Union members also rejected the government’s 2.8 percent pay offer for teachers and leaders in April, with 83.4 percent of respondents saying they would be willing to take strike action. Labour is also treading a fine line with its workers’ rights package, as firms that are already smarting from increased taxes warn the bill’s measures could further dent the government’s growth agenda. The opposition Tories have promised to scrap the package if they return to power in the next election. SUMMER OF DISCONTENT? A summer of strikes could make the growth Reeves desperately covets even harder to achieve — and draw unfavorable historical comparisons. In the 1970s, Labour was effectively toppled for a generation by what became known as the “Winter of Discontent.” Garbage piled up on the streets, bodies weren’t buried, and health, rail and haulage workers made their anger known.  To avert a similar fate, some in the party say keeping unions on side is essential. “The most important thing about relations is that you always keep those channels of dialogue open,” Witherden argues. Garbage workers in Birmingham have been on strike for over 100 days due to pay disputes. | Andy Rain/EPA-EFE Nowak, who has been publicly supportive of much of the government’s agenda, argues that sorting out pay won’t be enough, particularly in the public sector. “There needs to be a longer-term, more strategic discussion … about what’s the future of the public sector workforce” on issues like flexible working and artificial intelligence, he says. “That’s the missing piece of the jigsaw for me.”  However, for a government already struggling to put out multiple fires, keeping the unions sweet will be easier said than done. “The fiscal framework which the government’s working to is incredibly tight,” said the anonymous Labour MP. “It’s difficult to see how they’re going to fund further pay rises that can meet people’s expectations.”