Union boss ‘held up Communist flag alongside people singing pro-Russia chants in occupied Ukraine’
Rail union boss forced to deny supporting Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of the RMT union, was pictured with a Communist flag and alongside people singing pro-Russia chants during a 2015 visit to the Donbas region of Ukraine.
- Footage from the trip, which Dempsey characterised as a 'humanitarian convoy', showed him holding a red Communist Party flag and posing in front of a Lenin statue.
- Dempsey also wore a T-shirt depicting the coat of arms of Novorossiya, a 19th-century Russian province covering parts of southern and eastern Ukraine.
- An RMT spokesperson stated that Dempsey's trip was motivated by the 2014 House of Trade Unions fire and insisted he has 'at no time supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine', repeatedly calling for a peaceful resolution.
- Under Dempsey's leadership, the RMT union last year passed a motion advocating for the UK to cease sending military aid to Ukraine, accusing Britain of a 'belligerent role in international relations'.