The Vermont senator rose from the political margins to become hugely influential within the American left. As he prepares to speak at a London rally, he explains why unions on both sides of the Atlantic must reassert their power

Both are unlikely political sensations who were long consigned to the fringes: Bernie Sanders, an octogenarian US senator who inspired an army of voters far younger than himself; and Mick Lynch, a former blacklisted construction worker and child of Irish immigrants who, as the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT), shot to national prominence when he humbled hostile but underinformed broadcast journalists. “I think Lynch is touching a nerve,” Sanders says.

The de facto leader of the US left has swung his considerable political heft behind a new campaign – Enough Is Enough – launched to fight Britain’s mounting cost of living crisis, which was founded in part by Lynch and the RMT. It has certainly touched a nerve: at a recent rally in Clapham, south London, many of those who had queued around the block were turned away for lack of space. “‘Enough is enough’, funnily enough, is an expression we use a lot here,” Sanders says. “People are sick and tired of often working longer hours for low wages; sick and tired of their kids having a lower standard of living than them; and they’re sick and tired of billionaires getting richer and richer while they fall behind.

“Why, with all this new tech out there, are they not seeing an improved standard of living? Why not more equality, rather than less equality? Why are living standards deteriorating, not improving? Lynch is asking that, Enough Is Enough is asking that – and it’s hitting a nerve, because people are tired of being ignored while the rich get richer.”

Political cut-through is something Sanders knows a lot about, but it was only something he really achieved in his 70s. Born into a working-class Jewish family in New York, he became the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, at 40, later becoming a House representative and a senator. A longstanding independent, albeit one who has frequently allied with the Democratic party, Sanders championed causes long eschewed by mainstream Democrats, such as universal healthcare, the abolition of student fees, workers’ rights and the anti-war movement. But his dramatic rise – when he was transformed from a marginalised figure to a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 – was driven by two major factors.

One was the financial crash, which exposed inequalities and insecurities that disproportionately fell on the backs of younger Americans. The other was the expectations raised by the election of Barack Obama in 2008, which, for millions of Americans with stagnating living standards, ultimately felt dashed. Although neither his 2016 or 2020 bids succeeded, they mobilised a movement that revitalised the US left and transformed it into a major political force in the Democratic party and beyond.

This brings his attention back to a perennial passion – and what he wants to talk to me about: the prospects of the US labour movement. We speak over the phone, but he hits all his rousing lines with the zest of a platform rally. The thread that runs through all his answers is class politics. This is less of a novelty in progressive politics on the British side of the Atlantic – to rousing cheers at a recent Enough Is Enough rally, Lynch proclaimed: “The working class is back” – but it was long considered alien in a US that peddled a myth of classlessness. This was a politically convenient myth in a country where, Sanders notes, three rich men have more wealth than the poorest half.

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