With the reinstatement of Arwyn Thomas, the RMT’s planned Tube strikes are off – but had the tribunal found completely against him, would they still have gone on strike?

It would have been completely unjustified and unsupported.

So, if the strikes were always dependent so completely on the tribunal result, why not just let that process take its course as so many were arguing?

One RMT member, writing on the union’s website earlier this month, made clear their thinking: “LU has no intention of reinstating Arwyn simply on the basis of a tribunal result – so why would we wait for, and rely on, that tribunal result before taking action?

“We forced LU to reinstate Eamonn Lynch by naming bold and imaginative strike dates (before we knew his tribunal result), combined with campaigning pressure. We are now doing that again, to ensure that we win Arwyn’s reinstatement too.”

Not that LU’s response to the tribunal was stellar, but what the union sees as ‘imaginative’, the travelling public sees as deliberately disruptive and scornful, and it undermines their faith in the whole industry.