A MASSIVE 85 per cent of private hire drivers fear race riots will return to Britain this summer, according to a GMB survey delivered to its annual congress today. 

Nearly half of some 400 drivers polled said that they were hit by the riots last summer, either directly or indirectly.

They described being threatened with knives and machetes, racially abused and having stones thrown at their cars. 

GMB national officer Eamon O’Hearn said: “These terrifying survey results show our private hire drivers were on the front line of last year’s riots.

“When it comes to health, wealth and opportunity the UK is already an island of strangers.

“We cannot continue to tolerate divisions that come from being a hugely unequal society.”

Many private hire drivers work for gig economy ride-sharing or food delivery apps.

A senior GMB official criticised the Labour government for not having a ”bigger vision” to tackle gig economy giants such as Amazon at a fringe event.

The meeting heard that gig economy companies are not legally required to apply health and safety laws for their self-employed workforce, resulting in horrific injuries.

GMB health, safety and environment director Dan Shears said: ”The most important thing is we know that some of these very large companies are going into 10 Downing Street and lobbying very hard about this.”

Referring to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s address to Congress earlier, he added: ”It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a bigger vision about this stuff.

”This could not be more corporately powered... we’ve seen what happened in Amazon.”

GMB national Uber committee chairman Ali Haydor said: ”Labour’s new workers deal doesn't really cover a lot about gig workers.”

He backed a strategy of membership growth and industrial action to fight gig economy giants.