At a virtual meeting on 4 August, the general secretaries of Aslef, RMT and TSSA each reaffirmed their commitment to preserving Britain’s link to continental Europe.

In May, Eurostar reached a deal with its backers having come under financial pressure due to the pandemic. The cross-channel rail operator has been running "a handful of services" a day since the initial lockdown.

Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef said the first "battle" is to protect jobs and the future of Eurostar.

"Then it’s to make the case for how it fits into our connectivity to the rest of the world," he added. "How other countries are looking into doing their longer train journeys, so we introduce sleeper journeys rather than flights and tax those flights."

Mick Lynch, general secretary of RMT said he wants to see the operator survive and all three unions can be "proud" of the job they have done in negotiating a "good set" of terms and conditions.

"I worked for Eurostar for 22 years as an electrician engineer looking after the trains at the depot," he added. "I’ve got a lot of friends there and we’ve got a lot of members working on the Eurostar service. We want to save good jobs as part of the green transport economy."