Labour must be bolder, says union leader

Labour needs to be “bolder” and “more ambitious”, rather than “tinkering around the edges”, the head of the UK’s second largest union has told the BBC.

Unite leader Sharon Graham warned that otherwise “apathy” would be the winner at the next general election.

The union gives more money to Sir Keir Starmer’s party than any other.

Ms Graham saw off a bid this week by some members to end Unite’s affiliation to Labour, which guarantees the party nearly £1.5m a year.

She argued it would be the worst time to leave the Labour Party when it was “within touching distance of power, because that would reduce union influence”.

Ms Graham’s membership spans public and private sectors, so what influence does she want to exercise?

Next Saturday, Labour’s National Policy Forum meets behind closed doors in Nottingham.

It brings together trade union representatives with MPs, grassroots members, and some shadow ministers.

Although any policies agreed there are not guaranteed to be included in the next election manifesto, trade unions can make very clear where their priorities lie.

For Unite, taking energy companies and the struggling steel industry into public ownership are near the top of its agenda.

During a number of meetings with the Labour leadership, Ms Graham has pressed her case that it would be cheaper to buy a steel industry that has lost much of its market value, than to bail out its private owners.

The Labour leader was publicly urged to do this when he spoke at Unite’s policy conference in Brighton this week.

But while he has talked of “preserving” the industry if Labour wins power, he would not commit to acquiring it for the state.

Ms Graham is now intending to take a less conventional approach to policy-making.

The plan is for “hundreds of organisers” to go to marginal seats and talk to voters there about the case for taking key industries into public hands.

The message will be reinforced by Unite-funded billboards.

The hope is that then voters will press local Labour parties and local candidates to commit to backing nationalisation.

“We will take our ideas to the people,” Ms Graham told me.

“The real decision-makers are the voters. If they push those ideas, politicians tend to move when they speak to voters.”

Her over-arching criticism is that Labour’s leadership is not setting out a distinctive enough alternative to the government, and feels too constrained by the state of the economy.

She argued that “we need be as bold as the 1945 Labour government” which created the NHS. “There wasn’t much money about then, I can tell you,” she said.

The next Labour government could leave a lasting legacy, she suggested.

“People will say they remember when energy companies were privatised and when they paid massive bills, and it was a Labour government that stopped all that.”

The Labour leadership would argue that unless the party is trusted on the economy, many of the things trade unions want – like increased employment rights – simply won’t happen.

Its strategists also believe that it has to be seen to be moving away from Corbyn-era policies to win back voters who abandoned the party in 2019.

But Ms Graham told me that abiding strictly by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s “fiscal rules” had led to “inertia”, and people were beginning to ask: “What’s the difference?” between government and opposition.

“If Labour are saying what’s happening now is awful, and it is absolutely awful, they have to come out with solutions to that.”

While Labour is criticising the number of children in poverty, its shadow ministers have been told they can’t commit, for example, to provide free school meals for all primary children, because that would be a spending commitment.

Ms Graham said the party must “talk about what they can do to change Britain. People want something to vote for.”

She told her members this week that maintaining Unite’s financial link to Labour would give her “maximum leverage” with the party.

But so far she hasn’t moved policy on energy and steel. So by guaranteeing funds to Sir Keir Starmer, wasn’t she actually reducing her bargaining power?

“The affiliation fee is what you pay to be part of the club. But most of the money we gave Labour traditionally was outside the affiliation fee,” she said.

For example, the union donated an additional £3m to Labour before the last election.

But Ms Graham warned there were “no blank cheques”.

“I want to see some movement if we are going to give what we usually give… We would be better off with a Labour government, but I am very, very disappointed with the lack of ambition.”

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