LABOUR’S affiliated trade unions yesterday said that the Prime Minister ‘will not lead Labour into the next election’, and called on the party to put a plan in place for a leadership contest.
In a joint statement, the 11 affiliated unions, which include Unison, Unite and the GMB, said that Labour had not done enough in government to deliver the change working people voted for in 2024, and said that the party needed to refocus its efforts on ‘governing in the interests of workers’.
The party’s affiliated unions gathered for a private meeting yesterday to discuss their response to the ongoing calls for the Prime Minister’s resignation among a growing number of Labour MPs.
However, Keir Starmer has remained defiant and vowed to remain in post and fight any potential leadership contest.
Several union leaders had called on the Prime Minister to quit in recent weeks and months, including leaders of the FBU, the TSSA and Unite.
The joint statement from the unions in full states: ‘Labour’s affiliated unions have been clear that Labour cannot continue on its current path.
‘Whilst we recognise progress has been made, such as aspects of the Employment Rights Act and the increase in the minimum wage, the results at the election last week were devastating.
‘Labour is not doing enough to deliver the change that working people voted for at the General Election.
‘Our focus is on the fundamental change of direction on economic policy and political strategy that unions have been clear is needed, and not on the personalities and unfolding political drama in Westminster.
‘It’s clear that the Prime Minister will not lead Labour into the next election, and at some stage a plan will have to be put in place for the election of a new Leader.
‘This is a point where the future of the Party we founded will be debated and determined – and we are working closely as unions shape a shared vision on policy, political strategy and economic policy that will re-orient Labour back to working people, so Labour does what it was elected to do: govern in the interests of workers.’
It is clear that the trade unions must recall the TUC Congress immediately to discuss this crisis situation to bring an end to this Labour government with its anti-working class policies.
The Tory ruling class and its Labour government accomplices are determined to return the working class to the wages, conditions and the lack of basic rights that the working class faced in the grim days of the 1930’s right up to the end of the Second World War.
The TUC must now call a special congress to call and organise the general strike, to bring down the absolutely inadequate Labour government and replace it with a Workers Government and Socialism.
This is the only way that the basic rights and the standard of living of millions of British workers can be defended and maintained. The TUC must take action now and not let this crisis situation continue a day longer.
It must mobilise the entire working class for this historic struggle, especially the millions of working class youth, who are daily experiencing the impact of the rapidly developing capitalist crisis with its poverty conditions.
They are being told that they have no future and that they must get used to poverty and the complete absence of any future, outside of being cannon fodder for the next imperialist war, when millions of workers will be slaughtered.
Workers and youth can see that all the prospects for a better life with the most modern productive forces in use are being wasted – they are only being used to make massive profits for the ruling classes.
Now is the time to put an end to the capitalist crisis and its wars and counter-revolutions. Workers and youth must be mobilised to carry out the World Socialist Revolution to ensure that the productive forces are used to provide all with a much better life.
Capitalism is a bankrupt and out-of-date social system under which the working class produces all the wealth that the bosses use for their own benefit.
Now is the time to build the WRP and the Young Socialists to organise for the victory of the World Socialist revolution and a socialist future, dumping capitalism into the dustbin of history!