UNITE leader Sharon Graham warned yesterday morning that the union is likely to disaffiliate from the Labour Party if Chancellor Rachel Reeves does not use November’s budget to ‘stop the gap between the rich and poor getting wider and wider and wider’.
Speaking ahead of the opening of the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, Graham said: ‘What are the choices that Labour are making? Picking the pocket of pensioners, leaving the super-rich totally untouched. This does not feel like Labour.’
She warned: ‘Having two refineries closed in less than a year and no plan for jobs. That is what Labour needs to focus on and if they don’t do that now then people are going to start moving away from them in droves. They really need to wake up and smell the coffee.’
She continued to indict Labour, stating: ‘We are affiliated to Labour by rule and when I was elected I said there will be no more blank cheques for Labour. Our union used to give £7, £8, £9 million, that does not happen any more.’
Admitting to Labour’s political bankruptcy, she continued: ‘If we are effectively saying “look actually we cannot answer why we are still affiliated”, then I think our members will choose to disaffiliate and that time is getting close.’
She continued: ‘Those fiscal rules need to change. Other countries are doing it. We should stop dancing round our handbags and do that.’
She warned: ‘But if the budget is just tinkering around the edges with a little bit here and a little bit there but substantively there is not the money to change our society as it needs to change. If that budget is essentially nothing, if it’s insipid, then I think we’ve got a real problem on our hands, because without the money to make the change then nothing is going to change.’
She went on: ‘We are afilliated to the Labour Party because we want a Labour government, but if the Labour Party gets into government and they are no longer Labour then what are we afilliated to?
‘There is a moment for the change to happen and it is the budget, because all of this is rooted in where do we get the money to change the society that we’re in?
‘How can we stop the gap between rich and poor getting wider and wider and wider? People feel that they’re on their knees and they’re being kicked.’
She concluded: ‘In Birmingham, they are trying to cut the workers’ pay by £8,000. You’ve got a Labour council, and a Labour government that says it is pro-worker, but nobody can justify these workers losing a quarter of their pay. It’s totally and utterly wrong and it cannot happen.’
- A poll by Ipsos has found that Keir Starmer is the most unpopular Prime Minister since it began measuring approval ratings in 1977 and Rachel Reeves is the least popular Chancellor, while Farage’s Reform holds a 12-point lead, with the support of 34% per cent of the public to Labour’s 22 per cent.
Meanwhile, Reeves faces a vote at the Liverpool conference tabled by Unite, which calls for a Wealth Tax to pay for a freeze in energy bills. A Unite spokesman said the mega-rich have remained untouched by tax rises since Labour took office last year.
The Unite spokesman said: ‘A wealth tax would in a small way begin to reset the balance.’ A second motion from the GMB calls for ministers to work for lower gas prices or risk the closure of industrial plants.’
