Labour’s main union backer has further distanced itself from Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership and will cut political donations to the party.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, has vowed to instead put the money into other campaigns that would “set the pace” for Labour to follow.
Although Unite will still pay £1m in affiliation fees to Labour, Ms Graham told the Guardian that there was “a lot of other money” that could go elsewhere.
The union, the largest in Britain, has historically been Labour’s biggest funder and its former general secretary, Len McCluskey, was a close ally of ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
However, Ms Graham – who replaced Mr McCluskey 100 days ago – has kept distance between herself and Mr Corbyn’s successor, Sir Keir.
She did not attend Labour’s conference in Brighton in September in order to focus on ongoing industrial disputes, although Ms Graham denied it represented a snub to Sir Keir.
She has also now branded Sir Keir’s shadow cabinet reshuffle this week as “white noise”.
Commenting on Unite’s funding of Labour, aside from its affiliation fees, Ms Graham told the Guardian: “There’s a lot of other money that we use from our political fund where, actually, I’m not sure we’re getting the best value for it.”
She added: “The fact that I am being quite robust is because Labour needs to talk about workers, needs to defend workers and needs to defend communities.”
Unite had last year already reduced its funding to Labour, under Sir Keir’s leadership, by around £1m.
Mr McCluskey, the then general secretary who is a critic of Sir Keir, said the union wanted to “nurture the newer voices in our movement” with its political funding.
Subscribe to the All Out Politics podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
Despite Ms Graham stating she would now cut Unite’s…
Source : skynews
