At the recent National Industrial Sector Conferences in Brighton, November 2024, the Unite General Secretary made an extraordinary attack on the United Left. She stated that the United Left ‘faction’ had dominated the Executive for 14 years and that it had created a culture where wrongdoing and corruption had become systemic.
This tactic of smear and innuendo has become all too well known in Unite and consists of assertions which are completely false. It seeks to create a sinister image which bears no resemblance to the reality of how the Executive operated under the previous administration.
The word faction can be portrayed in a negative sense but as the General Secretary herself has said – all unions have such groupings. They normally split into centre left and centre right and are perfectly legitimate and within rule. They are groups of individuals who have a common belief in certain policies and seek to influence the direction of the union. The different groupings will promote a ‘slate’ of candidates for various positions in the union for Regional, National and Executive roles.
What is so incredible about Sharon Graham’s intervention is she actively supported all the united left slates during the years of the previous administration. Both Sharon and her organising department were actively crucial in electing Executive members who were United Left.
The Executive Council that she now attacks pursued progressive policies which were determined by our Unite Policy Conference. Again, the United Left and other groups will have supported candidates to become delegates to the conferences – both the Policy and Rules conferences. Again, the General Secretary and her team would have actively supported those left candidates.
Her accusation that a systematic culture was allowed to develop, that led to corruption, is a complete lie. Tony Woodhouse was Chair of the Executive and hence chaired the Policy & Rules conferences was perhaps the most respected person in the union. He made certain that open debate took place, allowing everyone to speak and always seeking a unifying way forward. A strong individual with impeccable principles, Tony would have never allowed any ‘bad culture’ to develop.
Sharon Graham’s attack on the Executive is even more bewildering given the Executive under the previous administration gave her its fullest support. She had an excellent relationship with the EC, never once raising any of the concerns she now seeks to raise.
Now to the crux of the real issue. The only occasion that the United Left did not support Sharon was during the last General Secretary election, when UL members supported another candidate. However, the UL made it clear that following her election she would have their full support and that they would question her only on important issues such as lack of action on Palestine (our union’s support for the Palestinian people having been determined by the Unite Policy Conference). Her position and that of Executive Chair Andy Green to block any debate on Palestine was fundamentally wrong.
Sharon also levelled the smear of “grace and favour” at the United Left.
The irony is that the General Secretary herself was “placed” into a position in her old union TGWU. Having worked in the TGWU before she went onto the TUC Organising Academy for 12 months, she was seconded to Unison. At the end of this secondment Unison wanted to employ her, but Bill Morris TGWU General Secretary created a post specifically for her, National Youth Organiser. The post was not advertised or put out to open recruitment.
We do not condemn Bill Morris for this. It was important to keep such talent in the TGWU but her smear about “Grace and favour” is the height of hypocrisy.
As General Secretary Sharon Graham should be seeking to bring the union together and such vindictive attacks on the Left must stop. We seek to work constructively with her and hold out the hope that common ground can be found.
