Mandate to take industrial and political lead
Editorial of the Socialist issue 1379
Sharon Graham has been re-elected as Unite General Secretary in a decisive victory over her opponent, Simon Dubbins, Unite’s Director of International and Research.
Sharon’s victory, by 68,694 votes to 31,130, is a clear message that reps, members and activists want to maintain Unite as a militant industrial union, and correctly saw the challenge of Dubbins and the misnamed United Left group, who were prominent supporters of his, as a threat to this.
It is significant that members from a whole number of Unite disputes have been campaigning for Sharon Graham’s re-election. This has included leading reps from the heroic Birmingham binworkers, who been on indefinite strike since March 2025.
Sharon Graham’s victory, on the back of the left slate of candidates, including Socialist Party members, winning a majority on the Unite Executive Council (EC) earlier this year, represents a renewed mandate for Unite to take the industrial and political lead, as Burnham replaces Starmer as Labour prime minister, and workers face the cost-of-living crisis and the bosses’ offensive to make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis.
The Socialist Party supported Sharon Graham when she first ran successfully for Unite general secretary in 2021 because her programme of industrial militancy stood against that of the other candidates, including from United Left, who were backsliding to the position of partnership with the employers and the then-new Starmer leadership of the Labour Party and Labour councils.
In the first Unite Policy Conference under her leadership in the autumn of 2021, the policy long campaigned for by the Socialist Party was finally passed – to demand that Labour councils stop implementing central government cuts and instead pass no-cuts needs-based budgets.
Under Sharon Graham’s leadership, her industrial militant programme has been borne out. In her first five-year term of office, Unite has been involved in over 1,800 disputes, involving 280,000 members and winning over £700 million in extra pay. Therefore, it was essential that the challenge by Dubbins and the United Left was defeated in this election, to prevent any retreat from this record.
However, Socialist Party members have always campaigned in Unite, including in the general secretary and EC elections, on our distinct industrial and political programme. During last year’s Unite policy conference, the then-Labour council in Birmingham announced its intentions to brutally fire and rehire the binworkers. Socialist Party delegates, in conjunction with close allies, moved an emergency motion to support the binworkers, suspend from Unite membership the cutting Labour councillors and the then-deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – now secretary of state for Housing, Communities and Local Government under Andy Burnham. This motion, which was almost unanimously supported, apart from a handful of United Left supporters, opened up a discussion within the union about its relationship with Labour.
This debate must now really be opened up in Unite. It has been posed even more sharply by Burnham replacing Starmer in No.10, as a vital part of arming the union and its members on what is needed right now.
Sharon Graham has talked of the Burnham premiership as the last chance for Labour. However, in reality, despite his populist messaging, he is still ultimately the representative of big business and their desire for some stable government in their interests. Therefore, Unite must take the lead in piling on the pressure onto Burnham, which means demanding that the union movement organises and mobilises around an emergency programme to protect workers from the unfolding crisis.
Unite should support the PCS civil service union motion to the forthcoming Congress of the TUC (Trades Union Congress). The key demands from the left lay leadership of PCS call for a ‘national Saturday demonstration this autumn for investment in public services, against austerity and for pro-worker policies’ and to plan coordinated strike action on public sector pay.
But another key element of maximising leverage on the new government is for workers to have their own political voice and their ability to support candidates who support union policy. Burnham has his feet under his Downing Street desk, yet the 50% strike ballot threshold brought in by Cameron’s Tory government in 2016 and maintained by Starmer, despite his promise to scrap them, are still on the statute book and still an obstacle to particularly national action. Also, the unelected Tory-appointed commissioners are still operating in Birmingham, a situation which Burnham could have changed immediately by removing them, along with the threat to the binworkers’ wages.
Actually, Labour was thrown out of office in Birmingham in May, as in a whole swathe of local authorities. The Greens now hold the balance of power in Birmingham, and should demand the removal of the commissioners.
Moreover, the Greens now lead a number of councils, including a prominent group in London. Another opportunity to ‘pile on the pressure’ on the government over its local government austerity agenda potentially could be the summit hosted by the Green-led Hackney council on 9 September. Unite should send an official representative, to demand Green councillors support the union’s no-cuts budget policy.
The re-election of Sharon Graham and the left victory on the EC are now a platform to move forward in Unite. The obstacles that the United Left placed in the way of rolling out the industrial militant agenda should not be underestimated. They had acted to paralyse the previous EC by walking out of a meeting, when the voting margins were tight. That block has now been removed by the left election victories.
The opportunity is now there to really fully develop the lay member industrial combines, which bring more rank-and-file reps into sector-wide organising for action, and to democratise the union. Sharon increased her vote by 47%; now that the UL has been decisively defeated there is a big opportunity to build on that and increase members’ participation in the union, including the hundreds of thousands who have taken part in action, and further build the union’s million-strong membership.
The forthcoming rules conference is an opportunity to consolidate these steps and to create real workers’ political representation in Unite. But at present, this is scheduled for the summer of 2027, after next May’s local elections for every council seat in Scotland and Wales, and potentially 7,000 in England.
A whole number of Unite branches and two regional committees have passed motions calling for the rules conference to be brought forward so that union reps and members can urgently discuss the political strategy that is needed, as Farage’s poisonous Reform continues to look to exploit the political vacuum that has opened up because of Labour’s pro-business policies.
It is essential that the Unite Broad Left is built and really developed as a fighting rank-and-file left within the union, bringing together on a fighting programme the reps and activists who campaigned for the left in the EC and general secretary elections.
Socialist Party members will continue to play a key role on the left in Unite to fight for the industrial and political programme that is necessary. A vital part of this is to marry industrial militancy with the socialist programme that is essential in this period of economic crisis, war, racism and climate change. We will continue to argue that Unite, as well as the whole union movement, must have a working-class independent position from capitalist government and big business.
Policies such as socialist nationalisation are an absolutely indispensable element of the programme that is necessary in the sectors where Unite industrial membership is increasingly concentrated, and much of which is vulnerable to economic shocks. That is the only way to ensure that there can be Just Workers’ Transitions to socially necessary jobs and production, while guaranteeing workers’ jobs, income, pension and communities.
The Socialist Party welcomes the re-election of Sharon Graham as Unite general secretary. It is a sign of the militancy of Unite members and their preparedness to fight, as they face the bosses’ attacks. It is a victory that must be the platform for Unite to play a leading role, along with other militant unions, in this period of intense struggle.
2026 Unite GS Election
- Sharon Graham: 68,694 Elected
- Simon Dubbins: 31,130
- The total number of votes cast was 100,089
2021 Unite GS Election
- Sharon Graham: 46,696 Elected
- Steve Turner: 41,833
- Gerard Coyne: 35,334
- The total number of votes cast was 124,147
