Get the Tories Out and prepare to resist a Starmer government

On 22 May, Rishi Sunak announced that the general election will take place on 4 July. Just like the vast majority of working class and young people, UNISON members will be rightly looking forward to seeing the back of 14 years of Tory rule, which have devastated our jobs, services and communities. 

The following day at the UNISON NEC meeting, the General Secretary raised the proposal to have a front bench Labour Party MP speak at National Delegate Conference (NDC). She named Angela Rayner as her preferred option, but was clear that any front bench MP would be acceptable to her. 

She argued that this would show UNISON’s support for the incoming Labour government and help to remove the Tories. To the left in UNISON and on the NEC, this was not acceptable - no MP who opposes a ceasefire in Gaza, in opposition to UNISON policy, is welcome at NDC. 

Labour rowing back from pledges

The Labour Party leadership has consistently been rowing back from their commitments on a range of the most progressive UNISON policies, including the New Deal For Working People, reversing the privatisation of the NHS, and commitments to the funding of the National Care Service. They have also supported the Cass Review, which is an outright attack on the health and support care for the trans community.  But Labour’s position on a Gaza ceasefire has been a sea change moment for many union members. The leadership’s support for the continuing genocidal attacks on Gaza will not be forgotten nor forgiven. Only 56 Labour Party MPs voted with the SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire. If we are to have a representative from the Labour Party at NDC, then it should be one of these 56 MPs. But even many of these MPs do not have a consistent record of supporting Palestinian struggle - instead they voted to save their own skins. 

In the NEC meeting, Socialist Alternative members and others on the left were able to win a majority for an alternative proposal, calling for the Presidential Team to select an MP from the 56 (one who has consistently and genuinely supported the Palestinian cause).

This meeting so early into the general election campaign has brought to the fore some of the tensions and pressures within our union. The right wing and bureaucracy want to support the Labour leadership, build links with them and curry favour, in a vain hope of winning concessions from them. Part of this deal will be to frustrate and hinder members taking strike action. 

But we know that while the first step is to get rid of the Tories, a Starmer government will not be an ally to our members. A honeymoon period for a new Labour government will be weeks or months, rather than years. 

Starmer has been brazen in his support for the billionaires and their system, so very few in the country have illusions that change is on the way.  We expect a Starmer government to continue cutting pay in public services, privatising health and other sectors, and making cuts to local government.  Basically, a continuation of the Tory austerity policies that have destroyed working class communities across the country. 

Prepare to fight

So we need to be preparing now to continue and escalate all the campaigns and movements we have built over recent years. We need to bring the power of those struggles to bear in the election campaign, and also afterwards. We will certainly have to use strike action, which is the most effective weapon to win decent pay, funding for local government and to reverse privatisation in health, social care and education. 

It brings into stark relief the need for a new anti-war, left party that represents these communities, fights for our jobs and services, and is based on campaigning and struggle. The potential for this is clear - from Jeremy Corbyn standing as an independent candidate against Labour, to the numerous local councillors who left Labour and stood as independents in May, to the continuing expulsion of socialists from the Labour Party.

Labour is clearly unwilling and unable to be the vehicle through which working class communities can organise and coordinate our struggles. 

That’s why we are calling for a mass conference to build the resistance to be organised urgently after the election to discuss where to take the next steps towards a new left party of struggle. 

This would need to draw together trade unionists, students standing in solidarity with Palestinians, activists fighting to defend Corbyn’s seat, and all those desiring a mass left alternative to Starmer’s red Tories. UNISON and its members - and all trade unionists - should play a central role in this process.