Unite official targets ‘Labour candidates who act like Tories’
HOWARD Beckett, the assistant general secretary of Unite, has warned his union will not support Labour election candidates if they “act like a Tory”.
Instead, he said: “If you act like a Tory, Unite in the West Midlands will treat you like a Tory.”
Mr Beckett spoke at a conference organised by the Socialist Party, the organisation once known as Militant which operated within the Labour Party before breaking away in 1991 and becoming a distinct party in its own right. His words were reported by the Socialist Party in a conference report published on their website.
Mr Beckett has previously condemned Birmingham City Council’s handling of the city’s bin strike, telling the Labour Party annual conference in September that the authority was imposing “austerity” on staff and had “reneged” on a deal to end the strike. Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, affiliated to the Labour Party. It is represents striking Birmingham bin workers. Mr Beckett told the Socialist Party event that “our responsibility” is to “call on Labour councils to act as socialists,” according to the report on the Socialist Party website .
He said: “It’s no good for them to act as complicit agents of the treasury, no good for them to hide behind budgets. I will say clearly to all in the West Midlands who claim to be Labour but talk like Tories: if you act like a Tory, Unite in the West Midlands will treat you like a Tory. “If justice and socialism is not the drive for Birmingham councillors to behave as Labour, then perhaps next May’s city council elections will be. “Because Unite in Bir- mingham will not support any Tory, even those who are labelled Labour.”
The event, called the Socialism 2017 conference, was advertised as one for “students, trade unionists, Corbynistas, socialists and those who are socialist-curious”.
The Socialist Party is part of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), which has stood candidates in local and national elections in opposition to candidates from other parties including Labour.