Union boss ‘has party in a stranglehold’

UNITE union chief Len McCluskey has Labour in a ‘stranglehold’, one of the party’s MPs claimed in court yesterday.

The criticism came out in a High Court libel case brought by moderate MP Anna Turley, who is herself accused of plotting to oust Jeremy Corbyn in a ‘highly secretive’ online messaging group.

The court was told that Miss Turley, who aims to retain her seat in Redcar at the election, was a member of the Birthday Club group in which like-minded MPs conspired to overthrow Unite general secretary Mr McCluskey to undermine the Labour leader.

The allegations emerged in the case brought by Miss Turley against Unite, Labour’s biggest financial backer, and the Corbynite blog Skwawkbox.

She is suing over a 2017 article that alleged she ‘dishonestly’ got union membership to vote against Mr McCluskey in a Unite election. The 41-year-old said yesterday that Labour had gone ‘too far to the Left’ under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, and refused to apologise for once calling the pro-Corbyn union general secretary an ‘a***hole’.

Miss Turley told the court she had ‘unknowingly’ breached membership rules by signing up for a 50p-per-week subscription to a branch of the union for the unemployed and retirees. Details of her membership ended up on Skwawkbox blog, which included a comment from Unite. She is seeking damages and possibly an injunction.

Yesterday, Anthony Hudson QC, representing Unite and Skwawkbox journalist Stephen Walker, read out messages from the ‘secret’ and ‘conspiratorial’ group on the online messaging service WhatsApp. The Birthday Club’s 50 Labour MPs – including

Ruth Smeeth, Stella Creasy and Chris Leslie, who has since left the party – allegedly discussed how to unseat the general secretary in a union election.

Miss Turley, who had quit the shadow cabinet, denied allegations of a coup, but said: ‘It’s not a secret that I didn’t want Corbyn to be a leader and I had resigned, but the idea that there was another big strategy to get rid of him... you know, we had a motion of no confidence and it didn’t work.’

When asked whether she was ‘desperate’ to remove Mr McCluskey, Miss Turley replied: ‘Yes, absolutely. The influence he had over the Labour Party was inappropriate and had no accountability. I felt actually I wanted to have my democratic say.’

In a written witness statement she told Mr Justice Nicklin: ‘Unite has always been very pro-Corbyn, donating many millions of pounds to fund the Labour Party and Mr

Corbyn’s leadership. Mr McCluskey is very Left-wing and in the 1980s supported the Militant Tendency in Liverpool.

‘I do not share his politics. It has never sat well with me that Unite and Mr McCluskey have wielded so much power in the party.

‘I have felt for a long time that Mr McCluskey has had the Labour Party in a stranglehold and has been helping to shape the politics within the party to coincide with his hard-Left political agenda.

‘I have been particularly unhappy about his confrontational approach, particularly in relation to Labour MPs who do not support Mr Corbyn or his politics.’

Referring to the WhatsApp group, she added: ‘The Birthday Club... was a closed, confidential group of individuals with a common interest, namely sharing views and concerns amongst the moderate MPs.’

The case continues.