Invitation grossly at odds with growing member move for disaffiliation and general secretary’s supposed distancing from party
Keir Starmer has been invited to speak at the Unite union’s later this month, according to union insiders. The invitation is a stark contrast to union general secretary’s supposed distancing from Westminster politics, but in line with other signs of the Unite regime’s accommodation with the right-wing Labour ‘leader’ that have drawn criticism from members and activists – including, most notoriously, Unite’s recent ban on the use of its premises to show the ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’ documentary exposing the misdeeds, racism and rigging of the Labour right.
One senior union insider told Skwawkbox that the invitation to Starmer is:
Hypocrisy beyond belief from the general secretary.
The news is not Sharon Graham’s first controversial moment. Her tenure as general secretary has been marred by allegations – which neither she nor the union have denied – that she attempted to have evidence destroyed in bullying and misogyny complaints about her husband, whom she now employs in her office despite a final warning from the union for his behaviour.
The union’s appalling treatment of Irish union legend Brendan Ogle has led to Ogle taking legal action over Unite’s ‘disgusting’ abuse and bullying following his return from cancer treatment. Ogle did not support Sharon Graham in the union’s general secretary election and the union’s conduct toward him led to protests during Graham’s recent Dublin visit, outrage among Irish politicians and even threats from a whole sector to disaffiliate entirely.
In addition, after her supporters failed in their bid to take control of the Unite executive despite ‘dark money’ spending on advertising, ineglible and racist members being allowed to stand and the alleged use of paid organisers in and following the exec election campaign, her faction has resorted to Starmerite tactics to try to discredit the executive members’ election of a new left-wing union chair and both vice-chairs, as well as the vital Finance and General Purpose Committee.
And quite apart from the political bankruptcy of the Starmer regime, his own personal record also makes Starmer an unfit guest at the conference of a union run by a woman who has made noises about supporting women affected by workplace abuse. Among many instances of cover-ups and abuse, Starmer:
- allowed a right-wing former councillor to stand as a candidate despite being arrested for possession of illegal images of children
- allowed a right-wing council leader to become a Labour parliamentary candidate despite the party’s own lawyer saying he should be investigated over allegations of ‘serious’ sexual assault
- welcomed MP Neil Coyle back into the party despite racist remarks and Coyle being found by Parliament to have sexually harassed at least one person
- allowed a right-wing councillor with unanswered allegations of disgraceful anti-disabled ‘concentration camp’ comments to try to oust left-wing MP Ian Byrne in the safe seat of Liverpool West Derby
- covered up a whistleblower’s allegations of ‘sadistic’ and ‘criminal’ abuse and exploitation of domestic violence victims by a front-bench MP’s staffer who was also his lover
- kept two other MPs in his Shadow Cabinet despite them being investigated for sexual harassment.
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Yep! He specialises in How to call yourself a Labour leader when you espose to be a Thatcherite Tory. Special guest is Bozza on”How I got away with it”
I hope the both of them are given the collective middle finger. 🖕🖕🖕
Now Jess P is on he news for racism towards an Asian school teacher the LP under starmer is a home for Racists Pedofiles and sex pests
Reply to Brian61
Thanks for this info. I don’t normally like to go off topic but I read up on the Jess Phillips situation you had highlighted and see that Ms Birbalsingh a head teacher wrote to Keir Starmer to complain about Jess Phillip’s apparent racism towards her and Phillip’s inferences that Ms Birbalsingh is an incompetent head teacher who condones domestic violence.
Somebody should tell Ms Birbalsingh that it is a waste of time complaining about Jess Phillips to Starmer.
First of all Starmer couldn’t care less about racism unless its antisemitism.He has suspended or withdrawn the whip without justification from numerous BAME MPS and activists, failed to address Islamophobia in the party and ignored the findings of the Forde Report .
Jess Phillips is no better. She never gave Diane Abbott, the first Black female MP, one word of help or support when she, Phillips, was chair of the Womens PLP and Diane was on the receiving end of a daily barrage of racist abuse, death and rape threats etc.
In fact she mocked Diane on TV and boasted that she had told Diane to “F**k off!”When was asked what Diane had done she replied ” She F**ked off” to the racous laughter of the hand picked studio audience.
She did however back Ruth Smeeth,a right wing Zionist, to the hilt when Ruth made spurious antisemitism complaints against Marc Wadsworth a lifelong BAME rights activist.
Secondly Ms Birbalsingh needs to know that as Jess Phillips is a Friend of Israel and on the hard right of Starmers Labour she can be as unfair, as racist and as obnoxious as she pleases without consequence. If she walked to Ms Birbalsingh and punched her in the head, Starmers only concern would be whether or not Jess hurt her fist.
So unfortunately as most contributors to this site know only too well Ms Birbalsingh will get no justice from Starmer.Hopefully she will find the Parliamentary Standards body to whom she has also made a complaint about Phillips more inclined to listen to her. I will watch developments with interest
It’s no surprise that Jess Phillips is getting herself into this kind of situation, but she couldn’t have chosen a “nicer” opponent.
Katherine Birbalsingh is one of the educational pin-ups of the rabid right.
As an educationalist she is straight out of Dickens.
I am of the opinion that proper, effective education is not the form of penal servitude she has told several annual Tory conferences about.
It’s interesting that Katherine Birbalsingh was both a member of the SWP and a subscriber to the ‘Living Marxism’ publication when she reading French and philosophy at New College, Oxford
I’ll tell you what’s interesting…
Keef’s not only harbouring (suspected) nonce cases, but putting them forward as candidates for election for positions of authority.
…And although you have plenty to say about everything else, on this matter you’re conspicuously swerving the issue.
😙🎵
Toffee – Did you neglect to read this
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/07/01/labour-allows-now-charged-right-winger-to-stand-despite-child-porn-arrest/#comment-245774
before you posted this nonsense. FFS grow up.
Yes, helmet, I read it alright. And where’s your comment on that thread?
Oh, hang on…there isn’t one.
Exactly my point. The point that you have highlighted for me in your infinite wisdom.
Plenty to say about the left. Anything to sneer at them. Even the most specious of made-up scenarios does for you.
Piss-all to say about smarmerite nonces Not even a: ‘Well the left had the opportunity to NOT select him – so in fact they’re complicit in enabling him’ in your usual clueless, nonce-excusing manner.
You’re not very bright. But there again, nonce enablers aren’t, as a rule.
We KNOW what you are. The residents and authorities of your Caribbean getaway ought to be informed of your propensities.
Toffee – I’ve been busy this weekend and as I’ve already made my views clear about all but one of the items covered in the previous story and as the explanation for the one ‘new’ item had already been eloquently and accurately covered by Maria I couldn’t see any point in commenting.
I’ve had better things to do this weekend than point out how inane your childish rants are.😗
Once again, when the right are faced with (child sex abuse) charges, you stay quiet.
Can’t blame the left, as much as you’d love to. Can’t deflect or obfuscate as much as you’d love to. But as you’ve been sussed AGAIN, you CAN try to associate yourself with the comments of someone you disagree with generally (but without posting anything in agreement with said comment), while making shit up about how you’re (not for the first time and certainly not the last) suddenly and conveniently indisposed at what is an awkward time for you and your point of view.
You excused keef allowing kids to go hungry because there’s too many tories.
By your refusal to comment in criticism of this latest shameful episode you’re excusing out and out nonsenseism.
You should not be allowed within a mile of any child.
And former Labour MP Angela ‘Tinge’ Smith was, apparently, briefly a member of a similar group in her younger days. So what?
What’s your point steveH?
It is clear enough to a blind man on a galloping horse that you are insinuating and implying that it is perfectly okay to be racist towards someone officially designated as from the ‘left’.
Glad we have cleared that up.
Need any more rope to hang yourself with?
@Dave Hansell
The wee imbecile just loves to crow how he voted for Corbyn TWICE.
And ONLY voted keef because‘he was best of a bad bunch’
Yet Corbyn (according to wee helmet) got everything wrong (and still does) , while keef is incapable of getting anything wrong whatsoever.
Yes, it’s the wacky world of the wee whopper. The world where everyone else is guilty except he (and keef) of the gobshitery they themselves commit several times daily.
….. and yet all the polling consistently indicates that the electorate think that he is getting something right, compare and contrast
https://mcusercontent.com/ceb437017cd651e33813473af/images/0b1a6207-2ef4-b919-6395-c859f076d4d4.png
Nope.
The polls indicate a lot of people still haven’t got a jar o’glue wtf keef stands for**…Far from getting something right they see the toerags fucking everything up.
** And nor have you. Promoting the gobshite – only to promote his screeching U-turns the next week because you’re convinced keef’s infallible.
Bellend.
Toffee – Please remember to come back and tell me all about it after the next general election. 😗
What a prick.
It doesn’t matter about policy – just as long as you’re on the winning side.
Toffee – https://skwawkbox.org/2023/07/02/exclusive-starmer-will-speak-at-unites-policy-conference/#comment-245908
Birbalsingh’s complaint about mouth almighty philips:
Her behaviour is a clear example of ‘unconscious bias’. I mean that she hates me, despite not knowing me, because she subscribes to the idea that Black and Asian individuals in public life owe a duty to voice opinions that match with a left-wing view of the world, or they are worthy of her contempt.”
Tell that to Diane Abbott. Philips hates her too. And you can’t deny abbot’s left-wing views.
The simple fact is philips has a problem with ANY woman of colour – but especially those in a position of authority or influence. Philips sees herself as superior to them.
I am baffled by this.
Why is the lady not known as Birbal Kaur?
And why does she have the peculiar idea that Philips wants people to voice left wing opinions?
I checked. It isn’t April 1st.
“Starmer invite = hypocrisy beyond belief from the general secretary.”
Thatcher’s “economical with the truth” has been starmerised for the Labour Right. The “wrong type of truth” is the forensic, starmer-approved version of it.
The 10 (pre-election) Pledges were the ‘wrong type of truths’ and the Prime Minister-in-waiting’s commitment to Electoral Reform and Ending Austerity will probably be seen as the wrong types of truth too.
Re Sharon Graham, that ‘union insider’ might just be getting Miss Grahams types of truth mixed up. It’s an easy mistake to make.
Abject liars (or, if you prefer, people who are economical with the truth) depend on it.
You could be right Qwertboi or Graham is being smart and cunning.
It could be that Graham is giving Starmer the opportunity to speak to delegates since their is a motion asking for Unite to stop its affiliation to the Labour Party.
I know and surely Graham knows too, that the majority of delegates to Unite Conference are undecided.
Speaking for myself, when I hear Starmer speak the man lacks presence and charisma. Hence, perhaps many undecided will vote for Unite to disaffiliate from the Labour Party.
I expect that Graham as the General Secretary doesn’t wish to be directly associated with Unite dissafiliating from the LP. What better than to invite Starmer to put forward the case for Unite to remain as an affiliate?
Sould Unite Conference vote in favour of dissafiliation the blame cannot be lay on Graham’s door. It could be argued that she gave Starmer to put forward the case for staying affiliated to the Labour Party but, he failed to persuade most of the audience.
Think about it, if delegates after hearing Starmer speak still vote to disaffiliate, it surely will humiliate Starmer.
We will have to wait and see, so far Graham hasn’t made a statement either in favour or against it.
An opportunity for people to go along and protest/ask awkward questions of Starmer:
“Keir Starmer, are you going to apologise for… (insert issue here)?”
Would you accept an apology from the muculent get?
Do you honestly believe there’d be an iota of sincerity or contrition in any apology he’d splutter?
Maybe an opportunity for Unite members to tell him exactly what they think of his journey to the right – so far.
They should simply walk out on mass complete with a slow handclap and a series of boos and catcalls as they exit the auditorium.
…Unless of course, the (select) audience has been pre-vetted.
Is that not what Stalinists do?