‘Unhinged’ claim challenged by screenshots – no response from Unite to request to confirm whether union management stands by bizarre comment from general secretary in letter to all staff, officers and organisers
As Skwawkbox covered earlier today, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham sent a bizarre email to all the union’s organisers, staff and officers that was described as ‘unhinged’, ‘flailing’ and ‘a rant’ by union insiders – and called ‘disgusting’ for its prioritisation of weapons-making jobs over opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Britain’s complicity in it.
As well as its section on Palestine, Graham’s letter also attempted to defuse criticism of the union’s financial management – by claiming that the ‘preliminary’ financial report circulating among astonished officers, members and activists is a forgery in which ‘those with much to lose’ even copied the font and layout of a real Unite finance report:
Fake Finance Document
Those with much to lose from the new way forward, including curtailing money given to outside organisations and the new industrial focus, have escalated actions by producing a fake Unite Finance Document for release on Social Media. Most recently appearing on social media. The document was headed “Unite Finance Report” and mirrored (down to the same font and layout) Unite’s usual finance report style. This had the sole aim of discrediting the leadership but most importantly it undermined the Union. It stated that the Union’s financial position was in difficulty since the General Secretary election. This is untrue and is now being dealt with legally.
Ms Graham did not name ‘those with much to lose’ – but those challenging her claim have pointed out that the screenshots of the ‘fake finance document’ appear to show that it was screengrabbed directly from Unite’s ‘Sharepoint’ system:
Sharepoint, a Microsoft platform, is a “web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft 365 … primarily sold as a document management and storage system, although it is also used for sharing information through an intranet, implementing internal applications, and for implementing business processes.” The Unite address shown on the screengrabs appears to indicate that the document was at least stored, and potentially created, on the union’s own dedicated server. It is unclear against whom the issue “is now being dealt with legally”, since no supposed culprits are identified.
The claim was perceived as so outlandish that union activists have been contacting Skwawkbox all day about it. One said:
This is unhinged, she just looks like she’s flailing all over the place.
Another commented:
This is a rant and she’s sent it to everyone, what is she thinking?
Skwawkbox wrote to Unite’s press office:
Ms Graham’s letter referred to in my previous email today also claims Unite financials were a forgery and even that someone has copied the layout and font of genuine reports to fool people. The claim has been described by Unite recipients as ‘unhinged’. Screenshots of the report show that it came from the Unite Sharepoint – is the union really claiming this was faked and stored on the official network??
No response, apart from a confirmation of receipt, was received by the reply deadline of 5pm or since. It would be extraordinarily thorough for someone to go to the lengths of adding Sharepoint details to a fake, but Unite was given the opportunity to say that it believes this was done and has not done so.
Graham also told recipients that Unite’s finances were “pushing up towards half a billion pounds”. Skwawkbox understands that they were around half a billion pounds when she took over as general secretary.
As Skwawkbox showed earlier, Graham’s letter had disgusted many who read it because it said that the union will always prioritise weapons-making jobs over the need to fight Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and appeared to imply that those working in that sector didn’t care about them being used in the slaughter of Palestinian women and children.
Sharon Graham has been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.
Apart from the issue of Gaza, her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.
According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.
The finance and Gaza comments are not the end of the issues with Graham’s email. Skwawkbox will cover further aspects shortly.
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The truth will out.
Enough of your ambiguous bollocks.
Define “The truth” .
Toffee – We won’t be able to define that until the facts emerge.
Yet another cop-out. Not at all surprising.
How much will Graham’s legal bill be on pursuing this so-called ‘faked’ circular?
One thing’s undeniable; graham repeats similar/the same €150k per DAY profligacy RE: legal expenses on pursuing this unnamed/unknown mysterious ‘fake(r)’ as she has on the ogle case(s), and those finances that she (questionably) insists are ‘healthy’, are gonna look anything but.
Yet AGAIN the paid full-time fascist shill posts the first comment – as he has done on literally hundreds of occasions – and as per usual deliberately posts something provacative. And as I pointed out in another thread recently, he has ALSO posted a provacative ‘reply’ to the first person to post a comment on literally hundreds of occasions as well. He has a number of objectives…… for example, discrediting Jeremy Corbyn regularly, and mocking and ridiculing left-wingers, but they are all designed to disrupt the comments section.
If you are relatively new to Skwawkbox, he has been posting on more-or-less a daily basis in practically every thread for about eight years, and has literally posted tens of thousands of ‘comments’. And I have no doubt whatsoever that he has a number of secondary personas as well, and has no doubt posted thousands of ‘comments’ using them as well. I think it was about a year ago that he thought he’d have some additional fun and, as such, posted as ANOTHER SteveH!
Yeah, the guy’s a fucking scream!
I don’t know if anyone linked to the Al Jazeera documentary entitled October 7 in a previous thread (if they did, I missed it), but here it is anyway. And please share far and wide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0atzea-mPY (60mins)
This multi award winning documentary is also well worth watching
20 Days in Mariupol
(2023) Journalist Mstyslav Chernov’s BAFTA-winning and Oscar-winning documentary is an unflinching inside look at the suffering that Russia’s invasion has unleashed upon the Ukrainian people
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/20-days-in-mariupol
Allan – Can you explain why you found my post provocative?🤔
Can YOU explain how it is that on literally hundreds and hundreds of occasions – and especially since JC stood down as leader – you have posted the first comment on here? We all know why of course – ie because you monitor skwawkbox articles and the comments sections your every waking hour. The only difference is that in the past year or two – for some odd reason – Steve Walker has increasingly reduced the number of articles with comments sections, and it’s probably less than 50% of articles that DO have a comments section now, and THAT has undoubtedly made your job a lot easier. And just your presence on this site is provacative, what with you being a fascist piece of unowhat!
Oh, and I should also point out to any newbies that the shill(s) on here manipulate the Likes, although no-where near as often as they used to do.
Akkan – I’m fairly sure that I’ve already explained this to you before, did you miss it? I don’t have to do any active monitoring, whenever a new post appears on Skwawkbox I get a notification on my screen.
“And just your presence on this site is [provocative], what with you being a fascist piece of unowhat!”
Whereas I just find you mildly amusing. 😏
“Oh, and I should also point out to any newbies that the shill(s) on here manipulate the Likes, although no-where near as often as they used to do.”
Do they really, or is this just yet another example of your proclivity to hyperbole?🙄
Can you explain how they do that and illustrate it with a link to an example?
“Unhinged”?
The RW Graham clique’s greatest achievement is deceiving the Morning Star to support her.
I sincerely hope the Peoples Press realise this now and rectify their error.
I doubt that my 20 shares will achieve much. The star has fizzled out.
Wasn’t the left’s Turner originally backed by Keir Starmer and wasn’t Turner polling in the lead right up until the point where he got into bed with Beckett.
Dear God. 😕
She has no moral compass, she is merely trying to accunulate brownie points for Starmer who is of course a Zionist without qualification i.e. A Genocide supporter.
Has she ever spoken about Zionism and her opinions about it. She would do well to recognise that her prejudices are not the union members views. Why do I care I stopped subbing after the T&G debacle.
Heres the phenomenon that will deprive the Fuhrer of his majority
Corbynism without Corbyn
The Scream of people weak in weak out marching on our streets for a clear choice
Who will stand against the unequivocal support for ‘Genocide ‘
2 child limits and the Bedroom tax against the end of limits on Bankers bonuses
Nationalisation of the f7ckers who daily shit in our Rivers and on our Beaches
Democracy, freedom from slavery and our American masters
Equality from the bottom up, every spare penny which will be worth a pound when invested in those with the least
JC appealed to the best of us but critically was not a leader and fatally crumbled under pressure
The Independents are not a party, they will have no leader, which double sixes the MSM and Toilet papers
The GE will be fought on basic humanity verses the apologists and barbarians
Doug – Are we to take it that you’ve now given up on JC and this is your opening shot at expectation management?
Herr Flick
Heads i win Tails you lose
Doug – Well we can rule him out of standing in the election for the Mayor of London, do we know yet whether Jeremy will be standing in the General Election.
“Heads i win Tails you lose”
Really ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , what exactly are you hoping to win?😕
Herr Flick
The Fuhrer does not have a core vote he has an anti Tory vote which depends entirely on them staying at home
He then has to get at least a few out to vote FOR him
Heads I win
The Independents appeal across parties and at this GE will give them a clear choice
Tails you lose
Doug – Please don’t forget to come back after the General Election and update us about how your
dilutionspredictions worked outHerr Flick
Let’s see where you are on May 3rd
Doug – Only a little over a month to wait.
The pollsters are currently predicting that the Tories will lose 500 seats and that Labour will gain 300.