Crazed survey to members includes range of options on genocide
Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham has been frequently slammed for her refusal to support the Palestinians against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and her alleged actions against union members and officials who have shown solidarity with the women and children facing daily slaughter by Israel’s apartheid regime.
Graham has also caused horrified outrage by writing to members telling them that she would always prioritise jobs over direct action against UK arms manufacturers sending deadly weapons to be used on Palestinian civilians.
But now the union has sent out a questionnaire to members in which one of the multiple-choice questions includes options to give moderate or strong support to the genocidal regime:
The idea that any options of support for Israel should be included on the union’s potential actions has horrified members and activists.
The questionnaire also tries to garner support from members for Graham’s abdication of Unite’s political influence by asking them a question about the union’s priorities – but in wording clearly skewed toward Graham’s supposed ‘workplace only’ pitch to leave Westminster politics to politicians, because clearly they can be trusted with it, right?
As well as her letter prioritising jobs over stopping genocide and now the questionnaire, 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
Graham’s supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive. 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 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.
Since 7 October last year Israel has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with some estimates as high as 100,000, and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries. 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 and officials to be committing genocide and other war crimes.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.