Sharon Graham ‘to announce early Unite GS election’

Graham said to be ‘going political’, calling election to try to stem outrage over Gaza betrayals – and allegedly to have result over before police announce no wrongdoing in conference centre deal

Sharon Graham is getting ready to call the next general secretary election in the Unite union more than a year early, according to union insiders. Graham is said to be pushing Unite’s elected executive to agree an early election at next Monday’s ‘exec’ meeting.

Graham ran her first campaign on a promise to clean up the corruption and mismanagement she claimed to have identified, particularly surrounding the construction of Unite’s Birmingham conference centre. Media have been heavily briefed, without identifying sources, on supposed overspending and South Wales police raided Unite’s office at one point, but no charges have ever been made and insiders believe this is because there has been nothing to find.

In any event, Graham was one of the senior union officers in the executive when the project was reported on and had one of her closest allies ‘hands on’ throughout, as the ‘project-specific convenor’ – a role created specially for him.

Graham has also been the subject of considerable and widespread criticism over her positions on Israel’s genocide in Gaza and has been criticised for turning Unite into ‘Starmer’s poodle’, despite Starmer’s lies, his contempt for democracy, his u-turns on promises to Unite members and his regime’s repeated blocking of Unite-backed parliamentary candidates.

Moreover, Graham has been exposed behind the union’s decision to ban showings in Unite’s buildings of a film and book exposing racism, smears, rigging and abuse by the Labour right and was accused of trying to have a pro-Palestine Unite fringe meeting at the 2023 conference cancelled, then put the union official who refused under investigation.

She also said she would prioritise jobs over action to try to end the Gaza genocide and canvassed members about the union taking a strongly pro-Israel position, while her chief of staff Sarah Carpenter has been alleged by a number of sources to have threatened a (now-retired) senior officer with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians against Israel’s genocide.

Her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other serious allegations, which neither she nor the union has ever denied – of abuse, cover-up and failure to protect women:

• 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
• after her supporters failed in their bid to take control of the Unite executive despite ‘dark money’ spending on advertising, ineligible 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

When challenged over these allegations, Graham’s spokespeople and supporters have frequently resorted to claims that Skwawkbox has raised these issues to protect supposed wrongdoers from scrutiny over the conference centre project, rather than address the allegations directly.

A senior Unite source told Skwawkbox:

She’s going political, despite campaigning on a pledge to avoid ‘Westminster politics’. There are talks of affiliating with Stop the War to stem the Gaza outrage and of a political campaign on The Fuel Cuts for older people.

There’s also a change in tactics. For example, Unite members and officials have been told not to speak on a platform about Gaza and genocide. However, [Graham’s chief of staff] Sarah Carpenter spoke at length on the same topics at TUC recently. We’ve been told the early election will be raised next week.

The union ignored a Skwawkbox press enquiry as far back as last May about the police finding no wrongdoing.

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