With the labour movement reeling from the revelations contained
in the leaked report concerning how Labour HQ has handled
complaints over anti-semitism in recent years, the party’s
biggest affiliate has called for unity behind the new leader.
Writing today (Wednesday) on the Labour List site, Len McCluskey,
the leader of Unite the union slammed ‘politically crooked
officials’ who were prepared to harm working people and the wider
economy in order to deny a Corbyn-led Labour government.
He calls for a redacted version of the report to be put into the
public domain and says that , who bears no responsibility
for these institutional and cultural failings, must now work with
the party's ruling national executive (NEC) to direct the
clean-up.
McCluskey also says that Unite, by far the largest donor during
the 2017 campaign, amounting to three quarters of total union
donations, has a right to ‘honest accounting’ of how the funds
were spent, and questions whether electoral law and Labour Party
governance procedures have been breached by secret practices.
He writes: “Let us be clear what the officials, whose cynical,
abusive and factional conduct has now been exposed, were actually
doing. In working for a Labour defeat, they were working for a
Tory victory – that is to say, empowering the party that stood
for austerity and a “hard Brexit”. These politically-crooked
officials were prepared to risk dramatic damage to the interests
of the British economy and working people just in order to
scratch their factional itch.
“And some of these officials have now secured peerages or been
dubbed this-or-that of the British Empire “for services to the
Labour Party”. If they are to keep these distinctions, at the
very least the citations should be changed to “services to the
Tory Party”.
"And we – the labour movement – were paying for all this. Indeed,
it seems we were also handing over money that was, unbeknown to
the Party NEC, allegedly being squirreled away into secret slush
funds devoted to supporting those MPs who Party officialdom
favoured.
"At first blush, there would appear to be a case to answer for
breaches of electoral law. Since Unite was by far the largest
single donor to the 2017 election campaign, giving around 75% of
total union donations, I have the right to expect an honest
accounting for this."
McCluskey continues “this was not the result of a legitimate
political disagreement. A large minority of the Labour Party
membership never supported and they had a right to their
views. If they were employed by the Party they had every right to
keep their jobs, provided they continued to do them diligently,
loyally and professionally.
“But that is a world away from the rancid, and very cruel,
political culture revealed in the GLU Report. The atmosphere
exposed in the exchanges varies between what one might expect to
hear in the toilets at a teenage nightclub or a Trump rally. Mean
Girls meets Mississippi Burning.
“They seem to regard the Party as their private property and
anyone a millimetre to the left of as a “Trot”. has spoken out about how he
feels the same apparatus undermined him on NHS policy.”
Calling for the issues raised not to be 'swept under the carpet’
and for the labour movement to focus on the content of the report
and not be distracted by secondary issues regarding its
commissioning, done as part of the wider response to the EHRC
inquiry, McCluskey says "Those named in the report have of course
the right to defend, contextualise or explain what is set out.
They could even just apologise. We should not pre-empt any
outcome, either legally or in terms of Party rule.
“But this cannot be swept under the carpet. First of all, the
Party should make a properly-redacted version of the report
publicly available.
“This should not be a crisis for . His desire to unite the Party
is almost universally shared, and certainly has Unite’s full
support. He bears no responsibility for the state of affairs the
GLU Report reveals but it falls to him and the Party NEC to
direct the clean-up.
“In my view, where there is clear evidence of a party member
having engaged in misogynistic or abusive conduct, or having
worked to undermine the Party’s election campaign, or even having
broken the law, there is a case for suspension pending a thorough
investigation (with no presumption of guilt).
“I know there are tens of thousands of Labour Party members, many
of them also in my union, whose dismay at these revelations may
lead them to wonder why they should stay in a Party where such
things can happen. Let me urge them to remain with the Party and
get behind our newly-elected leadership as they handle this
crisis.
“Labour can, will and must move on. Transparency and
accountability will be key. I am confident that and Angie Rayner will be
guided by these values, and will allow no return of the poisonous
environment which prevailed when the hard right of the Party last
ran the machine we all pay for.”
