The leader of a major Labour-backing union has warned it could cut ties with the party, after claiming Angela Rayner’s behaviour during the Birmingham bin strikes has been “totally and utterly abhorrent”.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham criticised the Deputy Prime Minister after her union voted to suspend Ms Rayner’s membership on Friday.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday, Ms Graham said: “Angela Rayner refuses to get involved, and she is directly aiding and abetting the fire and rehire of these bin workers, it is totally and utterly abhorrent.”
At their conference in Brighton, Unite members also voted to “re-examine” their relationship with Labour.
Unite is one of a number of unions which are affiliated with the Labour Party, and pay hundreds of thousands of pounds towards it each year, as well as making donations to individual Labour MPs.
Ms Graham told the BBC that re-examining the union’s relationship with Labour could mean disaffiliation, potentially leaving the party without a major donor it has previously relied upon.
Unite members have to see that the fee to affiliate with Labour is “worth something”, she said.
Ms Graham added: “At this present moment in time, it is hard to justify it, if I’m being honest.
“Would that money be better spent on frontline services for my members?
“But the decision will be a serious decision.
“It’s not a rash decision.”
Such a decision would go to a rules conference of the union, she said, adding that she was “having pressure to have an emergency rules conference, which would mean we would disaffiliate”.
Ms Graham said: “If it was me and I had a major backer like Unite, that has everyday people in it, remember, this was a vote of members at the parliament of our union, that were saying that we don’t believe that Labour defends workers in the way that we thought they would, we believe that they’re making the wrong decisions, I would be concerned about that.”
After Unite announced it had suspended the Deputy Prime Minister’s membership, a source close to Ms Rayner said she had already resigned her membership of the union in April.
The union boss suggested Ms Rayner may have attempted to do a “Houdini act” in recent months by leaving Unite.
Membership is counted in quarters of the year, Ms Graham said, and the Deputy PM was a member as of the March records.
She added: “Now, if she has over the last couple of weeks, because she’s seen the mood music, because this isn’t the first time that we’ve discussed that we’re not happy with what’s going on, then she may well have done that.”
Unite also voted on Friday to suspend the union membership of John Cotton, the Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, and other union members on the authority.
The strikes have resulted in unsanitary conditions throughout the city, with large piles of rubbish in the streets.
Downing Street insisted on Friday that the Government’s priority throughout the dispute had “always” been Birmingham’s residents.
