Call the devil by his name
A month after the 100,000 strong 'Tommy Robinson' march in September, our union remains officially silent on the issue of the rising far right. Unite needs to draw a clear line on where we stand and this must start with Sharon Graham apologising for failing to challenge the racism of Nigel Farage and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a danger for thousands of our members.
Last week Unite’s Executive Council used the last two days of its week-long meeting to hold what has been described as a positive debate on the issue. This is long overdue as our union has had clear policy on tackling the far right for all of Sharon Graham's four years in office. The debate is a response to pressure from our EC members, sectors, equalities strands, and from Reunite.
Publicly, Sharon Graham has already adopted a strategy of appeasement. In media interviews during Labour Conference, Graham was repeatedly asked about Nigel Farage, telling Sky’s Trevor Phillips she would “talk to the devil himself.”
Writing in The Guardian, Graham went further:
“Those who marched with Tommy Robinson in London are not all racists. Many are simply trying to make their voices heard against what they believe to be a rigged political system.”
They are not all racists, but some definitely are and that absolutely includes Farage and Yaxley-Lennon. Our task as a union is to be united and to win people back. That doesn’t mean demonising the very people you need to win back, but it absolutely does mean criticising and challenging those – like Farage and Yaxley-Lennon – who are trying to mislead them.
Our task as a union is to educate, to unify, to agitate, to organise. We must not appease the far right. We must be the answer to the far right. We must be the alternative to the far right.
If we all agree that some members in our union are looking to Reform. If we all agree that the rise of the far right is a danger in society and in our workplaces. Then we will all agree that it is a priority to win people back. We do not do that by playing down the danger of the ideas they are being attracted to. We must win the majority back and isolate the dangerous minority, but we cannot appeal to one group (of largely white) members by throwing all others under the bus.
The devil is not in the detail when it comes to mass deportation plans.
Unite is proud to be a diverse union – as diverse as the working class itself. We are proud to be the trade union for many thousands of migrant workers. We are proud to be the trade union for every member who is threatened by the global rise of misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia. Nigel Farage and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon are the British representatives of reaction and we must meet them head on. Failing to state these facts fails the members who need us the most.
It's time to Reunite. That means all of us.
