We must take the fight to Reform!

Reform’s takeover of councils across our country and the spiking cost of living are two sides of the same crisis. It is a crisis which can only be answered if our union rediscovers it’s political voice and belief in our collective strength. It’s time to reunite our union.

Reform is emerging as the largest party in the local elections in England, with results in Wales and Scotland to follow. Thousands of our members in Local Authorities now face the reality of Reform-run councils taking the axe to services. Across our union workplaces are being divided as Reform and far-right content floods in from the mass and social media. From bus depots to hospitality, thousands more members face attacks personally as hate crime and abuse increases.

To all this our union’s answer cannot be the silence, appeasement or opportunism offered by Sharon Graham. We will not bargain (or hold “secret talks”) with a party openly attacking our union and our members.

This is not a moment for fatalism or retreat. The union movement can be the rock that breaks the Reform wave, but only if we are united.

Unite must find our own political voice. Our union and our workplace battles do not sit outside or seperate from the political situation. All of us are paying the price for Trump’s war, with prices from fuel to food spiking faster than anytime since the pandemic. All of us will be worse off if Reform continue to divide us and gain power.

Industrially and politically our union is being tested. The answer can be found in strengthening our collective bargaining and organising linked to a long missing political strategy. We cannot afford for our union to go AWOL. We must take the fight to Reform and the far-right.

We need a leadership which unites us to meet these tests. We are faced with a General Secretary and a diminishing clique around them who are simply incapable of dealing with a situation they only worsen. The internal chaos, dysfunction and toxic division. The disastrous record of industrial crash interventions. It is a leadership obsessed with looking inwards and backwards. It cannot go on. Our members cannot afford it.

Within our union, the Executive Council elections exposed our deep internal divisions. Reunite applauds all of the EC candidates who stood in the election to defend and restore members’ control of our union. It takes courage and conviction for individuals to put themselves out there.

When it comes, the election for our next General Secretary will be a very different proposition. It will by a referendum on a five year record of failure, collapse and appeasement from which we can turn the page. It will be the moment our union decides to answer the needs of the moment. We will rediscover our voice and our power as a collective. We are not a cult, we are a union.

To defend our union.

To defend each other.

To take the fight to Farage and Reform. 

It’s time to reunite our union.