Member

We do not have to have this level of political enmity between the workers and the trade union movement and the political establishment. My view is that many of the Thatcher reforms are at the base of the problems the TU movement has today: the emergence of things such as broad lefts, not to mention the appallingly low turnout when it comes to union elections. Many of the reforms just have not worked—if you say “worked” was what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to invest people with interest in their unions, getting them all fired up to vote in elections. As an almost lone supporter of Sharon Graham, who is my union general secretary—not to be confused with the one I am president of—I can say that the fact is that if you go to the Cambridge branch of retired members of Unite, they are not really interested in politics at all. Many of them quite like Sharon because they think, “Oh well, she looks after the members instead of looking after herself”, which I am afraid was an image that had grown up in the movement.