It’s 2017, so let’s begin the year with one of the main themes from the one before it: speculating over the fate of Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. And this year we’ve got new material to work with, in the form of a general secretary election within Unite, the Labour party’s biggest donor.

Union leader under attack for acting as Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘puppet master’ Read more

The two main candidates for general secretary are Gerard Coyne and the incumbent, Len McCluskey. Coyne is widely regarded as being to the right of McCluskey, a characterisation that has perhaps been bolstered by key Labour rebels subtly retweeting his campaign pledges. Unsurprisingly this support, as well as his labelling of McCluskey as Corbyn’s “puppet master”, have encouraged speculation over the future of Unite’s support for the Labour leader should Coyne emerge as the winner.

So how would Corbyn fare under a new Unite general secretary? Alas, the answer is rather an anticlimax – it’s unlikely things would be much different.

This is because, while Unite’s general secretary can attempt to shape the agenda, he or she is ultimately under the control of Unite’s executive council. In fact subsection 15.5 of Unite’s rulebook sets this out explicitly: “The General Secretary shall be under the control of and act in accordance with the directions of the Executive Council.”

The executive council is no shady cabal either; it’s a collection of 60 or so ordinary Unite members who have decided they want a say in the policy of the direction of the union. Unite’s rulebook states that they should be “an accountable representative of workers” to be eligible, and to be reflective of the union’s makeup in terms of ethnicity, gender, ability, sexuality and so on.

In July 2015, when Corbyn first got on the ballot to run as a leadership candidate for the Labour party, the executive council decided to back him as a candidate (as is Unite’s right as an organisation affiliated to the party). McCluskey made no official recommendation to the council as to who they should back, and when they chose Corbyn, he enacted their wishes as is his job as general secretary.

This isn’t an attempt to paint McCluskey as some sort of saint: this is just the trappings of the job, and there is no other way around it. In 2016, Unite found itself in the exceptional position of backing a candidate during its policy conference, which happened to run at the same time as the second leadership election. On that occasion, Corbyn was chosen as the candidate by a majority of the 600 Unite delegates present, and the union supported him again.

It’s impossible to say who will win Unite’s election, but the outcome is not a prophesy for Unite’s support of Corbyn

Thus, if Coyne was to become the next general secretary of Unite, it’s likely he would find his hands are tied. If the executive council decided they wanted him to continue supporting Corbyn, he would have no choice in the matter. Of course there is the possibility that Unite could end up electing an executive council that is more rightwing than the one it has now, and in that case Corbyn may be in trouble. But traditionally, the most active members in trade unions are to the left of the membership as a whole (it’s not surprising that those who want to be heavily involved in unions also tend to have a penchant for socialism), so this seems unlikely to happen.

In light of this, it seems somewhat irresponsible for Coyne to imply that McCluskey is some kind of unaccountable puppet master, acting entirely at the behest of his own political interests. It’s the kind of rhetoric that characterises trade union leaders as reckless barons who enjoy wielding power with no regard for the greater good, and may come back to bite Coyne if he wins.

The fact is, all trade unions live and die on bread-and-butter industrial work, and have little interest in playing some kind of cameo role in the internal dramas of the Labour party. The only reason it seems otherwise is because the press is endlessly fascinated by Labour’s infighting and so that ends up being the only thing they report upon (except, of course, for the disruption brought about by strikes – another issue that is grossly misrepresented in the media).

No one who supports unions should be depicting them as excessively powerful. If anything, the unions need more power, not less. For one thing, there is a correlation between strong trade unions and more equal societies, and the policies unions lobby for – a living wage, collective bargaining, paid leave, and so on – are designed to redistribute wealth downwards to ordinary people. This is a good thing, and unions should be free to make these kinds of arguments. Currently, the Trade Union Act of 1984 restricts union activity and forces them to jump through unnecessary bureaucratic hoops in order to have a say in politics.

Moreover, it’s only since Corbyn became Labour leader that the party stopped treating unions like some kind of embarrassing rich aunt who needs to be kept in the attic while her fortune is being spent. It’s only been three years since the party called the police on Unite during the Falkirk scandal, even though an internal party investigation found no rules had been broken.

Before that, Tony Blair positively relished dissociating himself from trade unions and left Thatcher’s restrictive legislation largely untouched. Labour leaders have consistently refused to lend their support to union members who go on strike over the years. And yet unions continue to fund the party, largely because under a first-past-the-post electoral system they have little choice if they wish to have any kind of say in Westminster politics. When relations are strained, Labour-affiliated unions often find themselves rather trapped.

It’s impossible to say who will win Unite’s general secretary election, but the outcome should not be seen as prophesy for Unite’s support of Corbyn. Unions are a much more complicated beast than that, and it will take more than a general secretary election to break their relationship with the Labour party.