Members of Unite are receiving ballots for the election of the next General Secretary. The last five years have seen Sharon Graham of the second-largest general trade union in the UK and in Ireland. Without any rank-and-file candidate, she stands for re-election in a two-horse race against Simon Dubbins, Unite’s Director of International and Research, who is a career Unite official, like Sharon Graham.
Personalities aside, this election is about whether or not Unite will be a union that can fight the Labour Party government.
Graham successfully centred her campaign the workplace and workers as opposed to Westminster and the union's history and potential as a Labour Party influencer. Her campaign for re-election says that she has stuck to that strategy and it has won for Unite's members. The numbers are impressive even when divided across 1.2 million members: 1801 disputes involved over a fifth of the members (280,000 workers) winning 700,000,000 for members. It pays to fight.
But she set an example of absence on war (condemning protests), the environment (calling for drilling of North Sea oil), and, inexcusably, genocide in Palestine.
On war, she's criticised the government for not spending enough on the arms industry, showing this election is not left vs right. Graham's condemnation of protests against arms sales shows the limits of national 'Jobs First' focus. The weapons of war are not neutral commodities. It is not neutral to advocate for investment in the arms industry producing the same F35s which are used by US/Israel and in Iran and the Gaza genocide. We need every voice to be raised against genocide. It's to Sharon Graham's shame that she has refused to speak and act against the genocide. It is repugnant.
So, Simon Dubbins, it seems, must be better. Another career Unite official, he is championed by the Members United grouping. Members United is a new unity campaign, cobbling together the old right-wing officials and their followers with the key members of former General Secretary Len McClusky's faction, United Left.
He sits as head of the union's international department. With political activists, Dubbins pushes the idea that his perspective from his role will help him pull the union into dealing with Graham's failings on climate and genocide while engaging with Labour. As a Labour Party member, and seemingly their undeclared preference, we can see his politics are as hollow and regressive and clinically cynical as the Labour party on war, the arms industry, climate and the Gaza genocide. He wants to restore the old relationship between Unite and the Labour Party one which had seen the Labour Party getting over a million pounds per year from Unite. A practice which has taken a serious hit under Graham.
But Labour Party politics means political protection for the UK government and its UK arms industry and support for Israel. They are core to complicity in climate change, the war industry and genocide. A vote for him is toxically optimistic about change coming from Labour Party, which has been no better for workers (note the Bin Strikes in Birmingham), kneeling to privatisation and seeing its military industries as 'just' jobs. His victory would be a victory for the status quo of Labour because it would resurrect a Unite leadership little different to Len McCluskey Part 2: one that talks big but delivers little, seeing Unite as an adviser to the Labour Party. Telling also is the Dubbins' faction's criticism of Graham for spending the Unite's strike fund on strikes!
Sharon Graham puts members in a better position to fight a Labour government. But it will be the members who need to fight and use their union to do it. Workers should be supported and encouraged to fight whoever the boss is. If you need one reason to back Graham then surely it would be her wholehearted backing for workers taking action.
Sharon Graham has gone out of her way to prove she isn't a left candidate, but she does want workers to fight. She is genuinely committed to workplace organising. And she's proven she will fight, even when the Labour Party sides with the bosses. That means we have seen a younger, broader layer of new organising starts at more workplaces, with more fights and more workers drawn into activity.
With a clean-up of the rotten finances underway, and a majority on the Executive now clearly on Graham's side, Unite is poised to do what it says on the tin. Instead of sceptical ambivalence about the point of voting or trade union activity, we actually need to push Unite further.
We need to see more regular engagement from those of us who have invested so much in Palestine work, anti-war organising and climate activism. That will be required during the ballot and after it.
People Before Profit members in Unite carry the call of critical support for Sharon Graham as Unite's General Secretary and continue actively calling for clear backing against war, for Palestine, and for an ecosocialist future.
Updated 22 July 2026