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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
The UK’s top union leader has warned Sir Keir Starmer that his lack of hope and new round of austerity will fuel rise of the far right in forgotten communities and bolster Nigel Farage’s push to win power.
Matt Wrack, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) general secretary who is currently president of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has warned Sir Keir that his mandate for power is based on a collapse in support for the Tories “not love for Labour”.
With the TUC meeting for its annual conference in Brighton this week, Mr Wrack admitted that union activists arrive “feeling much more positive” about the prospects for their members since Labour’s massive election victory in July.
The FBU general secretary was one of the union leaders to ensure that a new package of workers’ rights will be prioritised by the Labour government in its first 100 days.
With pledges to end exploitative contracts, hire and fire practices and repeal Tory anti-strike legislation such as the Minimum Service Act, Mr Wrack believes that the new government’s agenda will begin to restore fairness in the workplace.
However, he has joined other union leaders including Unite’s Sharon Graham in warning about a new wave of austerity which chancellor Rachel Reeves has heralded in with claims she has to fix a £22 billion black hole in the UK’s finances.
Mr Wrack made it clear he shared the anger over plans to take away winter fuel payments to 10 million pensioners and warned against using the “black hole” as a pretext for a spending cuts agenda.
“I think there have been some slightly worrying statements,” he said. “The Labour manifesto says there will be no return to austerity, and unions will be insisting on that. We’ve been told to tighten our belts for far too long, and I don’t think people are willing to take any more of that.”
Mr Wrack has got frustrated with the debate centring around the Labour government “making a choice” to increase wages for doctors and train drivers as well as other parts of the public sector above inflation with the removal of winter fuel allowance for pensioners or refusal to end the two child benefit cap.
“We don’t support the cuts in the winter fuel allowance, we support measures to tackle poverty, including lifting the two child limits and so on. So we do have disagreements with some aspects of the government’s policy and approach to this, and we don’t see a contradiction between those and raising wages for working for workers as well.
Addressing the rise of rightwing politics in the UK including the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in the general election with almost 15 per cent of the vote and the far right riots over the summer, Mr Wrack warned that there was a “wake up call” for unions and Labour.
“There’s a big wake up call for the Labour government here,” he said. “Many of these areas where we saw those riots are in traditional Labour areas that have been neglected for decades, where, you know, there’s almost seen to be a Labour establishment, as some people would see it.
“We need something different. We need a change. And I think the challenge for the new government is to actually offer something that’s going to make real differences to people’s lives.”
Mr Wrack was as shocked as many when he saw scenes of fair right protesters attempting to set fire to hotels containing asylum seekers and he has linked it with the increase of popularity of Reform at the ballot box and rightwing parties in Europe such as Alternative For Germany which had strong election results last week.
The veteran union leader accepts that unions have a role countering the message of despair which the far right and parties like Reform feed on.
“I think that in terms of Reform that the trade union movement needs to take it seriously to win millions of votes cannot be dismissed, and we have to have our answers to that.
“While racism and far right ideas have a role that have played a part in that also there is the complete lack of hope in many parts of society and in many communities with deindustrialisation and the lack of jobs, decent homes, and public services.
“People are in despair, and that’s how these elements have won support elsewhere in Europe.”
His warning to Starmer’s government as it engages on “tough decisions” and faces a rebellion among Labour MPs over winter fuel payments, is that it cannot take voters for granted.
“I don’t think they can take anyone for granted. I don’t think they can take the trade unions for granted, and they certainly can’t take the voters for granted. My interpretation of the election is largely a collapse for the Tories, rather than anything else.
“Part of the collapse of the Tories was the rise in the Reform votes that lost them more seats, and not a huge endorsement of Labour. So if Labour wants to get another term in the next general election, it has to tackle the underlying causes of how the far right and how Reform has grown.
“They can’t do that just by repeating the mantra of Treasury orthodoxy that there’s no money and so on. They’re going to have to find ways of investing in jobs and services.”
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