McCluskey: Unions Could Ditch Starmer's 'Labour' & Take Their Money With Them
- David Hitchen
- Jul 11
- 4 min read
Trade union legend Len McCluskey has warned that if Jeremy Corbyn’s new party gains traction, trade unions could disaffiliate from the Labour Party. Within days of Zarah Sultana’s announcement that she would co-lead a breakaway left-wing party with Corbyn, more than 60,000 people had signed up to its launch page.
Polling suggests 10-15% of voters might back such a party, drawing support from Labour, the Greens and the SNP. Meanwhile, Reform UK is making gains in traditional union strongholds, posing a challenge to Labour’s working-class base.
Discontent with Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership - on issues from welfare cuts to Gaza - fuels this movement. McCluskey said:
“If this new party proves credible then I will join it, I will campaign for it, and I will urge individuals and trade unions to give their support”.
“Many thousands of union activists are demanding a radical alternative to Labour”
Corbyn has confirmed that “discussions are ongoing” about co-leadership, expressing delight at building “a real alternative”.
"REAL change is coming" he declared, in an obvious reference to the title of Starmer's 2024 manifesto - while 'change' was promised, the vast majority of the electorate believe there has been precious little - and that not for the better.
Union leaders in Scotland worry that a gap on the left is sending voters to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Opinion polls in Birmingham show only 5% of voters considering Labour, with Reform ahead in local contests. What Reform see as an appeal to workers, senior union figures view as a strategy that “masks divisive agendas”.
They see a genuine left alternative as essential to prevent Scottish Labour continuing to haemhorrage voters.
“As ordinary people get disillusioned, they will turn to Reform UK, which is why there is a desperate need for another choice” said McCluskey.
This moment recalls the New Left of the late 1950s, when disillusion with both Soviet communism and centrist social democracy led activists to form new platforms for direct action and participatory politics.
Collective, founded in 2023 by Karie Murphy and others, aims to be 'the engine that will drive the formation of a new, mass-membership political party of the left', and has at its core the principles of the Peace and Justice Project.
It has brought together dozens of left-wing organisations including the Trade Union Socialist Coalition, Just Stop Oil, the increasingly successfu Liverpool Community Independents, and Transform, among others. Sultana and Corbyn stand as its most prominent figureheads.
Funding remains at stake. Unite’s political fund was around £7 million last year, with just over £3 million paid directly to Labour in affiliation fees. Losing that cash and grassroots organising could hamper Labour’s campaign capacity.
In response, Starmer’s party has pursued 'pro-union reforms', but critics on the left see these as too little, too late. Some Labour MPs argue that cutting formal union ties could broaden the party’s appeal, a move the socialist left condemn as breaking solidarity for centrist consensus.
It has always been claimed that the left in the UK 'don't play well together' and that the left is 'too fragmented' to work - from the state of Labour Party since Starmer's succession, however, it looks very much like a case of the right refusing to work with the left.
Because, despite using the word constantly in its sloganeering, Starmer's centrist cabal fears the prospect of actual change improving society for the many, not the few - 'the few' might stop giving them 'donations without asking anything at all in return', for a start...
It was ever thus - following Corbyn's landslide leadership victory in 2016, places in his Shadow Cabinet were given to Lisa Nandy, John Healey, Angela Eagle and sister Maria, Luciana Berger, Pat McFadden, Chris Bryant, Owen Smith, Ian Murray, Hilary Benn, Heidi Alexander - the list goes on. And, of course, Starmer himself...
(Pat McFadden was actually sacked in January 2016 for 'disloyalty' - which seems to have proved correct. Hilary Benn was sacked on the eve of the ill-fated 'chicken coup')
These stalwarts of the centrist/Labour right wing repaid Corbyn's attempt to build an inclusive Shadow Cabinet with treachery.
The 'chicken coup' of 2016 saw a series of choreographed resignations from the Shadow Cabinet, with the aim of unseating Corbyn - all those named above, plus dozens more, departed with as much publicity as they could manage.
Tearfully, at least one resigning live on TV, the rightwing plotters went - some to attempt leadership challenges, others into political oblivion. In the case of Owen Smith, both.
Some of the 'chickens' have been rewarded now with high-profile positions in Starmer's Cabinet, some with peerages. In the case of Owen Smith, with neither.
Britain’s left faces a choice: unite behind a fresh movement to reshape politics, or risk fragmenting further and ceding ground to right-wing populism.
The momentum behind Corbyn and Sultana marks the start of something new, but history warns of funding gaps and disunity (but history also recalls how Corbyn raised over £1,000,000 in just a few days in 2019, only from small donations by party members).
With widespread anger and concern from figures across the trade union movement, some look likely to disaffiliate from Starmer's 'Labour' - and take their huge donations with them.
The emerging party must navigate these pitfalls if it is to offer a credible alternative to both Labour and Reform UK - and to deliver the change its supporters demand.
References
Bagley, Roger, “Labour told to drop austerity or face defeat”, Morning Star, 8 July 2025, https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-51b6-labour-told-to-drop-austerity-or-face-defeat
Twyman, Joe, “Monday briefing: What Zarah Sultana’s new party could mean for Labour and the left”, The Guardian, 7 July 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/monday-briefing-what-zarah-sultanas-new-party-could-mean-for-labour-and-the-left
Sultana, Zarah (tweet), 3 July 2025, https://twitter.com/zarahsultana/status/
Bloch, Ben, “MP Zarah Sultana who was ousted from Labour announces new party with Jeremy Corbyn – but he says ‘discussions ongoing’”, Sky News, 4 July 2025, https://news.sky.com/story/mp-zarah-sultana-who-was-ousted-from-labour-announces-she-is-starting-new-political-party-with-jeremy-corbyn-13392103
Author unspecified, “Support grows for the ‘trade unionists for a new party’ petition”, TUSC, 27 June 2025, https://www.tusc.org.uk/21745/27-06-2025/support-grows-for-the-trade-unionists-for-a-new-party-petition/
Mason, Chris, “How does union-funding of the Labour Party work?”, BBC News, 7 August 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23257182
Britannica, “New Left | Definition, History, & Facts”, Britannica, accessed 10 July 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Left
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