Why Has Unite Endorsed Gerard Coyne?

The starter's pistol fires and they're off. In the race for Labour's selection for West Bromwich East, coming up on the right we have Sarah Coombes, former media spinner for Sadiq Khan and constituency worker when it was Tom Watson's manor. And vying to elbow her out of the same lane we have Gerard Coyne, twice failed candidate for General Secretary of Unite, creature of the once all-powerful right wing WestMids machinery, and a firm favourite of Labour First. Both Coombes and Coyne have party estabishment support and trade union endorsements, as you might expect. But readers might be surprised to learn that Coombes, who has no labour movement track record I'm aware of, handily beats Coyne in union nominations. Unison, GMB, CWU, they're all on the Sarah train with four other unions. Meanwhile, the man who's made a handsome living from the union movement could only muster the support of two: USDAW (as per type) and ... Unite.

Yes, you read that correctly. The union that, during the Len McCluskey years, tried its damnedest to dig out Coyne's tick-like attachment has turned around and given him their blessings in his bid for Parliament. For our friends over at Skwawkbox, it's more evidence of the union swinging to the right under Sharon Graham's leadership. I'm no so sure. For one, right wingers - particularly since "partnership" and "service" unionism came to prominence in the late 1980s - aren't typically in the habit of running on programmes emphasising the building of industrial muscle, and then delivering on that promise. While the big disputes have taken the headlines, Unite along with the GMB and the new small independent unions have won impressive victories across the country. Graham has turned away from amateurish lobbying of Labour to putting Unite's resources into workplace activism, and hundreds of thousands of workers and workplace power is in a better place as a result.

This comes with its downsides. McCluskey's very hands-on approach to Labour Party politics might have pleased some, but it by no means played well in all corners of Unite where there is a long tradition of syndicalism, apolitical economism, and even Conservative support. In 2021 during the crunch election to succeed McCluskey, Steve Turner was (mostly) the choice of the left as the best man to defeat Coyne's right wing bid while Graham used her organising nous and, arguably, greater appreciation of Unite's grass roots, to beat both of them. Her message that Unite should focus on industrial matters instead of party politics was certainly economistic, but it resonated with layers of the membership who (rightly or wrongly) perceived the previous general secretary as more interested in the Westminster circus than winning disputes. Graham had her eye on the ball, her opponents didn't.

How does this relate to Unite endorsing Coyne? You don't need to scratch out an unconvincing argument that Graham is a closet right winger. For a start, this presumes what happens in the labour movement is determined by Westminster and PLP politicking and that it has little agency of its own. In act, it's the other way round. A result of one part economism, two-parts consolidation. As Skwawkbox has reported extensively and critically, the new general secretary has been securing her base and conferring positions on her allies. Making sure Unite returns her at the next GS election and that it sees through her confrontational approach to industrial relations is her priority. What Keir Starmer and Labour are saying doesn't matter much as long as they don't veer onto her turf. Unite's nomination of its former bete noire is what one might expect if the political balance of the Parliamentary Labour Party is way down the list than, say, ensuring a contender with name recognition and a decent following among the union's membership is pensioned off to Westminster. Not a plot, not a capitulation to Starmer's Labour nor a cosying up to a much reduced WestMids Labour First. Unite's backing of Coyne is a simple case of removing a potential threat from contention.

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