General secretary of Unite Union Sharon Graham has called on Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Government to "wake up and smell the coffee" following Angela Rayner's suspension.The Deputy Prime Minister was suspended by the union for her handling of the Birmingham bins crisis, as they seek to "re-examine their relationship" with Labour.FULL STORY HERE.
00:00What does this say about the disintegrating relationship, which is astonishing to think of now, between Unite itself and the government?
00:09I mean, you said that you're going to have to seriously rethink your relationship, which if I were Keir Starmer, I'd be quaking in my boots about that.
00:16Because historically, you've always been one of its biggest supporters and donors.
00:21Yeah. And, you know, I think the thing here is that everybody can't be wrong.
00:25You know, I mean, if I was Labour this morning waking up, I'd do less of, you know, trying to do a Houdini act and muddy the waters.
00:33And I'd be thinking, how did we get to a situation that 800 delegates were in Brighton from a significant backer, the most important backer, really, to Labour,
00:43from sectors, from defence all the way through to buses, from every region of our nation.
00:48And it was almost a unanimous vote, bar five people from 800, that said they wanted Angela Rayner suspended and they wanted us to redefine our relationship with Labour and seriously look at that relationship.
01:00I would be thinking something has gone badly wrong.
01:03If they choose to keep putting their fingers in their ears, I won't be their problem.
