Labour grandee Lord Peter Mandelson on Monday accused union leaders including Unite’s Sharon Graham of focussing on disruptive strike action rather than backing Sir Keir Starmer to win power.
The former business secretary, a key architect of New Labour under Tony Blair, urged Sir Keir to be more “bold” but not “stupid” in stepping up policy plans ahead of an election next year.
Companies are willing to invest in Britain but want a stable policy environment after 13 years of Conservative government, Lord Mandelson told LBC at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool.
“My problem with some of the more leftwing union leaders, people like Sharon Graham of Unite and one or two others, is that she seems to think that the size of the union strike funds are going to deliver as much if not more for her members’ living standards and workplaces as a Labour government will do,” he said.
“And she’s wrong. In my view, the strongest unions are led by hard-headed representative collective bargainers working with management to deliver high-performance workplaces with good pay and conditions.
“Those are the sorts of strong modern unions in the 21st century that I think we need to see.”
Unite and other unions warned last week of a winter of industrial action by council workers against low pay. Ms Graham said in Liverpool that she would keep Sir Keir’s “feet to the fire” and claimed Labour had been “too timid”.
Speaking earlier Monday on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Unite secretary-general maintained her determination “to fight for workers and communities” at the Labour conference.
“I bet there was a character like Peter Mandelson in 1945. We came back from the ravages of war and people were saying ‘Let’s have an NHS’, and he was saying ‘bold but stupid’,” she said.
“And I’m glad that someone like him was ignored then.”
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves was making a major pitch to big business with a keynote speech and series of events at the Labour conference on Monday.
Asked whether the party was being bold enough, she told BBC Breakfast that her mission was to fix public finances with “discipline, determination and hard choices”.
“But they will be Labour choices based on our values,” Ms Reeves said, emphasising a focus on economic growth rather than higher taxes.
Labour is vowing to repeal the Tory government’s legislation mandating a minimum level of service by striking workers in key public sectors.
Lord Mandelson said: “The right to take industrial action is fundamental and I think some of the Tories’ more partisan political legislation should go.
“But we’ve got to take care in making these changes, because we’ve got to give a reassurance to international investors that we’re not going to go back to the past and create the conditions for industrial action and disruption that did damage to our economy in the past and which put off international investors.”
The former Cabinet secretary added that he had had doubts about the “half-baked” HS2 high-speed rail project which has now been cut short by Rishi Sunak.
“We need to modernise our economy and make our economy more competitive. But we’ve got to go about it in a thorough and rigorous way. And once we’ve taken a decision, we’ve got to stick to it.”
