Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has warned the government it must do more for workers in 2026 or risk “sowing the seeds of its own destruction”. In a strongly worded article for the Times, she accused Labour of being preoccupied with its “failing leadership” and described the debate about who might replace Sir Keir Starmer as inevitable.
“For too long it has been everyday people, workers and communities who have paid the price for crisis after crisis not of their making,” Graham wrote. “In 2026 this must stop. The government needs to decide what it stands for and who it stands for. If we have to ask, it is not working.” She argued that a new Labour leader with the same policies would not suffice, and that the “doom loop cannot be broken with more austerity lite, no matter who is in Downing Street”.
Graham said replacing Starmer with figures such as Angela Rayner, Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting or Ed Miliband would not persuade workers to back Labour. “It cannot just be a question of changing the leader or improving the sales pitch,” she added. Unite, Labour’s most powerful union backer, was the only union not to endorse the party’s manifesto “as it did not back jobs”, Graham noted.
She criticised the recent budget for opting for “stealth taxes on workers instead of a wealth tax on the mega-rich”, and urged Labour to “stop being embarrassed to be the voice of workers”. Graham concluded: “In the coming year, if this government does not depart from its current path, it will surely be sowing the seeds of its own destruction.”
