East Midlands NEC candidates on Reform
UNISON must defend public services against the threat from Reform!
Reform’s success in the 1 May 2025 council elections, including in the East Midlands, is an alarm call to our union and we must respond quickly.
This statement says what we, campaigners in UNISON, think our union should do now. We are standing on the Time For Real Change (TFRC) slate in the National Executive Council elections but this is a plan that we hope the whole union will discuss and rally around.
Disillusion with Labour
Many voters who were fed-up with the Tories and who were either core Labour voters or simply prepared to give Labour a chance in the 2024 general election have quickly been disappointed. So far the Labour Government has delivered no change and no discernible improvements in people’s lives, including importantly in public services; worse, it has made demoralising attacks on working-class people, cutting disability benefits and the Winter Fuel Payment.
Meanwhile the Government’s goal of growing the economy is receding into the distance. With Labour offering no real political alternative, it is small wonder that many voters, including working-class voters and trade union members, have been won to Reform’s glib “solutions”: scapegoating migrants and “wokery”, and blaming Westminster elites, while letting big business off the hook.
Resist Reform!
Reform are threatening to copy Elon Musk’s US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) inside the councils they now run, cutting expenditure they consider unnecessary. Speaking on 2 May, Reform leader Nigel Farage warned: “I would advise anybody who’s working for Durham County Council on climate change initiatives or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or thinks they can go on working from home...you all better really be seeking alternative careers very, very quickly.” This will be Reform’s attitude in all of the 10 councils they now control.
UNISON General Secretary Christina McAnea responded correctly that public services are already cut to the bone and that Reform councillors will struggle to find any savings.
But this begs the question: what is UNISON, the union representing more council workers than any other, doing to campaign for public services to be rebuilt?
McAnea was correct also to tell workers not already in unions to join one fast to get protection against abuse. But that is not enough! We can’t fight Reform solely through individual workers asserting their individual rights.
McAnea’s response is very passive – UNISON must say and do much more.
What UNISON must do now
We propose that the whole union, and particularly the regions where Reform is now strong, discuss a plan to respond to the challenge that Reform now poses directly through its control of councils, but also indirectly through shifting the whole political narrative to the right.
UNISON must:
Support any branch or member threatened by Reform actions in local councils.
Refute the answers Reform gives for the malaise in public services, and undercut their growing popularity by campaigning for our own positive alternative.
Resist Reform’s racism; make the case for the benefits of migration to our public services and wider society.
Stand up for EDI principles.
Defend our trans colleagues and service users in the face of the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Use the Labour Link to pressure the Labour Government to rebuild public services, raising the necessary funds by taxing the rich; and to repeal all the anti-union laws that stop our members defending themselves.
Protest to demand more money for public services.
Build strikes to resist job cuts in the public services.
Let’s be positive and go onto the front foot!
UNISON has 1.3m members and counting. We have enormous potential to defend our members and also to mobilise them in a positive campaign for the public services that we all need, as workers and as citizens.
UNISON must meet the UK’s Trump wannabes head-on with clear statements on what we think and what we will do. We must resist Reform and campaign for our positive alternative: Tax the rich! Rebuild public services!
Signed - East Midlands TFRC UNISON NEC candidates:
Tom Barker (Leicester City UNISON)
Natasha Bednall (Leicester City UNISON)
Audrey Dinnall (East Midlands Probation branch)
Sara Evans (Nottinghamshire County UNISON)
Vicki Morris (University of Nottingham UNISON)
Anjona Roy (North Northamptonshire LG UNISON)