SHARON GRAHAM: It’s change or die for Labour after turning into unmoored from its previous
Writing for The Mirror, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said Labour has lost touch with voters after becoming ‘unmoored from its history and the working class’
Unite’s General Secretary Sharon Graham delivered a blistering assessment on the need for change(Image: Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)
Working class people expect fundamental change, not tinkering.
On Thursday they tore into the Labour Party. They painted ballot boxes turquoise and green. They have done so using the brush of decades of Labour failure.
They didn’t expect their Labour Government to pit pensioners against the disabled. They didn’t expect accounting rules to be the top priority. They are asking what Labour is for.
Labour lost the towns, swathes of the Midlands and the north. They are becoming the Party of the professional middle class. Not a cross-class coalition, but a strictly middle-class centrist party. Rootless. Unmoored from its history and from the working class.
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It genuinely brings tears to my eyes. The tribe utterly broken by decades of PR lightweights worshipping at the altar of the City and the super-rich. People who should never have been let near the Party let alone be allowed to take it over in the name of faction wars.
Now they cling to self-imposed fiscal rules, with ministers loyally reading out lists of achievements that even if people were listening to in stereo, just does not cut it.
Before the city banker’s crash, we had a 35% debt to GDP ratio. After we bailed them out it shot up to 70%. Let’s put the blame squarely on those who created this mess.
But what has been the response of Labour? Bankers’ bonuses are back. Nothing done to tackle profiteering. The Big 4 UK banks together made £22.1 billion profits from UK operations in the last financial year. Untouched.
While energy prices soar, BP made £2.4 billion in just the first three months of 2026. War profits untouched.
And while food prices will have gone up 50% by the end of this year, compared to 2021, Tesco reported £3.2 billion profit in the year to February 2026, its highest this decade. It paid £2.5 billion out to its shareholders.
And they wonder why the working class has turned its back on them. Tighten your belts they say, you’ve got to pay again.
Breakfast clubs, a few light touch rights for renters, return of some employment rights, but with big holes – it does not touch the sides.
They pale into insignificance compared to the challenges being faced by working class people. The other day I saw a clip of an elderly lady who had worked all her life saying that she could no longer afford to turn her toaster on.
And Labour wonders why it’s gone wrong? There is no plan. Nothing. The cupboard is bare. We are stuck in a rigged system where everyday people always, always pay.
It will not be enough to simply change leader. Without fundamental change to policy the Labour Party will be finished.
This is deeper than leaders. It’s been decades long in the making. And anyone making a pitch to take over needs to come with more than slogans and PR stunts.
I am sure that if my members were asked to vote on labour affiliation today, most would vote to leave. A change in leader on its own is not enough. A fundamental change in direction is now required. And make no mistake the Labour Party is in the last chance saloon.
Without trade unions, workers, the Labour Party has no base. It will end up as just one more centrist party stuck in managerialism and clinging to focus groups.
It’s now or never. Change or die.
