Unite’s McCluskey warns of “certain general election defeat”

The General Secretary of Unite – Britain’s biggest union and the Labour Party’s largest donor – has warned the Labour Party that it faces to “electoral disaster” over its approach to cuts.

Writing in the Guardian, Len McCluskey, said:

“Ed Balls’ sudden weekend embrace of austerity and the government’s public sector pay squeeze represents a victory for discredited Blairism at the expense of the party’s core supporters. It also challenges the whole course Ed Miliband has set for the Party, and perhaps his leadership itself.

“Unions in the public sector are bound to unite to oppose the real pay cuts for public sector workers over the next year. When we do so, it seems we will now be fighting the Labour front bench as well as the government.

“The political elite which was united in promoting the City-first deregulation policies that led to the crash is now united in asserting that ordinary people must pick up the tab for it. It leaves the country with something like a “national government” consensus where, as in 1931, the leaders of the three big parties agree on a common agenda of austerity to get capitalism – be it “good” or “bad” – back on its feet.”

McCluskey also suggests that Miliband has left himself open to being replaced as leader, saying:

“Having won on the measures, “new Labour” will likely come for the man sooner or later. And that way lies the destruction of the Labour Party as constituted, as well as certain general election defeat.”