Could Andrea Egan shatter Unison’s cosy relationship with Labour?

Ever since Keir Starmer came to power, Unison has been one of his most loyal backers.

Unlike Unite, whose donations to Labour have plummeted during his leadership, Unison has continued to donate both to the central party and individual MPs.

And while Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham has warned that her union could disaffiliate from Labour over claims it has failed to defend workers, Unison’s Christina McAnea has limited her rhetoric to holding Labour to account, and used her speech at her union’s national delegate conference in June to hail the party’s “momentous” first year in power.

Now, however, one woman threatens to upend Unison’s cosy relationship with Labour – Andrea Egan.

Currently the only candidate challenging McAnea in the race to be Unison’s next general secretary, Egan – a social worker with more than 30 years experience in the trade union movement – has vowed to end the union’s “subservience” to Labour.

Her campaign promises include launching a “comprehensive review” of the union’s relationship with the party, and opposing funding for Labour MPs who “fail to stand against welfare cuts and other attacks on members’ living standards and policies”.

Speaking to LabourList as part of her campaign, Egan said Unison was “not operating the way that it should do”.

“We’ve got a link with Labour, but that doesn’t mean we should continue to be subservient and not afraid to be public about defending our members, right?”

Calling for an end to Unison’s “blank cheques” to Labour in her manifesto, Egan writes “with the prospect of a new party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, many UNISON members will see the possibility of a viable alternative to Labour for the first time”.

Asked what she meant by that, she said: “It’s a warning shot isn’t it?”

She said Labour was governing with “absolute disregard for working class people”, pointing to the welfare bill, winter fuel cuts, and the white paper on immigration.

“Why are they doing that? Is that because they think that well, they’re the only party?”

While she admitted that Unison’s link with Labour is in its rulebook, and “that has to be respected”, she added: “I’ve got a lot of respect for Jeremy and Zarah”, who are “giving people something else to think about”.

READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2025: Full LabourList events programme revealed

Egan has also promised to “oppose our union’s votes at Labour Conference and the Labour NEC being abused for the factional ends of Starmer’s allies” who have “proven time after time that they have no interest in our members or our policies”.

Asked if she felt Christina McAnea was too close to Keir Starmer she said: “I hope that comes through loud and clear in my manifesto, and anything else I’m putting out there, that I do feel that the current leadership is too close and too subservient to Labour at the moment.”

She said Unison can’t continue to support the Labour leadership on the back of 1.3 million members who pay dues to the union, attend conferences, and make democratic decisions only to be disrespected.

“The leadership should be the representative of the membership, so if those members are making decisions legitimately at conference, then they should be respected”.

Egan has also taken aim at the Employment Rights Bill, chief among McAnea’s achievements as general secretary of Unison.

Although she said the bill offered a “move forward” and “you can’t knock when we’ve had progress in the bill” she said businesses and lobbyists had “managed to water it down”.

“We need to progress that now and further push (for) what we didn’t get, revisit that, and look at further sectorial bargaining.”

Egan is no stranger to conflict with Labour. She was expelled from the party in 2022 for sharing two articles from Socialist Appeal, a Marxist group that was proscribed by Labour’s ruling national executive. Her expulsion occurred while she was Unison’s president.

“I didn’t even know they were proscribed at that point,” she said. She added that the group wasn’t even proscribed when she shared first article, but it was still used in the charges against her.

“I’ve still not had the appeal three years later, even though every six months I write to them and ask them where the appeal’s up to.”

She said the party still hasn’t replied to her emails.

“I now appeal simply to remind them they haven’t even given me a route to natural justice to have my side heard. I hate injustice. That also says a lot to me about the Labour Party under Keir’s leadership. Integrity and respect aren’t at the top of their list.”

Labour sources claimed Egan was notified of the outcome of her appeal earlier this year and it was not upheld.

However, when this was put to Egan she said it was the first she had heard of the result.

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More information about Egan’s campaign and her manifesto can be found here.

Branch and service group nominations for the leadership opened on August 20 and will run until September 26.

The ballot for members will then open on October 28 and run until November 25. Results will be published on December 17.

LabourList has approached Christina McAnea for an interview.

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