Unite and Labour in Falkirk: a legitimate stitch-up, or worse?
Just before 5pm on a Friday, with the focus of the parliamentary lobby on the G20 in St Petersburg or their third pint, Labour put out its statement that Karie Murphy, Stephen Deans and the union Unite have been exonerated of wrongdoing over the Falkirk parliamentary selection fiasco. Immediately the warring old Labour Left and ‘Blairite’ factions resumed hostilities on Twitter over what it meant, with the former (Owen Jones leading the pack), demanding that all comments by anyone against Unite be withdrawn and apologised for, completely, immediately, unequivocally. I’m a Labour member (a branch secretary indeed) and am no member of either faction. However I am far from convinced by this ‘exoneration’. As far as I see it, the Falkirk affair is either an example of legitimate (or ‘institutionalised’) fixing by Unite, within the rules, or there has been a cover-up – and there are sources in Falkirk Labour who claim the latter. As the New Statesman’s George Eat...