Can Starmer get the unions back together with Labour?

As the first Labour leader to address the Trades Union Congress as prime minister in 15 years, Keir Starmer might have hoped for a more enthusiastic reception. Then again, as a Labour premier who has got his “betrayal of socialism” in early, the polite applause he received was perhaps about the best that could be expected.

- SEAN O'GRADY

What used habitually to be referred to, sentimentally, as “this great movement of ours”, or “TIGMOO”, is still holding together, because the political and industrial arms of the Labour movement still need each other more than either would care to admit. This is what Starmer calls the “politics of partnership”.

But there are undeniable tensions...

What did the trade unionists expect?

As with Tony Blair when he was building “New Labour” and taking the party into government in the 1990s, they knew, from bitter, disappointed experience, not to expect that much from “their” prime minister. For example, to help his campaign to become Labour leader in 1994, Blair promised to retain the old Clause IV, pledging to nationalise the commanding heights of British industry, only to renege on that shortly after. So, too, with the various promises made by Starmer in 2020, which were designed to appeal to trade unionists and the left when he was running for leader. Many of them have since been jettisoned.