Gary Smith, General Secretary of the GMB union, will use the union’s annual congress in Blackpool to warn members not to be deceived by Reform UK’s targeting of trade union voters, calling Nigel Farage’s party “rebadged Tories” who were “cheering Thatcher to the rafters” while union members were on picket lines – and warning that Reform’s plans to repeal the Employment Rights Act amount to an attack on workers’ hard-won rights that polls show the public overwhelmingly support.
The warning comes as polling by JL Partners shows Labour and Reform tied on 28% among unionised workers – a statistic that has alarmed union leadership and is driving Reform’s charm offensive toward the union movement. Smith’s speech is designed to confront that directly.
What Smith will say
The speech, expected at the GMB congress in Blackpool on Sunday, names Reform’s specific political heritage and places it against union history.
“I understand the anger and frustration,” Smith will say. “People are struggling and hurting. But don’t for a minute believe Mr Farage and his rebadged Tories are on the side of trade unions like ours.”
The historical argument is direct: “When many of us in this hall were cutting our teeth as union and political activists – supporting the miners, going on picket lines and marches, organising against the Poll Tax – Reform’s leaders were cheering Thatcher to the rafters. They championed the policies that have left such deep scars in our communities.”
The Thatcher reference is not incidental. The specific communities Reform is now targeting – the former mining and industrial heartlands of the north and Midlands, the towns shaped by deindustrialisation, the areas where the anger at Westminster is most acute – are largely the communities that were most deeply affected by the Thatcher government’s industrial and economic policies. Smith’s argument is that the people presenting themselves as the voice of those communities were, at the time, cheering the policies that damaged them.
“So, when I hear Reform saying they’re on the side of metal bashers, I say ‘no chance’. The only things Reform want to bash are unions and our members’ rights.”
What Reform is actually promising
Smith’s warning about Reform’s plans is grounded in their published policy programme. As we reported in our Stefanovic Reform policies piece, Reform’s Great Repeal Act targets Labour’s Employment Rights Act directly.
The Employment Rights Act – described by the government as the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation – introduced day one sick pay rights, banned fire and rehire practices that allow employers to sack workers and rehire them on worse terms, created rights to guaranteed hours for those on zero-hours contracts, and strengthened protections against unfair dismissal and entitlements to parental leave.
Reform has committed to repealing all of it. Their stated reason, as published after their Makerfield candidate Robert Kenyon failed to explain the party’s own policy on camera – as we reported in our Kenyon interview piece – is that Labour’s legislation “has been a disaster for the UK economy.”
Smith’s speech names specific targets: “Reform are targeting the right to organise in places like Amazon, to collectively bargain over their pay, sick pay for all. There’s a cancel culture in Reform and it’s union members’ rights they’re after.”
What the public actually thinks
Reform’s anti-worker agenda “has previously been exposed as out of step with the public mood.” The evidence is specific and significant.
A mega-poll of more than 40,000 people, conducted by the TUC and Hope Not Hate across every constituency in England and Wales in March, found:
- 78% support guaranteed hours contracts
- 76% support day one sick pay
- 83% support ending fire and rehire
These are not niche progressive positions. They represent near-consensus across the British public – majorities in every constituency polled. As we reported in our Durham Pride trade unions piece, the same trade union movement that is being targeted by Reform in this election cycle also raised £15,000 to save Durham Pride after Reform cut its funding – six times the amount Reform cut. The pattern of who Reform attacks and who the unions defend is consistent.
The Labour context
The GMB is one of Labour’s biggest affiliated funders and backers. But the relationship between the union movement and the current government is strained. Labour’s affiliated unions – including the GMB, Unite and Unison – issued a statement last month saying Keir Starmer should not lead the party into the next election.
The congress will reaffirm GMB’s support for Labour despite those tensions – a decision that reflects the specific calculation that however frustrated union leaders are with Starmer’s government, Reform’s programme represents a direct and documented threat to their members’ livelihoods.
That calculation is the central argument of Smith’s speech. Reform’s charm offensive toward union workers is happening simultaneously with Reform’s policy commitment to strip those workers of their rights. The two things cannot both be true. Smith’s job on Sunday is to make sure his members understand which one is.
The Makerfield connection
The GMB congress comes the week before the Makerfield byelection on 18 June – a constituency with a specific industrial history, strong trade union presence and exactly the kind of working-class community that Reform is targeting. As we reported in our Burnham campaign launch piece, Burnham has been specific about his commitment to public ownership models and workers’ rights as central to his pitch.
Kenyon’s Reform campaign, meanwhile, is being mounted by a candidate who didn’t know what the Great Repeal Bill was when asked about it on camera. The bill that would strip the rights Smith is defending was unknown to the man whose party plans to repeal it.
The trade union movement, the Employment Rights Act and the Makerfield byelection are three parts of the same argument about whose side you are on when it comes to the economic lives of working people.
Leave a Reply