The Labour machine is on a rinse and repeat cycle

Andy Burnham is set for a coronation as Labour leader, enthroned without challenge. But his choice of top ministers and advisors is causing arguments across the labour movement.

Ed Miliband is one of the favourites to replace Rachel Reeves as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the second most powerful post in government.

Speculation that Miliband is in line for the economic portfolio has triggered a response from the General Secretary of Unite the Union, Sharon Graham, and from the GMB union.

Graham made it clear that she doesn’t want Miliband as Chancellor because of his commitment to net-zero policy to halt climate change. Astonishingly, Graham came out against Miliband in the midst of a record-breaking heat spike caused by climate change.

Graham is one of the big funders of the Labour Party, despite occasional threats to stop the flow of funds.

The Financial Times spelled out what’s at stake: ‘The priority for Unite and GMB is to persuade Burnham not to appoint Miliband because of his relentless focus on the net zero agenda.’

As the article continued, ‘Miliband, a one-time Treasury adviser, is hugely popular with Labour’s grassroots but is also suspected by some in the City of London as likely to pursue a higher-spending, leftwing agenda if he became chancellor.’ That hasn’t stopped ongoing Unite and GMB attempts to ‘stop Ed Miliband’.

Other left-leaning unions have joined the debate. Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union and Andrea Egan the leader of the UK’s largest union, Unison, have come out on social media to support Miliband. Kebede posted that the NEU would like to see Miliband as Chancellor.

What the division among the union leaders shows is that a Burnham premiership is going to be under pressure from the very start. It’s already clear from the possibility that ultra-Blairite James Purnell will be made Burnham’s chief advisor that changes from the Starmer regime will be purely cosmetic.

Appointing Yvette Cooper or Shabana Mahmood over Miliband would be more evidence that the Labour machine is on a rinse and repeat cycle.

The results are predictable: a repeat of the last Tory government’s rapid descent into oblivion as each successive leader disappoints faster than their predecessor.

Unite and GMB are now emerging as a pro-arms spending, pro-polluter right wing in the union movement, all in the name of saving jobs.

There’s no evidence that a more right-wing chancellor would do this, and plenty of evidence that no union members will benefit from a drive to war or a burning planet.

From this month’s Counterfire freesheet