Grasp the nettle!

Unite retired members, husband and wife Bill and Margaret Moores, have participated in many Labour leadership elections over the years – they’re both life-long trade union and Labour party members. This contest they think, however, is markedly different from previous ones.

 
“It’s been really exciting, this Labour leadership election,” Margaret explained.

 
Both she and Bill have been actively working to sign up affiliate supporters among Unite’s retired members branch.

 
“We helped devise a different system with retired members, because the phoning system to sign them up wasn’t working at all,” Bill said. “I thought to myself – how do I react to cold calls? Usually if you send me something in writing, I’ll respond because I have time to think about it.”

 
Afterwards, Unite retired members were contacted via post to sign up as affiliate supporters, and the new system has been a resounding success – of the more than 10,000 retired members in Unite, roughly 7,000 and counting have signed up to have their say in the next Labour leadership election.

Unique contest

 
Bill explained why he thought this leadership contest was a unique one.

 
“Personally I feel that this is the very, very first time that the members in the party have a wide open selection of candidates from the left to the centre to the right,” Bill noted. “Before, they’ve constantly been going for the middle ground. This time we’ve got a distinct choice.”

 
Bill highlighted how excited he is that young people have been galvanised by this leadership election as never before.

 
“For many young people, they’ve never heard the [messages from the left] before,” he said. “We can remember the 80s, but they weren’t even born yet so it’s all new to them. For so long we’ve been going for the middle ground, we’ve completely abandoned the left. But now young people are starting to listen to it and starting to understand it.

 
Margaret added that now she feels a sense that young people have woken up from complacency.
“Young people have always had the NHS, they’ve always had workplace rights – many don’t realise that these were brought about trade unions and taken up by the Labour party.”

 
Now that these rights are being threatened and taken away, however, Margaret says that she feels young people are galvanised to fight back.

 
“For some people, it’s not until they actual come up against adversity, that they really realised what’s happening,” she said.

 
Bill argued that the upcoming Labour leadership election will mark a turning point for the future of the party.

 
“Speaking for our age group, we realise that this particular election will make the decision for our children and our grandchildren’s future,” he said.

 
“If we don’t grasp this nettle now, the Labour party will be lost forever as far as we’re concerned. This is one attempt to take the party back to what the founding membership was all about, what it was all set up for in the first place.”

 
Don’t forget that the last day to sign up to become an affiliate supporter and vote in the Labour leadership election is next Wednesday (August 12). Find out how to sign up here.