logo
Union membership increases in Reform-led councils

Union membership increases in Reform-led councils

Union membership in councils run by Reform has increased since the party took control of local authorities after the May elections, new figures reveal.
The GMB said workers were 'flocking' to join unions amid fears of cuts to pay, jobs and conditions by Reform.
Councils where the GMB has seen an increase in membership include Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Doncaster.
Nigel Farage?
Weak on Putin. Threatens our NHS. #GMB25 pic.twitter.com/RL0AUW2aPq
— GMB Union (@GMB_union) June 8, 2025
GMB national officer Rachel Harrison told the PA news agency: 'Reform spouts a lot of nonsense about being on the side of workers, but these figures show people aren't buying it.
'Workers in Reform-led councils are flocking to join unions because they know the first thing Farage and his cronies will do is attack low-paid staff's terms and conditions.'
GMB general secretary Gary Smith launched an angry attack against Reform in a speech to the union's annual conference in Brighton at the weekend, saying Nigel Farage and his 'ex-Tory soulmates' were no friends of workers.
'They've spent a political lifetime attacking trade unions and the rights we have all fought so hard for. Decent pay, better conditions, protections we cherish.
'Why is it always the posh, private schoolboys who want act like they're working-class heroes?
'Do they really think we can't see the bankers, the chancers, the anti-union blowhards?
'If Reform are so pro-worker, why did they just vote against protections against fire and rehire? Why did they vote against sick pay for all workers? Why did they vote against fair pay for carers? Why did they vote against trade union rights to access and organise in places like Amazon?
'Now they are going to run town halls, and the first thing they want to do is sack council workers.
'It's high time they were called out for their sneering, snooty attitude about so-called 'gold-plated' pensions. Go ask a local authority care worker, refuse collector, street cleaner, school support staff member if they think their meagre pension is gold-plated.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

EUAN McCOLM: Farage has tickled the tummies of Nationalist voters. He won't win the next election...but he may end SNP's reign
EUAN McCOLM: Farage has tickled the tummies of Nationalist voters. He won't win the next election...but he may end SNP's reign

Daily Mail​

time3 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

EUAN McCOLM: Farage has tickled the tummies of Nationalist voters. He won't win the next election...but he may end SNP's reign

Reform leader Nigel Farage was supposed to be the perfect bogeyman. As last week's Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse by-election drew closer, First Minister John Swinney implored voters to back the SNP if they wished to keep Mr Farage's brand of politics out of Holyrood. A vote for Labour, said Mr Swinney, would hand the constituency to Reform. In the end, it was Labour's Davy Russell who took the seat, made vacant by the untimely death of sitting nationalist MSP Christina McKelvie, nudging the SNP's Katy Loudon into second. Reform's Ross Lambie came a very close third. Mr Swinney's claim that the by-election was a two horse race between his and Mr Farage's parties could not have been more wrong. Within minutes of last week's result being declared, the briefing against the First Minister was in full swing. SNP insiders muttered darkly about strategic errors and poor campaigning. Former SNP health secretary Alex Neil was among senior nationalists calling for Mr Swinney to go. The result, said Mr Neil, showed the current SNP leadership needed to be replaced, urgently. Political leadership requires the ability to be bullish in the face of disaster, something which Mr Swinney attempted during a SKY News interview. Speaking on Sunday Morning With Trevor Philips, the First Minister said, if current polls were to be believed, the SNP was on course to win its fifth consecutive Holyrood election next year and to remain - 'by a country mile' - the largest party at Holyrood. Snarkier sorts than me might be tempted to point out that, before voting opened last Thursday morning, Mr Swinney reckoned current polls showed Labour hadn't a hope of winning in Lanarkshire. It is routine for politicians, when confronted with polling that looks bad for them, to declare that the only poll that counts takes place on election day. Surveys, they say, are nothing more than a snapshot of a moment in time. With this in mind, perhaps the First Minister should spend less time focusing on opinion polls and more examining last Thursday's result. The numbers make for fascinating - and surprising - reading. Mr Swinney has expended considerable effort over recent months attempting to build the case that Nigel Farage's politics is anathema to Scots. His disruptive approach is cruel and unfeeling while we prefer something more compassionate, more progressive, more downright baby-boxy. Even a cursory glance at last week's result shows many take a different view. In fact, the numbers show a substantial number of Scots are more than happy to vote for Mr Farage's party. Reform won 26.1 per cent of the vote in Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse last week. Not bad for a party contesting a seat for the first time. Unsurprisingly, much of Reform's support came from people who had previously backed the Tories. But a drop of 11.5 per cent in the Conservative vote, compared with the result of the 2021 election, doesn't account for the level of support achieved by Mr Farage's party. It must, then, have been disillusioned former Labour voters who got behind Reform, mustn't it? It would certainly suit Mr Swinney for that to be so but a drop of just two per cent in Labour's support doesn't make up the shortfall. What does balance the books is the fall in support for the SNP. Last week, the nationalists' vote share plummeted by 16.8 per cent. Add that to the Tory and Labour losses and the Reform result is explained. It would appear that Nigel Farage is able to tickle the tummies of voters who previously sought to express their disillusionment with 'the establishment' by voting SNP. If this is so - and some Scottish nationalist politicians believe it to be - then the chances of another Scottish Parliamentary election victory have slimmed down. As the 2014 referendum campaign kicked off, support among Scots for the break-up of the United Kingdom sat at below 30 per cent. These voters - die hard nationalists - were of the 'independence at any cost' variety. Nothing could have shaken the belief of those voters that Scotland should stand alone. During the referendum campaign, support for independence rocketed. No, the Yes campaign didn't prevail but it took 45 per cent of the vote, a result which emboldened the SNP to believe it was just a matter of time until its separatist dream came true. But were the new converts to the independence cause true believers whose loyalty would remain unshakeable? Doesn't look like it, does it? Eleven years ago, then SNP leader Alex Salmond enthusiastically fomented great anger among a section of the electorate. He encouraged the belief that a distant political elite had abandoned ordinary voters and - to an extent - he did so very successfully, indeed. For some, a Yes vote was less about self-determination than it was about furious rejection of the status quo. And, so long as 'Indyref2' was being denied by big bad Westminster, those supporters looked like they'd stick by the SNP. These days, even John Swinney accepts there will be no second referendum any time soon. That reality makes the SNP offer less appealing to the hacked-off voter who wishes to 'shake things up'. The more self-aware among the upper echelons of the SNP know that the same dissatisfaction which boosted the independence cause in 2014 also drives support for Reform. Understandably, senior SNP figures take succour from a recent poll by Norstat which revealed that - once undecideds are removed - support for Scottish independence sits at 54 per cent, with just 46 per cent in favour of maintenance of the United Kingdom. Surely such a result shows the independence dream is very much alive? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. One SNP source cautions colleagues against agitating for a second referendum, now, on the grounds both that the party - and wider independence movement - is unprepared and that support for breaking up the UK is not concrete. 'In the last few years,' said the party insider, 'we've seen polls which say people are in flavour of a second referendum and lots of our people get very excited. The thing is, though, that when you get down into the detail, it's usually been the case that people would be happy to see a second referendum at some vague point in the future which means we're just stuck in a time-loop where a referendum is always in sight but always out of reach.' The SNP moved from the fringes of Scottish politics to become the dominant party by persuading a substantial number of voters that it was an insurgent, anti-establishment force. After almost 20 years in government, the SNP is very much part of the establishment and that makes it vulnerable to the sort of attacks it once launched on Scottish Labour. Nigel Farage's Reform won't win next year's Holyrood election but the result in Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse suggests it could help end the SNP's reign.

Does David Bull know why people vote Reform?
Does David Bull know why people vote Reform?

Spectator

time4 hours ago

  • Spectator

Does David Bull know why people vote Reform?

In a week of high drama, in which Reform lost its chairman and then saw him return 48 hours later, the party could have hoped for a quiet news day. Slim chance of that. After Zia Yusuf returned as party chairman, Reform held a press conference to announce that Yusuf would head the party's DOGE unit to uncover waste at councils – and would be replaced as chairman by Dr David Bull. A former Conservative, Bull is better known than his predecessor was when taking the role, having formerly presented Newsround and Most Haunted, becoming an MEP for the Brexit party in 2019 and the co-host of the TalkTV weekend breakfast show in 2022. As James Heale notes, he is also popular with members, being both 'a gregarious character and a longtime Farage loyalist.' A key part of Bull's role will be in handling the media; but his first steps in the new role, it appears he has already stumbled, stating that 'immigration is the lifeblood of this country, it always has been'.

Women will no longer be prosecuted for aborting own child at any stage of pregnancy under changes to the law set to be passed next week
Women will no longer be prosecuted for aborting own child at any stage of pregnancy under changes to the law set to be passed next week

Daily Mail​

time5 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Women will no longer be prosecuted for aborting own child at any stage of pregnancy under changes to the law set to be passed next week

Women will no longer face prosecution for aborting their own baby under changes set to be passed by MPs next week that would herald the biggest overhaul of abortion law for half a century. Under the proposals abortion would effectively be decriminalised and women would no longer face prosecution if they ended their own pregnancy after 24 weeks or without approval from doctors. The changes are said to have the backing of more than 130 backbench MPs meaning it is likely to be approved when MPs are given a free vote on amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill next week. Six women have appeared in court in the last three years charged with ending or attempting to end their own pregnancy outside abortion law - a crime with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Last month Nicola Packer, 45, was acquitted of taking abortion medicine at home when she was about 26 weeks pregnant. Under the new proposals she would not have been prosecuted for this. The MPs behind the proposed amendments say that reform is long-overdue as the current law leads to vulnerable women being prosecuted, some of whom may have had a miscarriage or stillbirth. However anti-abortion campaigners have criticised the proposals, which they warn would be the most extreme liberalisation of the law since the 1967 Abortion Act and could allow abortion 'up to birth'. Abortion is a criminal offence in England and Wales unless it takes place under strict conditions, including that it is before 24 weeks into a pregnancy and with the approval of two doctors. New laws passed during the pandemic allow abortion pills to be taken at home in a system known as 'pills by post', however this is only allowed up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. There are very limited circumstances allowing a woman to access an abortion after 24 weeks, such as when the mother's life is at risk or the child would be born with a severe disability. But two amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill would radically alter abortion law in England and Wales. One of the amendments, by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, would mean that a woman would no longer be committing an offence by ending her own pregnancy. However under this amendment anybody else, including a medical professional, who assisted a woman in accessing an abortion outside the law could still be prosecuted. Ms Antoniazzi has described it as a 'small change to the law but one that will have a huge impact on the lives of women', adding that it would protect women from prosecution while retaining the criminal law against abusive partners who end a woman's pregnancy without her consent. A second, rival amendment, put forward by Labour MP Stella Creasy, goes further still and would repeal swathes of legislation and make it a human right for a woman to have access to an abortion. The decision to select one or both amendments for a vote, expected on June 17 and 18, lies with Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle. However it is expected that Ms Antoniazzi's amendment would receive the backing of MPs after a leading pro-choice group yesterday came out against Ms Creasy's plan, warning it is being rushed through without enough scrutiny. Rachael Clarke, head of advocacy at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said Ms Creasy's amendment does not have the backing of abortion providers whereas Ms Antoniazzi's is supported by more than 50 pro-choice organisations. 'Abortion law is incredibly complex. It governs 250,000 women's healthcare every single year,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'Because of that, it is essential that any huge change to abortion law is properly considered. 'That means involvement with providers, medical bodies, regulators - and proper debate time in Parliament.' 'For us, unfortunately, although we truly believe that we need overwhelming and generational change for abortion law, Stella Creasy's amendment is not the right way to do it,' she added.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store