Sharon Graham beats the drums of war

Sharon Graham, the head of Unite Union, was to beef-up military defence spending. This hawkish stance has not gone unrecognised.

Sending workers into the “meat grinder of war”

Sharon Graham made demands for a meatier military budget during a rally outside Westminster on 25 February – effectively panhandling for the government. She gave Labour a verbal slap on the wrist for slashing defence spending. In doing so, she overlooked budgetary constraints caused by protracted austerity. Thousands of defence and aerospace workers, fearful of more job cuts, gathered in support of Graham.

These comments have angered many of the left. They argue that feeding the war machine at home is an attack on the workers Sharon Graham supposedly represents.

Shabbir Lakha, from Stop the War, said that, like the Second International, Graham would rather feed workers into the “meat grinder of war.”

Shabbir Lakha, from Stop the War, said that like the Second International, Graham is feeding workers into the “meat grinder of war.”

Formed in 1889, the Second International was a coalition of international socialist groups, with the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) being the most prominent. After WWI erupted in 1914, SPD-aligned MPs voted for war. This was the beginning of the end for SPD. Might Sharon Graham treading a similar path?

Author Carlos Martinez called Sharon’s stance social chauvinism.

Selective sympathy

Other have pointed to Unite’s delayed opposition to British-Israel arms deals.

Unite, as reported by Red Pepper, only passed a motion against arms sales to Israel in 2025. The outlet added that it was no easy victory. It called it a “hard fought” battle. At the time, the New Socialist accused Sharon Graham of hiding behind “workers”. According to them, this was an “alibi” justifying her own inaction on Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the flow of weapons enabling it.

That same year, 2025, Graham was heard beating the same war drums, urging the UK to boost arms spending and not to acquiesce to Donald Trump.

Any thought of wooing Donald Trump by selling our defence jobs abroad and replacing the RAF fleet with US made F35s will be resisted and would be an act of self-harm.

There are other, seemingly easier ways to ward off Trump.

Jewish Voices for Liberation criticised Graham and Unite’s position, saying:

How is it possible for a supposedly left-wing trade union leader to ignore where that money is coming from – slashing the foreign aid budget which delivers a modicum of relief to people in poor countries – and how it will be spent – on lucrative contracts for merchants of death trading in weapons to be used in war and genocide?

British Trade Union Complicity

Unite has come under fire for learning the wrong lesson from history. They’ll wave the Ukrainian flag and call it internationalism, but when it comes to Palestine, suddenly the workers need to focus on “pay and conditions.”

Tom Gann, editor of New Socialist, has called Sharon Graham’s posturing national syndicalism. That is, a politics that wraps itself in the flag of workers while serving the interests of the imperial war machine.

This was echoed by a group of Unite members who wrote an open letter to Graham in 2023. They accused her of abandoning Palestinians amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Real solidarity with workers of the global proletariat would mean more than flag-waving and supporting the imperial war machine.

Featured image via the Canary