Centre Left Gains with Unite Union Leader

Sharon Graham has been elected the new Secretary General of the United Kingdom's second largest trade union, Unite, which was formed from the merger of the old Transport and General Workers Union with several other organisations. She was elected on a broad left wing manifesto which was hailed by campaigners in the Scottish Socialist Party, which had backed her candidacy as “ the most likely to build and organise the union industrially as workers face a brutal offensive from the bosses and their Tory government”. Ms Graham's pledges included building a diverse union that would protect the rights of all minority groups with whom it worked.