It is “inevitable” that Sir Keir Starmer will be replaced as Labour leader, the leader of the party’s biggest trade union donor has said in a warning to the prime minister’s would-be successors.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, writes in The Times that the government risks “sowing the seeds of its own destruction” if Starmer’s successor in Downing Street does not “depart from its current path”.
Denouncing Labour’s agenda as “rudderless” and “austerity lite”, she urges ministers to increase borrowing for investment, introduce a wealth tax, ditch its net zero policies and use increased defence budgets to buy more weapons from British arms manufacturers.
• Sharon Graham: Workers are paying the price for Labour’s failures
In a warning to potential leadership candidates, Graham — the only union leader not to endorse Labour’s election-winning manifesto — says the next prime minister cannot expect support from Unite members without suchchanges.
She writes: “It cannot just be a question of changing the leader or improving the sales pitch. There is much agonising right now about whether, when and who should replace the prime minister. That is inevitable.
“But a new Labour leader with the same policies won’t cut it. Replacing Keir with Angela [Rayner, the former deputy prime minister], Andy [Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester], Wes [Streeting, the health secretary] or Ed [Miliband, the energy secretary] won’t persuade workers to return to the fold if they are just offering more of the same in a different voice.”
Graham’s terminal diagnosis of Starmer’s “failing leadership” and refusal to back any of the possible candidates to replace him is another sign of deteriorating relations between Unite and the Labour Party.
Angela Rayner is among those tipped to succeed Sir Keir Starmer
CAMERON SMITH/GETTY IMAGES
The union, which is the country’s second-largest by membership, was Labour’s biggest donor in 2025, but is increasingly estranged from the party and openly critical of ministers.
Unite was, until earlier this month, an outlier among the country’s big trade unions in its outright hostility to Starmer.
However, the election of Andrea Egan, a leftwinger and Starmer critic, to lead Unison, Britain’s largest union, suggests 2026 could be defined by confrontation between Starmer, his successor and the most powerful leaders in the labour movement.
Graham has previously refused to rule out the possibility of Unite voting to end its affiliation to Labour at a special conference to be held as soon as next year.
The union also declined to exercise its right to nominate either of the candidates in this year’s deputy Labour leadership election.
Graham’s latest intervention suggests a change of leader is unlikely to repair relations and that any candidate for prime minister who seeks her support would have to propose near-wholesale changes to government policy.
Graham writes: “The government needs to decide what it stands for and who it stands for. If we have to ask, it is not working.
“The party faithful can agonise about its failing leadership and a ‘night of the long knives’. But a new Labour leadership with the same policies simply won’t cut it. The doom loop cannot be broken with more austerity lite, no matter who is in Downing Street.”
She goes on to liken Miliband’s net zero agenda to economic “self-harm” and accuses him of leading a “jobless transition” away from fossil fuels.
Criticising last month’s budget, she adds: “Opting for stealth taxes on workers instead of a wealth tax on the mega-rich was the wrong choice.”
Neal Lawson, chair of the centre-left campaign group Compass, said he agreed Labour was in “existential crisis” but backed Burnham to turn the party’s prosects around.
He told Times Radio: “I think the Labour Party should be doing everything it possibly can to get the person with the popularity, the programme and the plan into parliament because otherwise it’s not some benign, you know, One Nation Tory that’s going to be governing this country.
“It’s going to be Nigel Farage. So I think this is existential. So therefore people should be doing everything they can to get the one politician in the country who all the opinion polls show can beat Nigel Farage.”