Unite leadship election

Voting gets under way this month in the election for a leader of the massive general union, Unite.

One of the candidates who received sufficient nominations to run, assistant general secretary (AGS) Howard Beckett, has withdrawn from the race.

He has joined the campaign of Steve Turner, also an AGS. Both are left wingers, and Turner has agreed to take on some of Beckett’s policy ideas in return. Turner, who received the highest number of official nominations made by the deadline, will take on two opponents.

One is the union’s executive officer for organising and leverage, Sharon Graham, who came second in the nominations count and is also from the left of the union. The other is former regional secretary Gerard Coyne, who narrowly lost out to Len McCluskey in the last leadership contest and is seen as the right wing candidate.