Len McCluskey’s fierce attack on the “Blairites” in the shadow cabinet in my interview with him for the NS has been met with a no less fierce response from Ed Miliband. In his most significant criticism of the Unite general secretary since becoming leader, Miliband has denounced McCluskey’s remarks as “reprehensible” and “disloyal”. A spokesperson for the Labour leader said:
Len McCluskey does not speak for the Labour Party. This attempt to divide the Labour Party is reprehensible. It is the kind of politics that lost Labour many elections in the 1980s. It won’t work, it is wrong, it is disloyal to the party he claims to represent.
McCluskey, whose union helped secure the Labour leadership for Miliband in 2010, told me that Miliband would be “defeated” and “cast into the dustbin of history” if he was “seduced” by “the Jim Murphys and the Douglas Alexanders”. Of Liam Byrne, the shadow and work pensions secretary, he said: “Liam Byrne certainly doesn’t reflect the views of my members and of our union’s policy, I think some of the terminology that he uses is regrettable and I think it will damage Labour. Ed’s got to figure out what his team will be.”
One of the three shadow cabinet ministers singled out for criticism by McCluskey – Jim Murphy – has now responded on Twitter. “It’s disappointing in advance of important local elections that Len McCluskey turns his fire on Labour,” he said.
It’s disappointing in advance of important local elections that Len McCluskey turns his fire on Labour. tinyurl.com/d5c9qkq
— Jim Murphy (@jimmurphymp) April 24, 2013
Miliband’s decision to distance himself so swiftly and explicitly from the Unite head will come as a relief to those in the party who feel that he has often been too tolerant of McCluskey’s regular attacks on the party’s Blairite wing and the Progress group in particular. But Unite’s status as Labour’s largest donor (it was responsible for 28 per cent of donations to the party last year and has given £8.4m to Labour since Miliband became leader) means he won’t be able to dismiss McCluskey as easily as many would like.
The politics of the intervention, though, could yet work to his advantage. By rejecting Blair one week (another NS exclusive) and McCluskey the next, he has positioned himself as the reasonable moderate, holding the centre between the New Labour diehards and the union militants.
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