UNISON General Secretary election - the game is afoot!

 As a gentleman of leisure (now that I am a retired UNISON member) I have the opportunity to sit back and watch the current General Secretary campaign unfolding from the sidelines. Following the departure of Margaret Greer from the race, there are four candidates currently chasing nominations – Assistant General Secretaries, Christine McAnea and Roger McKenzie, Kirklees UNISON Branch Secretary (and National Executive Council (NEC) member, Paul Holmes and Camden UNISON Education Convenor – and NEC member – Hugo Pierre.

Christina McAnea is – according to her campaign Facebook page (which has 366 likes) – pulling in various health branch nominations, as well as endorsements from a variety of senior members of the NEC formerly associated with support for Dave Prentis. Her support base is the clearest evidence any informed insider could see that her candidacy represents continuity with the Prentis era. Depending upon how much of the machinery of “Team Dave” is now “Team Christina” she may or may not be front runner at this stage, notwithstanding the relatively unimpressive evidence of support online. Christina will benefit from support from all those who feel that it is past time that UNISON had a female General Secretary.

 

Elsewhere on Facebook you learn that Roger McKenzie (whose page has 1,363 likes) has branch nominations across a range of service groups (including some health branches). He also has the support of some NEC members previously in the Prentis camp, as well as left-wing activists (such as my friend and comrade, Chair of the National Joint Council Committee, Sean Fox) and – most notably – of numerous UNISON members who are left-wing Labour MPs (including former Leader, Jeremy Corbyn). Roger’s campaign has an impressive profile and has got off to a strong start, but whether the breadth of his support across the Union matches the depth of support for Christina McAnea in the health service remains to be seen.

 

Meanwhile, rank and file left-wing challenge, Paul Holmes, (whose page has 810 “likes”) has picked up the endorsement of UNISON member, John McDonnell MP as well as nominations from numerous large and influential local government branches. Paul can also probably count upon the support of a number of NEC members sufficient to put him almost within striking distance of the NEC nomination (depending upon how former Prentis supporters on that body split between McAnea and McKenzie) and has the support of Glen Williams, who – as elected Chair of the Local Government Service Group (the largest Service Group) and Convenor of the North West Region (the largest Region) – is arguably the most senior and influential lay member in the Union.

 

The spoiler candidacy (as I consider it) of Hugo Pierre (whose page has 488 “likes”) boasts only a few branch nominations at this stage – but that certainly does not mean that Hugo will not pick up the 25 branch nominations necessary to make it onto the ballot paper, in which case the campaigning zeal of Socialist Party members (as evidenced in previous elections) may well enable him to achieve a tally of votes out of proportion to what is likely to be a relatively unimpressive number of nominations compared to other contenders.

 

It is – as yet – relatively early days to make an assessment of the relative strengths of the different campaigns, and it is in any case difficult to do so before the votes are cast, since the evidence which is (or will become) available (including online “likes”, individual endorsements and even nominations from branches, Regions, Service Groups – even the NEC) does not bear any simple relationship to the how members will vote when they receive their ballot papers. I have previously blogged about the results of past elections, and the lessons which can be drawn from those. There are obviously marked differences between those elections and this one, but that doesn’t mean that the evidence of the past is irrelevant.

 

For what it is worth, I still think that – if the Socialist Party can get Hugo Pierre on to the ballot paper they will drain sufficient votes from Paul Holmes to scupper Paul’s ambitious plans for UNISON (and to set back rank and file organisation in the Union by many years). In that case I think that the balance of the argument will very much favour socialists supporting Roger McKenzie, as the candidate who can win and deliver change (even if not all the change rank and file socialist activists would want).

 

If, however, the Socialist Party’s sectarian adventure falters then much depends upon how the relative strengths of the candidates appear going into the voting stage. Only if Christina McAnea emerges in a most unlikely third place does the danger that supporters of Roger McKenzie and Paul Holmes, through enthusiastic support for their favoured candidate, may ensure the election of the continuity candidate diminish.

 

In these circumstances, some dialogue between Roger and Paul would be the least that each of them would owe to UNISON members who want and need a more effective trade union.

 

For now, all anyone can do is campaign for nominations for the candidate they most support, and watch and wait.