Left-winger claims victory over Jackson

Union activists took the extraordinary step last night of mounting a guard outside the Electoral Reform Society to prevent right-wingers tampering with ballot returns which showed a sensational victory for the left in one of Britain's biggest unions.

Left-wingers, who had exposed an attempt to rig nominations for the election, believed their rivals might make one last desperate attempt to keep Sir Ken Jackson in his post as general secretary of Amicus-AEEU, the engineering union.

After an initial count on Monday showed that Sir Ken, 65, had retained the leadership by a wafer-thin margin, three subsequent counts showed that Derek Simpson, an official in Derby, had won a narrow victory. A final check on the returns will be made today at the society's London headquarters, but right-wingers were conceding last night that Mr Simpson, a former Communist who has been a Labour Party member for the past 10 years, had won.

The likely defeat of the Prime Minister's most loyal union ally stunned both Downing Street and the Transport minister John Spellar, who had helped to mastermind Sir Ken's campaign.

Mr Simpson, 57, who lives in Sheffield, revealed he had a team of lawyers standing by in case he had to mount legal action. He said he had been on an "emotional roller-coaster" in the past few days to rival anything that had happened to him in his career. Mr Simpson left school in Sheffield at the age of 15 to become an apprentice in a local engineering firm and soon became involved in the union. He has a degree from the Open University in computing and mathematics. He has three children and has recently reunited with his wife after the couple divorced more than 20 years ago.

He said: "I want to see legislation to protect workers, jobs and pensions. We should be pressing the Government to do something about employment legislation because we have the worst laws in Europe.

"I am not suggesting that we blackmail Labour by threatening to cut funds, but we have a Labour government and we have the worst labour laws in Europe.

"I am not saying I will fall out with Blair or the Labour Party – but I am not going to be a blind supporter either. I am not a Blairite, but I am not anti-Blair."

Sir Ken has been advised by his closest colleagues that he will probably have to concede. If he mounted a legal challenge to the result a reballot could give Mr Simpson a much bigger victory.

Sir Ken's chances of victory were undermined when his supporters were found to have voted more than once during the nominating process which preceded the postal ballot.

Six officials in the union's south-east area are facing disciplinary action over the scam, revealed in The Independent, and one senior officer has resigned.

The first count gave 89,036 votes to Sir Ken compared with 88,229 for Mr Simpson, with a turn-out of just over 25 per cent. Mr Simpson's backers did not expect a recount to overturn an 807-vote majority, but three recounts all gave the left-winger a victory margin of about 300 votes.