Is Sharon Graham the Unite leader Keir Starmer would’ve wanted?

While the Labour leader is said to have privately favoured the centrist candidate Gerard Coyne, Starmer can expect a much better relationship with Sharon Graham than he had with her predecessor, writes Andrew Grice

Sir Keir may be content with Ms Graham’s victory over Steve Turner (PA)

Sharon Graham’s surprise victory in the race to succeed Len McCluskey as general secretary of the Unite union was probably not the outcome Keir Starmer most desired.

Although he kept out of the contest to lead the party’s biggest union funder, Sir Keir is believed to have favoured the centrist candidate Gerard Coyne, who promised a clean break with the McCluskey era by keeping the 1.2 million-strong union’s nose out of Labour’s affairs.

But Ms Graham becoming Unite’s first female leader is much better than the result Team Starmer privately feared – the election of left-winger Steve Turner, who was McCluskey’s favoured successor. Mr Turner came second and Mr Coyne third.

Although she is also on the left, Ms Graham promised during her campaign to put more emphasis on the workplace and far less on Westminster politics. Her pledge after her victory to “put our members and our workplaces first” will find common ground with Labour. Angela Rayner, the party’s deputy leader, and Andy McDonald, the shadow employment rights secretary, are making “unfair” and “insecure” working practices a key dividing line with the Tories and proposing stronger union rights. One Labour insider said: “This is one area where Keir Starmer is sticking to the Corbyn agenda.”

Ms Graham will be her own woman and not in hock to the McCluskey camp, which tried but failed to persuade her not to run for the job. Friends say she has little interest in Labour’s internal manoeuvrings. As she put it on Wednesday: “I am not a member of any Unite or Labour faction – other than my own supporters group. Unite members at the workplace want real change, not a settling of old scores or a Westminster rematch.”

For the Labour leader, this would be a welcome change from Mr McCluskey’s tenure: a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, he clashed with Sir Keir over Labour’s stance on Brexit, opposing the then shadow Brexit secretary’s proposal for a Final Say referendum.

Ms Graham does not want to put an emphasis on Westminster politics (PA)

However, the Labour leader will not be able to take Ms Graham’s support for granted and Unite, which donated £3m to the party before the 2019 election, will remain an influential member of the Labour family.

While Ms Graham did not threaten to withhold Unite money from Labour in order to get its way – a card often played by Mr McCluskey – she has warned previously she would not give the party “a blank cheque”. Labour and Unite might soon cross swords over the party’s plan to cut about 90 jobs, a quarter of its staff.

Ms Graham has a reputation for bringing what she calls “leverage” to bear on employers during industrial disputes. Sir Keir will be hoping she rarely feels the need to use Unite’s leverage against him.