THE President the UK's biggest union, Unison, has been expelled from the Labour party.
Andrea Egan, who was elected as Unison’s president in June 2022, said the move by the party was "devastating".
A leter sent to Egan on November 15 from the Labour party disputes team said that Egan's membership had been terminated because she shared two posts on social media from the Marxist group Socialist Appeal.
Last year, the Labour party condemned Socialist Appeal - a newspaper made up of Marxist members within the Labour party - as "not compatible with Labour's rules or our aims and values."
The organisation has since been officially banned from the party. However, Egan first shared one their posts before this ban was announced.
It related to the party's potential exile with the caption "who's next".
The second article she shared related directly to her own election as president of Unison and discussed the struggle by those on the left to transform the culture within the union.
“I’ve given over a decade to the Labour Party," Egan said.
“As the President of Unison, my message to our 1.3 million members has always been around unity. Now, what message can I give to members when they’ve kicked me out?”
“The Labour party and trade unions offer a place for working people to be united through. This move does nothing to support that.
“We need unity. There’s only one enemy at the moment, and that’s the Tory government. We should be unified in our fight against them.
“If the Labour party is so serious about fighting for working class people, why is it fighting working class people?”
The termination of her membership means that Egan will no longer be able to attend Labour Party meetings - leaving the president of the UK's biggest union in a difficult position.
Starmer's leadership continues to cause rifts with the trade union movement, particularly after he banned his own shadow ministers from attending picket lines during the summer unless they had express permission to do so.
Egan has said she intends to appeal the decision.
