Labour Leader Sir Keir Stamer blasted Unite boss Sharon Graham today and warned he won't be "influenced by threats" from the union to cut funding.
The General Secretary of the UK's most powerful trade union has demanded the party leader back bin workers on strike in Coventry over a pay dispute with the Labour-run council.
The union pays £1m in affiliation fees to Labour, but has cutback funding already and Ms Graham has warned she could go further.
She said: “Let me be very clear – the remaining financial support of the Labour Party is now under review.
“Your behaviour and mistreatment of our members will not be accepted. It’s time to act like Labour, be the party for workers.”
But Sir Keir warned the union that he is "not going to be challenged" and the party will not be "threatened by anyone".
He told the BBC : "The Labour Party I lead is not going to be influenced by threats from anybody, whoever they are. And that's just an absolute matter of principle for me.
"So this is very, very straightforward. It's not about the you know, the particulars of a dispute here or dispute there. I am not prepared for the Labour Party I lead to be threatened by anyone. Period, full stop."
Asked if he would be happy for Unite to desert the party, he said: "I'm not going to have the Labour Party I lead threatened by anybody and that's the long and the short of it.
"The merits of individual disputes, I'll debate all day, uphill and down dale, but I'm not going to be challenged. We're not going to be influenced by those who say, you know, we'll only provide money if you do X. No."
She has said: “The Coventry Labour council has time and again totally misrepresented the union’s claims for its bin drivers. It should be ashamed of the spin it has tried to make about its own workers’ pay rates.
“These dreadful misrepresentations are deliberately designed to enrage the general public which directly risks the welfare of workers who are taking part in an entirely legal dispute, and this, a Labour council.
“Other councils up and down the UK have increased pay rates for refuse collection drivers to preserve services due to the HGV driver shortages.
“If other councils can increase pay rates to preserve services and prevent an exodus of drivers, there is absolutely no reason why Coventry council can’t do the same.”
Ms Graham, who took over after Len McCluskey stood down last year, said on Wednesday that both regional and national funding for Labour from Unite will now be under review.
She urged Labour to “pick up the phone and get this sorted”, saying: “It’s utterly disgusting that this council is putting workers through this misery.
“If we have to escalate, we will escalate and I personally will be getting involved.
“If we have to go door to door to tell the truth about this dispute, we will do.
“Our wallet is closed to bad employers.”
Sir Keir also insisted Labour had "changed massively" since Jeremy Corbyn stood down and that "for every critical voice" across the Labour Party and labour movement there were "hundreds of supportive voices".
He said: "My first task was to change the Labour Party we lost very badly in 2019.
"And what I'm concerned is not so much what our members think but what the public think because it's the public that we need to persuade to vote for us.
"But I can tell you this, that for every critical voice in the Labour Party, there are hundreds of supportive voices because members of the Labour Party are in the Labour Party, because they want to see a Labour government. And that's what I'm focused on. That's what they're focused on.
"And that's, you know, what we're putting all our energy and all our commitment into facing up to the next general election facing the public, not looking inwards and having the discussion in the Labour Party."
