Unite has overwhelming voted to re-examine its relationship with Labour and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has had her Unite membership suspended over her role in the Birmingham bin strike.
Labour Government condemned
The decision was taken following an emergency motion passed at the union’s policy conference in Brighton today that condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the Labour government for attacking the bin workers.
Birmingham council leader John Cotton and fellow Unite Birmingham councillors have also had their Unite membership suspended for their roles in effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up £8,000.
Rayner backed rogue council
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite is crystal clear it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette. Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Effective fire and rehire
The emergency condemned “Birmingham council for its threat to effectively fire and rehire, on pain of redundancy, the Unite Birmingham bin workers”. The Labour government is also condemned for its “support to the council and the commissioners, originally appointed by the Tories and maintained by Labour.”
It then commits the union if the redundancy process is forced through “Unite should discuss our relationship with Labour.”
Commissioners blocked deal
Birmingham’s government appointed commissioners, who, along with John Cotton, have never joined negotiations and have continually blocked deals to end the strike, answer directly to Angela Rayner.
Ms Rayner, Cotton and other the other Labour councillors have been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”. This will be followed by an investigation into their behaviour with a “view to expelling them from the union.”
In April, the secretary of state for local authorities toured Birmingham waste depots using strike breaking labour and insisted the strikers should accept a deal that would have seen their wages slashed.
The motion was voted on by 800 Unite delegates who represent sectors across the economy from automotive to the NHS.
Unite is the largest affiliated union to the Labour Party.
“Capitalism brings war, popular struggles build peace.” Solidarity action with workers at Paris airport, June 2025. Source: BDS France-Paris/Facebook
Worker-led actions to block military and dual-use cargo to Israel continue across Europe, defying government support for occupation and genocide.
A growing number of logistics and transport workers, along with trade unions across Europe, are taking action against military shipments to Israel as it continues its genocide in the Gaza Strip. One of the most recent examples is the refusal by airport workers in Paris, primarily organized by the trade unions SUD Aérien and CGT Roissy, to deal with military cargo destined for Israel.
“As workers in the aviation sector, we categorically refuse to participate, directly or indirectly, in logistical operations that could contribute to the crimes currently being committed in Gaza,” SUD Aérien stated.
French workers have also called for similar blockades in other locations, expressing their solidarity with Palestinians. “Refusing to transport military equipment to Israel is an act of resistance and dignity with the Palestinian people,” read a joint statement from rail, air, and transport unions in June. “We will not stay silent in the face of the collective punishment of an entire people.”
This is not the first time French transport workers have disrupted shipments to the Israeli occupation. Earlier in June, SUD Aérien called for a boycott of Elbit Systems cargo through the same Paris airport, while dockworkers in Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, refused to handle similar freight. Workers’ pressure has escalated to the point that leaders of major union confederations felt compelled to publicly urge the French government to act and prevent similar shipments.
However, prospects for action from President Emmanuel Macron remain slim, so trade unions are instead urging workers to take matters into their own hands by refusing to handle military or dual-use cargo. “No hierarchy, no contract, no silence can justify participation in acts that everyone knows to be unjust or inhumane,” SUD Aérien said. “We call on all workers, unionized or not, to refuse to load this cargo, to assert their right to conscience, and to refuse to be complicit in this policy of death.”
Similar appeals can be found circulating in Piraeus, the port of Athens, where dockworkers have organized several actions to prevent arms shipments. Their union ENEDEP is now calling for broader mobilization, including students, workers, and community groups, ahead of the expected passage of the ship Ever Golden, bound for Israel. According to ENEDEP, Ever Golden, scheduled to dock in Athens on Monday, July 14, is carrying military-grade steel which will be used in attacks on Palestinians. “This cargo will be used to continue the slaughter of civilians, the bombing of hospitals, schools, children, infants, and women,” the union wrote.
ENEDEP has urged the public to gather at the port Monday morning to demonstrate widespread opposition to Greece’s facilitation of arms transfers. “Our goal is to block the unloading and prevent the transfer of this deadly cargo,” they stated. “We will not stain our hands with blood, we will not become accomplices.”
Efforts to halt arms shipments to Israel are also ongoing in Sweden, Italy, and Britain, among others. In the United Kingdom, workers from various sectors had taken direct action against Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems through the group Palestine Action, recently proscribed by the Labour government. In Sweden, dockworkers previously voted for a full-scale embargo on military equipment to and from Israel.
In Italy, dockworkers in Genoa and the wider membership of the union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) have organized actions to obstruct military cargo – most recently at the airport in Brescia. During that mobilization, USB emphasized that workers continue to repudiate war and highlighted an ongoing campaign to support the right to strike in cases involving the handling of military material, as well as the right to conscientious objection in research institutions, universities, and schools.
Through all these actions, workers are making clear that they reject being made complicit in genocide by employers or governments. “Our job is not to transport war,” SUD Aérien stated, echoing the sentiment of other unions. “Our solidarity is with the oppressed, not with war criminals.”
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
NHS logo. Resident doctors in England will strike later this month after being offered a 5.4% pay rise, which the government say will not be revisited.
Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS, the new leader of the medical profession has said.
Strikes to ensure resident – formerly junior – doctors in England get the full 29% could drag on for years, according to Dr Tom Dolphin, the British Medical Association’s new council chair.
The doctors’ union will not negotiate on or accept a lower figure because that is the extent of the real-terms loss of earnings resident doctors have suffered since 2008, which they want restored – in full – Dolphin told the Guardian in his first interview since taking over last month.
The 29% demand is not up for negotiation “because it’s based on a principle”, said Dolphin, a consultant anaesthetist. “If we picked a different number, that wouldn’t achieve the pay restoration. So that’s why it looks inflexible.”
Dolphin blamed the five-day strike that tens of thousands of resident doctors plan to stage later this month on Wes Streeting, the health secretary, giving them a 22% pay rise over two years last year but not following it up with an award this year to take account of the 29% claim. He said the disruption that the 120-hour walkout would cause was his fault, not theirs.
The government has announced its strategy for “giving every child the best start in life”, laying out proposals covering early years care, education and support in England.
The strategy builds on the current local family hub model of services, which offer a range of support aimed at babies and young children. Best Start family hubs will further bring together early years and family services in a similar way to the previous Sure Start programme. The government’s commitment includes £1.5 billion in investment to implement these reforms.
The Best Start Hubs will be a one-stop shop to support families with their child’s early development, from breastfeeding advice to speech and language support and stay and play sessions. The hubs will also support families with wider challenges such as housing and benefits, and provide courses for parents.
The attempt to bring services together to deliver local, holistic support to families is understandable given the impact of the original Sure Start initiative, introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government.
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The Sure Start Local Programmes that were established from 1999 onwards had a significant positive effect on those families who had access to them. From 2010, though, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came into power, funding was cut and many Sure Start centres closed.
In May 2025 the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a summary report on the short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s lives.
They found that the impact of the Sure Start services for under-fives was remarkably long-lasting, with improvements during their teenage years in educational attainment and behaviour in school, and reductions in hospital admissions. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that these long-term benefits significantly outweigh the cost of the Sure Start programme.
Like Sure Start, the Best Start strategy has the potential to be transformational for young children and their families.
However, the current range of challenges faced by families and the depth of child poverty in the country will make bringing about this transformation challenging. A 2023 report from charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that there are one million children growing up destitute in the UK, without the means to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.
The challenge of poverty
The day after the Best Start strategy was launched, the children’s commissioner for England published a research report on children’s experience of growing up in a low-income family. Based on interviews with 128 children, the report outlines the “almost-Dickensian” levels of poverty experienced by children whose basic needs are not being met. Children described poor housing conditions, mouldy food and lack of hot water.
The significant impact that poverty has on children’s educational attainment, health and future lives will be difficult for the benefits that the Best Start programme may provide to negate.
I have witnessed these financial challenges and the wider range of issues families are dealing with on a daily basis in my own role as the director of the Early Years Community Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, and through my wider research with families.
In March 2024 I was part of a team of researchers who were commissioned by the Ministry for Housing, Community and Local Government to explore how multiple insecurities, such as financial difficulties, health problems, precarious work, poor housing and lack of support networks affected people’s lives.
Parents described the difficulties of making ends meet. They talked about having to deal with many different national and local agencies, the stress this created within their family and the toll on their health and wellbeing.
Even working full-time did not necessarily make families more secure. In one family, the working pattern the parents had to adopt to make ends meet meant that they only had one day a fortnight to be together.
We have to do stupid hours. I mean my partner, she works nights. I work mainly days … we’re kind of like passing ships in the night.
The places these families turned to were local community centres run by a range of organisations. The common themes about why they accessed these centres were the warm, welcoming, non-judgemental approach taken by staff, trusting relationships with staff and the range of services and support that were offered.
This bodes well for the Best Start strategy – if it is able to deliver the full range of services the government has outlined in a local trusted space. However, this will be a significant challenge in communities that have lacked support over recent years, are suffering the hardships of poverty and that may have lost trust in government services.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
New government statistics released today show the reach of the two-child limit. There are 1,665,540 children in England, Scotland and Wales living in households affected by the two-child limit, an increase of over 35,000 from the same time in 2024.
The two-child limit restricts means-tested child benefits to the first two children in a household, subject to some exceptions.
Its sister policy, the benefit cap, affects over 115,000 households, including 300,000 children. It routinely pushes families into deep poverty, far below the standard poverty line of 60% of median income.
The benefit cap places a limit on the total amount a household can receive if no-one in the household earns a minimum amount, again subject to some exceptions linked to receipt of disability benefits.
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Over the past five years, we have been part of a team of academic researchers investigating the impact of both policies on families with three or more children. We’ve found that these policies drive up poverty, creating deprivation and hardship. This in turn causes sustained and severe harm to children and their families.
The two-child limit and benefit cap leave many families living with extreme financial insecurity. They harm parental mental health, as mothers and fathers struggle to try and make an inadequate income stretch to meet the needs of their children.
In addition, these policies do not fall evenly across the population when looking at ethnicity. Overall, 70% of the families affected by the two-child limit are white, as are 66% affected by the benefit cap. But our new analysis shows that children from an ethnic minority are up to three times as likely as white children to be affected by the two-child limit. They are also up to four times as likely to be affected by the benefit cap.
Alongside administrative statistics, we have analysed household survey data, published today as a policy brief. We find that one in five children from Pakistani families and one in four children from Bangladeshi families are now affected by the two-child limit.
Rising poverty
Our analysis also indicates that these policies are contributing to very high and rising levels of poverty. We estimate that 66% of Bangladeshi children, 60% of Pakistani children, and nearly half (48%) of black children live in poverty. This compares to one in four (24%) white children living below the poverty line – still far too many.
This new analysis provides us with better understanding of where the damage done by both policies is falling. It’s an important reminder of how the two-child limit and benefit cap directly conflict with ambitions not only to act on child poverty, but also to reduce systematic inequalities linked to ethnicity.
Scrapping the two-child limit would give larger families access to benefits they currently miss out on – but it would not have any effect on smaller families living in poverty, so isn’t the only policy solution needed.
Nonetheless, analysis by the Resolution Foundation has shown that getting rid of the two-child limit – which would cost £1.4 billion – is by far the most cost-effective way to reduce the number of children living in poverty. Spending £1.4 billion in other ways – for example by increasing benefits for all families – would make less difference to child poverty than if the two-child limit were ended.
It’s also important to keep in mind the impact on the depth of poverty. Larger families tend to be living further below the poverty line. Scrapping the two-child limit will make a big difference in many households, even if they are not lifted out of poverty as a result.
Labour came into government on a manifesto of “change”, and Keir Starmer has promised to be “laser-focused” in his commitment to drive down poverty.
Labour have already said that they want to get rid of the two-child limit, arguing that they just need to find the money to do so. The government has established a child poverty taskforce, due to report in the autumn, and made a first concrete policy commitment with the extension of free school meals provision for families in England. But there is no alternative to serious action on social security benefits if significant progress is to be made.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
