Sharon Graham has said that the chancellor should reconsider her position if the defence investment plan isn’t published soon
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, has said that Rachel Reeves must “wake up” and back investment in British industry, or stand down as chancellor.
Graham’s comments come as the government’s multi-billion-pound Defence Investment Plan, originally due to be published last December, still hasn’t been released.
Earlier this month, Keir Starmer set out his ambition to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by next year in a speech at the Munich Security Conference.
The Unite leader said that, based on her conversations with figures in government, it was clear the Treasury had blocked the defence plan.
“You can’t have a situation where the Treasury is effectively sticking the blockers on anything that is about building Britain and rebuilding Britain,” Graham told Left Foot Forward.
She added: “I think if she [Rachel Reeves] doesn’t catch on, wake up and smell the coffee and start putting money behind British industry, then I think she does need to go.”
Graham also noted that “This is not the first time that the treasury has blocked investment.”
She accused the Treasury of reducing its vision for Britain to what she described as a “bean-counting” exercise, and said that the government should drop its “self-imposed” fiscal rules to invest in the country, and defence.
While the defence industry waits for the government’s investment plan to be published, Unite says thousands of jobs are at risk.
At the Leonardo helicopter factory in Yeovil, Somerset, 3,000 jobs could be lost if the Ministry of Defence continues to delay awarding the company a contract. Leonardo is the sole bidder for a £1 billion manufacturing contract.
Unite is also campaigning for the RAF to replace its old fighter jets with new Typhoons, fitted with Rolls Royce engines, equipped with British-built weapons and assembled at BAE’s sites in Lancashire.
The government will also need to commission new military communications satellites, Graham said, arguing that the question is whether such projects are delivered in the UK or abroad.
Graham told Left Foot Forward: “These are all things that will need to happen. They’re either going to be made here, or somewhere else. If they’re going to be made somewhere else, it strikes me as a policy of ‘we don’t care where things are made’.”
The Unite boss said that if Labour fails to invest in British industry, “Reform will take their clothes where they see an absolute vacuum.”
Graham said that Labour’s job “is to be the voice of workers and communities”.
She urged the government to “do what it says on the tin and stop being embarrassed about being Labour”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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