No denial from new official appointed by Graham without exec interview

Unite’s new ‘chief of staff’ has been accused by party insiders in London of threatening the union’s London regional secretary with the loss of a discretionary pension bonus if he did not pull back from his support for Palestinians in Gaza against Israel’s genocide.

Sarah Carpenter – who sources say was appointed by general secretary Sharon Graham without the position being advertised and without the approval of Unite’s elected executive, to their and members’ fury – has been accused of making the threat to regional secretary Peter Kavanagh.

Ms Carpenter,

According to Unite sources, you threatened Pete Kavanagh with the loss of his pension bonus if he didn’t back off from his support of Gaza… The sources say that you did this at the behest of Sharon Graham.

If you have any comment or denial to make in respect of this, please provide it no later than 2pm, Weds 6 March. They also say that the position you now hold was not advertised for applications. Is this correct?

Twenty-two hours after the press deadline, no response has been received.

Sarah Carpenter was accused last year – as Southern regional secretary – by members of banning showings of the film ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’, which exposes the sabotage of Corbyn’s Labour by the party’s hard right and the use of antisemitism smears as part of the sabotage campaign. Pro-Israel lobby group CAA claimed credit for her decision and Sharon Graham’s wider move to ban showings of the film and readings of Asa Winstanley’s book ‘Weaponising Antisemitism/How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn’.

As well as the ban of the book and film from all Unite buildings, Graham was accused of trying to force the cancellation of a pro-Palestine fringe meeting at Labour’s conference last October. The bid failed when the event’s organiser, international director Simon Dubbins, told Graham’s proxies that she’d have to come and tell him herself if she wanted the event off. Unite has now placed Dubbins under investigation.

Graham has also been condemned by Unite members for her public silence over the Gaza slaughter. Members are planning to picket the union executive’s next meeting, which takes place next week.

One Unite source told Skwawkbox of the anger of elected executive members over the latest move:

Pete Kavanagh the Regional Secretary was called up and threatened by Sharon’s new hatchet woman Sarah Carpenter that he backs off supporting Palestine or they would take away his retirement bonus. Pete is due to retire and apparently there is some leavers bonus that is discretionary.

The chief of staff post was not advertised nor was the job interviewed by Executive council. Members are furious.

Unite operates ‘discretionary enhanced pension’ scheme that allows staff to retire five years early without losing pension entitlement they would have had if they worked until full retirement age. A proposal was floated by Graham in 2022 to end this scheme and force staff to work until sixty-five for their full pension and consulted on the change in early 2023, but this does not appear to have been enacted, at least yet, and entitlement under this scheme seems to be what was referred to in the alleged threat.

Kavanagh retired last month.

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