LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer must deliver for working people on “jobs, pay and conditions if he wins power,” Unite chief Sharon Graham warned today after the union’s members backed continued affiliation to the party.

The vote at Unite’s rules conference in Brighton came amid growing frustration at the increasingly right-wing direction of Labour under Sir Keir, who has largely abandoned the left-wing pledges he was elected on in 2020.

Had delegates endorsed a change of approach, it would have allowed the union – the party’s biggest donor – to donate to other parties or candidates.

Despite urging members to endorse continued affiliation, Ms Graham warned Jeremy Corbyn’s successor that there would be “no blank cheques” for Labour.

Addressing delegates in the Brighton Centre, she said: “This is the moment of maximum leverage for the union where we can hold Labour to account.

“Now cannot be the time to walk away – we would be weakening our own arm. It would be the worst time to leave the Labour Party when they are in touching distance of power. If we leave, we wouldn’t influence that power.”

The party holds an average lead in most national opinion polls of about 15 per cent over the scandal-hit Tories ahead of the next general election, likely in spring or autumn 2024.

Ms Graham, who threatened to reduce Unite’s Labour donations soon after she was elected general secretary in 2021, added: “Labour must be Labour and the union must push them to take different choices.

“We will not make the same mistakes of the past – there will be no blank cheques for Labour.”

The union also tweeted that Sir Keir, who is set to address Unite’s seventh biennial meet-up on Thursday, “must deliver on jobs, pay and conditions if he wins power.”

Unite’s Brighton branch chairman Damian McCarthy told the Morning Star: “Keir Starmer has demonstrated that he is not on the side of working people.

“He is a tool of the ruling class and we need to be clear on which side our union stands.”

The Holborn and St Pancras MP’s approach has already alienated many sections of the labour movement, leading members of the Bakers’ Union, which helped to create the party in 1900, to vote to disaffiliate in 2021.