What Andrea Egan’s Shock Unison Win Means For Labour And Beyond
Keir Starmer, September 2025 (Credit: Gary Roberts photography / Alamy Live News)
6 min read
Keir Starmer’s most reliable ally among trade union leaders, Christina McAnea, is being ousted as Unison general secretary after a single term following a historic result.
Andrea Egan, a flame-haired social worker from Bolton, has become the first lay member of Unison to be elected to lead it. Although she has no experience as a paid union official, having only served as a branch secretary and in the ceremonial role of president, she won an impressive 60 per cent of the vote – a much bigger margin than expected.
The very low turnout of seven per cent among members is notable. This is the lowest ever in a Unison general secretary race, though not hugely different from the 2021 contest when it was just below 10 per cent. As a union source notes, however, “the difference between seven and 10 in a union that big is important”.
This offers little comfort to the present Unison leadership and No 10, who had assumed – or hoped – that the usual incumbency advantage would carry McAnea through.
In reality, under Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party, the Unison membership vote has swung significantly to the left. (If you combined the votes for candidates running to McAnea’s left at her inaugural election five years ago, they came up to 52 per cent – eight points lower than today.)
Much like the election of Lucy Powell as deputy leader, these two things are widely believed to be connected, as members dissatisfied with the government punished Unison’s chief for being perceived as close to No 10. And like Powell’s victory, Egan’s could be a catalyst for other union leaders – encouraging them to be, at the minimum, more vocal in their criticisms of the Starmer government.
The entire Labour movement is now discussing the repercussions of this seismic change. First, the question that interests Westminster most: how does it affect Starmer’s leadership prospects?
Egan is a strong critic of his government and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Hailing from Greater Manchester, she is a fan of Andy Burnham and told The House she would favour him for the leadership: “I mean, he’s the King of the North!”. She is less keen on Angela Rayner – “I can’t say that I’m an Angie fan” – but doesn’t believe the stamp duty scandal that forced her to resign from cabinet should prevent her from standing. Health Secretary Wes Streeting gets no love from her, of course; she says he is privatising the NHS.
To have the general secretary of Britain’s largest union be an openly critical figure who is happy to engage in leadership speculation is obviously unhelpful for the Prime Minister. She will get airtime and make headlines.
It is a complicated picture, however: from 2021 to earlier this year, Unison had a ‘left’ national executive council and a ‘right’ general secretary (in trade union terms), but it now has the reverse. Egan does not have a majority on the NEC or Labour Link committee – responsible for Unison’s relationships with the Labour Party – which will limit her powers to change the financial and political link. Egan allies are also angry that a job advert for an assistant general secretary (chief operating officer) went up during the election, possibly putting further constraints on her powers.
Egan has pledged to review Unison’s Labour affiliation. The union is one step closer to breaking the historic tie, but this would still be a tall order: Unison has a unique set-up, which means the Labour Link committee would essentially have to vote itself out of existence, or a conference rule change would have to be passed with a super-majority. In her interview with The House, McAnea accused Egan of “selling people a pup” with this promise. “The whole thing will be incredibly difficult” due to the power of the union’s bureaucracy, a left-wing union source admitted today.
There is some anxiety among the other Labour-affiliated unions over a potential domino effect, however. The GMB will elect a general secretary in May: incumbent Gary Smith is expected to run again, though he has not yet announced either way; supporters hope he will be able to win unopposed, but some now worry that Egan could inspire copycats. “If I were an ambitious regional secretary, I would now think: ‘I’m going to try being spikier against Keir and see how it lands in the union’,” one union source said.
As the new chair of Tulo, the group of Labour-affiliated union leaders, Usdaw’s Joanne Thomas is thought to be doing a good job of building bridges, including with new FBU chief Steve Wright, and taking a “critical friend” approach to the party. But many of the Labour unions are now led by new general secretaries, with new political officers (the old ones became MPs or left), which introduces more precarity that could feed through to Labour’s own ruling body.
With smaller unions – the FBU, Aslef and CWU – holding their own conferences within days of each other in May, more disaffiliation motions could well be heard. “Our base has said over and over they don’t like what we’re doing – and we keep ignoring it. Will there now be a house of cards moment?” the same source asked. “This could be existential for the union-Labour link generally.”
While Westminster likes to look at union activity through the prism of Labour politics, there will also be industrial consequences of Egan’s election. She told The House she would pursue a more active industrial strategy, getting rid of the “nervousness” she saw in Unison in recent years when it ran ballots of national significance that ended in negotiated deals rather than strike action.
This could lead to more strikes in health, social care and local government – particularly if the government follows through on its promise to remove the 50 per cent turnout requirement for ballots on industrial action, which McAnea said would be introduced via secondary legislation or a statutory instrument next year.
Labour and union sources have wondered aloud whether Egan is more of a Dave Ward, a Maryam Eslamdoust, or a Sharon Graham. This reference to the CWU, TSSA and Unite leaderships, respectively, goes to the heart of the possible consequences: how effective Egan will be as general secretary; and whether she will prioritise radical industrialism while disengaging Unison from Labour politics, as Graham has done at Unite, or muck in to strengthen the party’s left.
To what extent will Egan’s ally John McDonnell be involved? Who will she bring in as her operators? She will need a strong team around her to effect the cultural, political and industrial change promised.
