Serious Fraud Office probe £112m Unite hotel

Unite hotel and conference centre — Image caption,
The complex houses Unite's regional HQ, a 170-bed hotel and 1,000-person conference centre

Joe Pike

Political Investigations Correspondent

21 October 2024

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating the construction of a hotel and conference centre owned by one of the UK’s biggest trade unions, the BBC can reveal.

Unite the Union spent a total of £112m of its members’ money on the project in Birmingham.

The building has since been valued at just £29m, suggesting £83m has been wasted.

A KC-led inquiry commissioned by Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham also identified a missing £14m which has been described as a “mystery” and does not feature in the project’s final accounts.

Unite has told the BBC the case is “now with the Serious Fraud Office” and Ms Graham, who took over as Unite general secretary in 2021, would “leave no stone unturned in finding out if there was any financial wrongdoing”.

An SFO spokesperson said: “In line with long established practice to avoid prejudice to law enforcement activity, we can neither confirm nor deny any investigation into this matter."

Len McCluskey, Sharon Graham’s predecessor as general secretary, had championed the project and said in 2021 that it was “a fantastic investment”.

He later tweeted the internal inquiry was “sensible and will answer any questions”.

A lawyer for Mr McCluskey has told the BBC that due to the ongoing investigation it would be inappropriate for him to comment.

The Birmingham project was intended to be an investment for Unite as well as saving the union money with hotel and conference costs.

Construction was completed in 2020 and development includes the four-star, 195-bedroom Aloft Birmingham Eastside hotel and a 1,000-person capacity conference centre, as well as Unite’s regional offices.

Employment tribunal documents reveal the union believes its ruling executive council had been misled as to the true value of the project.

In 2022 South Wales Police searched the union’s London headquarters as part of a separate bribery, money-laundering and fraud investigation.

The force has told the BBC that the investigation is ongoing.

A Unite spokesperson said: “It is important to note that Sharon Graham has had to endure repeated attacks by those with much to lose since she launched these inquiries, from both inside and outside the union.

"These have been sickening and horrendous but she has remained determined to get to the truth.

“We are also pursuing legal claims to recover money lost to the union and the general secretary has put safeguards in place to ensure that such things can never happen again.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5z54236wgo

FT https://www.ft.com/content/e6008595-f30a-4e18-b337-a04245849c47

Senior Unite official loses unfair dismissal claim

Senior Unite official loses unfair dismissal claim at tribunal

Howard Beckett resigned from the union in 2022 during an investigation into bribery, fraud and money laundering

Fiona Hamilton, Chief Reporter

Monday October 21 2024, 12.01am, The Times

Howard Beckett called the claims against him baseless and invented but the tribunal rejected this assertion
AARON CHOWN/PA

A former senior official at Unite has lost his unfair dismissal claim after concerns were raised about the probity of contracts and he was accused of “misleading” the executive about an over-budget construction project.

Beckett was placed under investigation by Unite in April 2022 following a raid of its London headquarters by police investigating allegations of bribery, fraud and money laundering at the country’s largest trade union. Beckett’s flat in London and home on the Wirral were also searched, the employment tribunal’s judgment stated.

The Times ( https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/senior-unite-official-loses-unfair-dismissal-claim-at-tribunal-stcc8n8hl )

BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxdlne5wlwo

First they came for the Socialists..

An excellent article published by Jewish Voice for Labour today:

Diane Pearson

Diane Pearson, long-time Labour activist, received an email from the Governance and Legal Unit of the Labour Party alleging that she had committed “a prohibited act” viz: “Possessing membership of, providing financial assistance to, sitting on the ruling body of or otherwise supporting (as may be defined by the NEC) any political organisation that the NEC in its absolute discretion shall declare to be inimical with the aims and values of the Party.”

Various left organisations were banned in July 2021 under this clause and association with them made retrospective i.e. you are equally guilty for having liked a tweet from one of these organisations years before it was banned as you are from being a leading and active member – leaving aside the dubious reasons given for banning such organisations in the first place.

Diane Pearson is (or rather was) an active member of Keir Starmer’s constituency party, Holborn and St Pancras. On 7th July she received a formal notice of “Termination of Membership of the Labour Party”.

We repost below her heartfelt letter to her MP expressing her feelings about the Party and its leader.

Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2023 at 15:28
Subject: Expulsion from the party
To: Keir Starmer <keir.starmer.mp@parliament.uk>, Keir Starmer QC MP <keir.starmer.constituency@parliament.uk>, <keirstarmer@hotmail.com>

Dear Keir

As I told you in the street today I was kicked out of the Labour Party yesterday (7 July). I have to say I am relieved as being a member in Holborn and St Pancras CLP has become like being in a viper’s nest. I was kicked out for being a member of a proscribed group. Utterly ludicrous. I recall that on 19th November 2021 you were on Radio 4 Today programme and you said, among other things, in reference to MPs’ lobbying and second jobs, “Don’t penalise people now for doing things in the past that were allowed at the time.” Which is exactly what you are doing with regards to purging left members that you and your friends Evans, Blair and Mandelson among others want rid of. Many Jewish members have been purged for their support of Palestine and BDS. This is pure anti-semitism.

I didn’t vote for you to be my MP and I am so glad my instinct was right. I would have hoped for better, you being a Human Rights Lawyer, you are certainly no politician and will never be, I hoped you would be honest and fair and not a liar like Johnson but you are no better. You used the very popular 2019 Labour Party manifesto, fully costed, to get elected as leader as you knew you would woo those who hadn’t already seen through you. Then as soon as you got elected you used the state of the country as an excuse to ditch every single pledge. You were also the cause of the 2019 election result although you can never bring yourself to admit it, and now you blame others. If you hadn’t dreamt up the sentence at the 2018 Conference about having another referendum ‘with the option to

Young Starmer waiting in the wings

remain [in the EU] on the ballot paper’ Labour would have done better than they did by following the country’s wish to exit the EU, as happened in 2017. Jeremy Corbyn should have sacked you on the spot, but unlike you, he is an honourable man. Of course Labour did so well in 2017 but you and your cronies have decided to airbrush that result from history. It is now clear that despite having been a key member of Jeremy Corbyn’s team and calling him a friend that you were always working to undermine him and his policies, which were supported by the majority of the country. Now you have withdrawn the whip from lifelong socialists like Jeremy, Diane Abbott, Claudia Webbe and others, which is not in your remit, while welcoming Christian Wakeford, Luciana Berger and others who have all at times belonged to other parties.

On the subject of lies, I cannot forgive the people who selected the recent batch of Camden Councillors in your name. The interviews that standing leftwing Councillors went through, my husband included, carried very disproportionate aggressiveness compared to right wing candidates, not to mention the inaccurate information that was put in front of the candidates by the interviewing panels. Three hour long interviews filled with inaccurate information passed on by the Chief Whip. Absolutely disgusting and deplorable. Very much like what is happening now. How can you deny Jamie Driscoll from standing on the long list when he has done so much for the area and proved that he is a very good Mayor? You are so dishonourable. However much I want to be rid of the Tories, I really fear for this country should you become PM.

For thirteen years I knocked on doors, I delivered leaflets, I fund raised, I ran branch meetings and now it has come to this.

Your former friend
Diane Pearson

And the reply, unsigned:

From: Keir Starmer KC MP <keir.starmer.constituency@parliament.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2023 at 13:18
Subject: Re: Expulsion from the party (Case Ref: XXXXXXX)

Dear Diane,

~~Blair~~ Starmer & Band, Leeds Uni, 1980s.

I can see that you have discussed this matter with Keir already, but I have noted the contents of your email and will let him know that you have been in touch.

Best wishes,

Office of Rt Hon Keir Starmer KC, MP
Member of Parliament for Holborn & St Pancras
Leader of the Opposition

The Pointless Keir Starmer

From www.craigmurray.org.uk:

The Pointless Keir Starmer 42

June 25, 2022 in Uncategorized by craig

On Thursday, Labour under Keir Starmer got a lower percentage of the vote in Wakefield than they did in 2017 under Jeremy Corbyn. In 2017 Labour got 49.7%. On Thursday they got 47.9%. I want you to think that through.

Inflation is soaring. Consumer confidence in the economy has gone through a steeper plummet, and to a lower level, than at any time since it was measured. Worse than the 2008 banking collapse. Worse than the height of the covid panic.

The Tory government of Boris Johnson is highly unpopular. The electorate has formed the view that Boris Johnson is an untrustworthy liar and plain chancer. 18th century levels of corruption have not just returned, but been plainly exposed.

There could not possibly be a more fertile ground for an opposition party in a mid-term by-election, when swings against the government are almost invariably much higher than at subsequent general elections. For Labour in these circumstances to still get a lower vote share in Wakefield than they did in the 2017 General Election which they narrowly lost, is a terrible performance.

The attempts to boost the hapless Starmer off the back of it are pathetic.

Starmer’s role has been simply to emasculate the Labour Party, and to purge it of any elements that might seek to pose a threat to rampant neo-liberalism and wealth inequality. His efforts to ban Labour MPs from supporting striking railway workers must be anathema to anybody who has the slightest feel for the history and traditions of that party and indeed the most basic understanding of its very raison d’etre.

This Tony Benn quote from the 1980’s has come into vogue because it is prophetic, and the process appears now complete:

If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media – having tasted blood – would demand next that it expelled all its Socialists and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and then when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public. Thus British Capitalism, it is argued, will be made safe forever, and socialism would be squeezed off the National agenda. But if such a strategy were to succeed… it would in fact profoundly endanger British society. For it would open up the danger of a swing to the far-right, as we have seen in Europe over the last 50 years.

Starmer is in one sense the apotheosis of this process. Not only has he acted to purge the Labour Party of socialism, he also offers so very little of a meaningful alternative to the Tories that there is very little danger of the Tories being voted out of office. Not only is he a safe right-wing backstop, he is a self-redundant safe right-wing backstop.

Just as Jeremy Corbyn did before being felled by the entirely fake anti-Semitism crusade of the united state and corporate media, Mick Lynch has this week been showing how attractive the electorate find left-wing thinking, and the notion of greater wealth equality, if they could only get to hear it.

YouTube is full of clips of Mick Lynch besting the furious and unintelligent attacks of the media hacks. The moment I found most interesting was on Peston, where he was again being pushed to reveal himself as an evil Marxist who could thus be pigeonholed and ignored. Asked who his political hero was, he replied “James Connolly, the Irish Republican Socialist”.

Regular readers know Connolly is one of my heroes too. What I found most striking is that the highly paid political journalists on Peston had never heard of Connolly. To paraphrase Noam Chomsky, I suppose if they had heard of Connolly, they would not be sitting where they are sitting. Knowledge of working class auto-didactic leadership is not a requirement to propagandise for the elite.

The knowledge that the British strapped a dying man to a chair so they could shoot him again might lead to all kinds of unauthorised thought.

Doubtless Starmer would ban his MPs from mentioning it, if he knew.

Here in his native Edinburgh, school children are not taught about Connolly either. My son Cameron was last year taught all about Burke and Hare in school in local history, a suitably grisly and cautionary tale of the Irish working class in Edinburgh. They were taken to Surgeon’s Hall and shown the book bound in Burke’s skin.

Five minutes walk further they could have been at Connolly’s damp birthplace on the Cowgate, and learnt of his life and teachings. The curriculum does not do that.

Which brings me to Scotland. Everything I have said about the Tory crisis and Starmer’s failure to inspire and seize the moment, is true in spades about Scotland. There simply could never be a more propitious time to strike for Independence. Pushed by their activists, the SNP at last claims to have “fired the starting gun” on an Independence referendum.

I see no political alternative but to take them at their word. I quite understand the suspicions of procedural trickery of my closest political friends, but my strong view is that we have to set aside doubt and make the campaign a real one, which acquires its own popular momentum and becomes unstoppable. When Wallace arrived at Stirling Bridge, the more established Scottish political leadership were not necessarily seeking a pitched battle. Let’s get this fight started.

————————————————-

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Ukraine

And...

Michael Rosen

Yemstt5iter7d1ay8Sln at 1c5h:05r7d

As if in a dream
I'm hearing radio programmes
playing Ukrainian patriotic songs
and lovingly produced discussions
about the history of Ukraine
and admiration pouring out of my radio and TV
for the brave people of Ukraine
daring to stand up to this terrible invasion
and I felt warm and sad at the same time
wrapped in the care and kindness of it all
and I was pouring out my admiration too, 
and images from the TV came to me from last night
of hundreds of people squashed into a station subway
trying to get out on a train to Poland
and more sounds from the radio
of people on the border shivering and hungry and crying
not knowing if they could get out
while arcs of light flashed over apartment blocks
and the morning showed the cold grey ruins of people's homes
and I heard the words of sympathy
from our leaders 
while they explained that Ukrainians 
would need visas or relatives in Britain
 if they want to come here
and I wasn't sure that people crushed
into the subway would have visas 
or relatives here, would they? 
so if they don't have visas and relatives
what happens to them in the freezing cold
on the Polish border?
and I thought about the care and kindness
coming out of my radio
and I felt uneasy 
that I remember other invasions
other bombings, 
and the same radio and TV stations
pouring out hours of words 
on why similar bombings and invasions 
were necessary and good bombings and invasions
and why those resisting were crazy and bad
and of course - as always -
why there wasn't room for people of those countries
to get out and come here
and I was left looking for the principle being defended here.
This principle can't be that it's wrong to invade
other countries.
The principle can't be that it's wrong 
to bomb civilians.
The principle can't be that we must help 
those who resist invasions.
The principle can't be that we must help
refugees.
But then I thought,
what's the matter with me? 
what is the matter with me?
why am I looking for a principle?
Well, not a principle that lasts
or a principle that is valid in all places.
Our leaders' principles are things 
they pick up, boast about
and then drop
in the hope that we can't remember anything
from before last week. 
Or that we don't notice what else they do
in other parts of the world.
One moment they are friends with people
who are tyrants or backers of tyrants
and the next they are explaining to us
that the tyrants are tyrants
and friends of tyrants are the friends of tyrants
as if we didn't know that the tyrants are tyrants
and that they themselves are friends 
with the friends of tyrants
as if we hadn't noticed this
as if we had now forgotten this.

And this is a cycle
that goes on and on turning,
it's turning in my mind
remembering my parents 
talking of the leaders of their time
chumming up with Nazis
corporations selling oil to the Nazis
oil they would use to bomb us
and my parents talking of uncles and aunts and cousins
who criss-crossed the very same land
that the refugees are crossing now, 
one who escaped
the rest who didn't
and it's a cycle 
it's a cycle that grinds millions into the ground
burnt, dismembered, starved, maimed
and I am listening to the radio.
And I am listening to the radio.

Sir War Criminal

10 senior politicians were hanged for "Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances" in 1946 at Nuremberg.

Tony Blair however gets a knighthood. Not just any knighthood (like, say, Sir Jimmy Saville's KCSG), he is given the KG, the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the George Cross.

The official Parliment petition website (which can get petitions debated, unlike Change.org etc) has rejected all petitions demanding Bliar be declined his knighthood (see left).

So instead please sign this one at Change.org: https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-tony-blair-to-have-his-knight-companion-of-the-most-noble-order-of-the-garter-rescinded

Petition description:

Tony Blair to have his "Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter" rescinded

Angus Scott started this petition to The Prime Minister

Tony Blair is to be knighted with the highest possible ranking in the new year honours list, Buckingham Palace has said.

Sir Tony, who held the keys to No 10 between 1997 and 2007, will be appointed a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior British Order of Chivalry.

Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation's society. He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicement in various conflicts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes.

Tony Blair is the least deserving person of any public honour, particularly anything awarded by Her Majesty the Queen.

We petition the Prime Minister to petition Her Majesty to have this honour removed.

Sign here:

https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-tony-blair-to-have-his-knight-companion-of-the-most-noble-order-of-the-garter-rescinded

Meanwhile, a message from Bliar's butler...Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions who received his own knighthood for services to law and criminal justice in 2014, said: "I don't think [Boris Johnson] has earned the right to a have an honour. I do think Tony Blair has."