Trade Unions and Irish Unity - LMIU Brighton meeting

Trade Unions and Irish Unity

Labour Movement for Irish Unity/Trade Unionists for Irish Unity fringe meeting at TUC annual conference 2025 in Brighton.

All our speakers powerfully addressed a range of topics linking trade unionism with a commitment to Irish reunification.  

Sinn Féin MP Dáire Hughes reminded the meeting of the impact of partition on every aspect of working-class life, including wages and rights at work, and emphasised that a new Ireland must be built on equality and solidarity and deliver real change for workers and communities. He said Sinn Fein supported an extension of collective sectoral bargaining.  It is currently restricted to the public and agricultural sectors. 

Lynda Rooke, president of actors’ union Equity, spoke in a personal capacity about the need to remove barriers to effective organisation in the arts across the island of Ireland and to work with Irish Equity.  She noted that the Irish Government provided substantially more financial support to the cultural sector than the British Government did in Northern Ireland. And highlighted the importance of igniting debate through cultural events, both music, as shown by Kneecap, and theatre, for example, Consumed by Karis Kelly.  

Eddie Dempsey, RMT General Secretary, was proud to state the RMT’s unique position among British trade unions of having a clear policy in favour of Irish reunification. He pointed out that workers of Irish heritage throughout the union movement need to be mobilised in support of Irish unity and stressed three points. First, trade unions should adopt a position of neutrality on a Border Poll, to avoid interfering in the politics of a foreign country, but persuade trade union members that Irish unity was in the interests of British and Irish workers. Second, the Trade Union movement should influence the Labour Party to adopt a similar neutral position. And third that the Labour government should publish the criteria for calling a Border Poll.

John McDonnell said Eddie’s speech was “One of the best I’ve heard from a trade union leader over the years”. He went on to stress the dangerous situation we are now in, given the widespread support for the Reform Party and the risk that, in government, it would withdraw from the ECHR and thereby undermine the Good Friday Agreement. He stressed the urgency of the need for action, emphasising that the time is now for trade unionists to pressure the Labour government to put in place a plan for a border poll.

There was plenty of time for interaction with a very engaged audience, expertly chaired by LMIU EC member and Unite Community Sussex Coast chair, Dorothy Macedo, and eliciting thoughtful responses from all the speakers.  Much remains to be done, but it was clear that in some quarters at least, Irish reunification is very much a trade union issue.

Paul O’Brien