 On previous shows, we've despaired at the fact that three left candidates entered the race to lead Unite the Union against only one candidate from the right. That risk spitting the left vote and handing a union with 1.4 million members and which is the Labour Party's largest donor to a candidate committed to rolling back any gains made by socialists over the past decade in Britain. On that front, we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that two of the candidates have come to an agreement and one will be dropping out. Steve Turner and Howard Beckett have released a joint statement. Howard Beckett has decided he will support Steve Turner as Unite's next General Secretary. Both recognise the vision and strengths of their respective campaigns and Steve Turner recognises the key manifesto commitments and energy generated by Howard's campaign. They will both work to implement a blended manifesto, taking the best ideas from both candidates when Steve Turner becomes General Secretary. Howard Beckett will campaign alongside Steve for the next two months to present a joint programme which includes greater support for workplace representatives, important new communications initiatives including Unite TV, upgraded education and training for members, an independent and progressive political voice and a new structure for the union reflecting the diversity of our nations and regions. That's the good news. There were three candidates, two of them are now uniting behind Steve Turner. Much credit to Howard Beckett for doing so. The bad news is that the other left candidate Sharon Graham has refused to come to any deal. So in response to the statement from Turner and Beckett, Graham said, the announcement of the Turner-Beckett ticket along with the Gerard coin candidacy now completes the Westminster Brigade. I am the workplace candidate and will be standing to ensure the voice of Unite members is heard. I think lots of people watching this will be completely despairing that we are going into another union election, one that really matters both for the union movement and for the Labour Party and the left couldn't get it together to unite behind a single candidate. Why, when Howard Beckett was willing to fall behind Steve Turner, could Steve Turner and Graham, Sharon Graham not come to any kind of agreement here? Sharon Graham is coming from a different place because what we saw with Howard Beckett, his greatest emphasis on political strategy, which was to unite should have a very, very firm line on Keir Starmer's leadership, including potentially pulling the plug. That's to be fair to him, that wasn't all he, for example, talked about increasing the strike ballot and the strike ballot fund, for example. Sharon Graham is more of what you would describe as a syndicalist. She's not somebody who has a particular interest in Unite's relationship with the Labour Party. She's known as a good organiser. She has a very dedicated following of people around her from the organising department of Unite and that's her big thing. It's about not having a service model of trade unionism focusing on organising, which a lot of us watching would strongly agree with. She's not somebody who really has a strong position on vis-à-vis Unite and the Labour Party and the political left, I suppose. So I think it was very difficult negotiations which took place over the last few days, which was very difficult in itself between Howard Beckett's team and Steve Turner's team. But Sharon Graham's team are adamant they're not going to stand down. One of the main arguments they're pushing is that she's a female candidate. It is, of course, true that the trade union movement, the majority of our women, and that isn't represented properly at all at the top of the trade union movement. There is, to be, to be really honest, something of machismo, partly in some sections of the leaderships of the trade union movement. We've seen what happened in GMB, which is one of the big trade unions in the country, one of the big three, when their last general secretary was forced to resign amidst the terrible scandal. So you can see that machismo is a big problem. But at the same time, what's likely to happen if this goes wrong, and there's very good chance it will, is it won't be a woman leading Unite. It will be an extremely right wing, 1950s-style trade union right-winger Gerald Coyne, who is a left bashing reactionary of a very, very old school of, as I say, 1950s-style bosses trade unionism, who would completely trash whether it be Unite in terms of organizing workers, in terms of having a militant edge with employers, as well as obviously working hand in glove with the leadership of the Labour Party to suppress Labour Party democracy and stitch up the leadership rules. Unfortunately, Sharon Graham is just not on the same, she's not coming from the same position as Howard Beckett. It's not easy in the same way to appeal to her. Some might argue, by the way, she might end up taking votes off Gerald Coyne, because some of Gerald Coyne's likely people voting for him will be people going, well, I'm just fed up with Unite and the Labour Party going hand in hand and Unite should brought out and I don't want my money going on that. And Sharon Graham, her pitch could actually appeal to some of them, but I have put that to people and they did point out to me in the last Unite general secretary election, when it's very important to make this point, Gerald Coyne got 10 times less nominations than Len McCluskey, but then ended up nearly winning. He came within four percentage points of winning. He got about 42% of the vote. And people then go, well, nominations mean nothing. Well, actually what it shows is the right always outperform the nominations. So Gerald Coyne again came last, but the right people who support his candidacy are less likely to turn up to trade union branch meetings. And I suppose that's the danger now, because they said to me, if you compare with what happened in 2017, we did have another syndicalist candidate, Allinson, who stood and he only got about 14% of the vote, but that was nearly enough for Gerald Coyne to win. That just getting that share of the vote was nearly enough. So the danger is, she may take some off Gerald Coyne, but she's going to take some off Steve Turner too. I know Steve Turner's team are wargaming on the basis now that Sharon is not going to stand down and there's no evidence to suggest she will. I understand the letter is going to go in signed by women in the trade union movement urging her to do so. And that pressure does need to be exerted, but we're nearly at a time. Monday's the absolute cutoff. That's when the statements are submitted. She's digging in and the danger therefore is, as things stand, we saw what happened in Unison. More than three left candidates stood. The right-wing candidate won, even though they won a collectively a majority. And the danger is, again, with Sharon Graham, that she will take enough of both to allow Gerald Coyne still to come through the middle. That would be a catastrophe. And that's why if there's any difference between now and 2017, back then, no one thought Lemakoski had any chance of losing. He had incumbency advantage as well. And they didn't mobilize as a consequence. Honestly, if you're on the left, this is do or die. We're talking a generational defeat if this goes wrong. So the left, if they want the Unite, which is the absolute center of the left's infrastructure in British society, not just in the in the in the Labour Party, but class, the People's Assembly, UK and court, they were very much involved in supporting all these other movements. That will be a catastrophe that the left will struggle to recover from for a very long time. So I do think the left has to throw everything into this because Sharon Graham standing means Gerald Coyne, if I was a betting man, I'd say he's going to win this. He's the favorite to win. And only if people throw everything into Steve Turner's campaign is there any chance that that's not happening.