Sky News halted for ‘breaking news’ announcement as Angela Rayner dealt humiliating blow

Sky News came to a sudden halt as the programme issued a “breaking news” announcement about Angela Rayner. It was revealed that Labour’s biggest trade union backer, Unite, has suspended the membership of the Deputy Prime minister in a row over the Birmingham bin strikes.

It has been reported that Unite is reconsidering its ties with Keir Starmer’s party. “We’re keeping you up to date with a little bit of breaking news in the last couple of minutes and that is that Unite the union, one of the country’s largest trading unions, has decided to suspend the membership of Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister,” the presenter said.

He continued: “This is all in relation to what they say is her role in the Birmingham bin strike. They’re holding a conference, Unite, at the moment and they have decided to say that they’re going to re-examine relationships with Labour and suspend Angela Rayner from Unite membership.

“This follows an emergency motion at its conference in Brighton today, having condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the Labour government for attacking bin workers.”

The Sky News host read out the statement shared by Unite General secretary Sharon Graham which said: “Unite is crystal clear it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette. Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.

“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.

“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”

A source close to Ms Rayner said she had already resigned membership of the union some months ago, but Unite claimed the politician was still listed as an active member on Friday.

The motion, which was voted on by 800 delegates, condemned Labour-run Birmingham City Council for “its threat to effectively fire and rehire, on pain of redundancy, the Unite Birmingham bin workers”.

It also blasted the Government for its “support to the council and the commissioners, originally appointed by the Tories and maintained by Labour”.

It comes as rubbish has been piling up across Birmingham since bin workers walked out around six months ago in a bitter dispute over pay.