Mick Hartley

UK unions have a grim record on trans rights, being in general fully on board with the gender cult and “trans woman are women”. Unison are particularly noteworthy here, representing more than 1.3 million members, mostly in the public sector, of whom more than 70% are women. Yet in the case of the Darlington nurses, for instance, union president Steve North expressed his horror that health secretary Wes Streeting was actually meeting them – “pandering to anti-trans bigotry”. Far from supporting the women, their union was supporting the bosses.

Now there’s an election for Unison general secretary coming up, with one Andrea Egan challenging incumbent Christina McAnea. So what are her views?

While Unison officially backed Bridget Phillipson for Labour’s deputy leadership, Egan favoured neither her nor winner Lucy Powell: “I’m not going to be drawn into lesser evils, because I spent years doing that when we used to go door-knocking.” Having joined Labour about 15 years ago, she says, Egan is no longer a member after being expelled for sharing articles from the proscribed Marxist group Socialist Appeal.

Nor is she a member of any other party, she clarifies, though she is personally enthusiastic about ‘Your Party’, the new one being started by former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, as well as pro-Gaza Independent MPs. It has been a chaotic endeavour so far but when we talk – before its founding conference – Egan says she will have to “see how it develops”: “I do feel that it gives people hope again.”

Hmm. And what are her other priorities?

Another is standing up for trans workers. I wonder what she makes of Sandie Peggie, the NHS nurse who complained about having to use the same hospital dressing room as a trans colleague. She has launched legal action against her trade union, alleging that the Royal College of Nursing failed to support her. How would Egan react if a similar case came to Unison?

“I haven’t followed that case. But what were the real issues within that? I have trans friends, trans women friends; my nephew is a trans man. I wouldn’t have an issue. I’d want to understand. Because the argument can then develop to anybody saying… ‘Well, I don’t want you there because you’ve got blonde hair’ or ‘I don’t want them there because they’ve got blue eyes’,” Egan says.

Oh boy. Victoria Smith: “If we ban men from women’s changing rooms, next thing we’ll be banning people with blue eyes” is so profoundly stupid it’s almost genius”.