A number of Labour MPs, as well as the Jewish Labour Movement, have condemned the appointment of pro-Corbyn firefighter Matt Wrack to head Britain’s second largest teaching union amid an ongoing legal challenge over his uncontested election.
Wrack, a hard-left organiser who led the Fire Brigades Union for 20 years before losing a re-election bid in January, was announced as the new general secretary of the NASUWT on Tuesday.
In 2016, the Wrack appeared to make light of antisemitism within the Labour Party and told a union conference that: “so-called antisemitism in the Labour Party … is about an attack on the Left, and it is about an attempt to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.”
In 2018 he attacked the decision by the Corbynite faction Momentum to withdraw its support for then-Labour National Executive Committee member Peter Willsman after he was recorded saying that Jewish “Trump fanatics” were making false claims of antisemitism in the party and denied the problem was widespread.
Wrack’s appointment is now facing a legal challenge after he was elected unopposed via nomination of the union’s National Executive Committee, rather than a ballot of its members.
The JC understands that Mishcon de Reya and Old Square Chambers yesterday filed notice in the name of the union’s National Officer for Wales, Neil Butler, for an urgent application for interim relief to challenge the result.
The application alleges that the union breached its own rules by refusing to allow local associations to nominate candidates who weren’t members of the union even if they worked for it – such as Butler. However, the union’s NEC then nominated Wrack even though he not a union member.
Several Labour MPs have now expressed concern about Wrack’s appointment.
Gurinder Singh Josan, MP for Smethwick, told the JC that it was “extraordinary to see someone who has no experience in the teaching profession and recently lost a democratic election in the Fire Brigades Union being appointed to this position in this way”.
Wrack is the first head of the NASUWT not to be a former teacher or university lecturer.
He added: "Jewish teachers will be alarmed at this appointment, particularly in view of previous comments which during a period in the Labour Party most of us are happy we have moved on from and have shown that we are serious in tackling antisemitism".
“Teachers deserve a union focussed on improving standards and supporting them in their workplaces, yet this appointment simply plays political football with their profession”, he added.
Josan’s discomfort was echoed by the Jewish Labour Movement, which told the JC: "Matt Wrack embodies the worst of Labour under Corbyn – unrepentant hostility to Israel, making light of the scale of antisemitism in the party and defending the likes of Peter Willsman.
"Labour's well past that now, so it's a hugely retrograde step to see someone like Wrack appointed to lead a hitherto moderate union like NASUWT, which isn't even affiliated to Labour.
"We hope – on behalf of the many Jewish teachers who are members – that this injunction application is successful, and that the union leadership thinks again.”
And another MP, Labour’s Neil Coyle, said: “Teachers want a leader who understands the classroom and firefights challenges from the front. Not a former firefighter who downplays discrimination and is only interested in leadership of the hard left”.
Likewise, the Jewish Leadership Council yesterday told the JC: "Jewish teachers who are members of NASUWT will be rightly concerned by a general secretary who played a leading role in downplaying antisemitism in the Labour Party."
NASUWT have been contacted for comment.
