“With the lack of funding and investment in public services, it’s just been austerity mark II.”
Simon Fletcher interviewed FBU General Secretary Steve Wright about Labour, austerity and the unions. You can read it in full below.
Steve Wright, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, says of Labour’s collapse in support that he is ‘angry that the party’s got in this position’ and says that Labour needs to ‘listen to trade unions.’
I interviewed Steve Wright last week. His argument about the need for political change is linked to the position of the members of his union. At the core of this is the problem of continuing austerity. Although the Labour government says that it has ended austerity, in Steve Wright’s view, under Labour, ‘with our wages and also with the lack of funding and investment in public services, it’s just been austerity mark II.’
As he says of the people he talks to, ‘their wages, the energy crisis that we’re in at the moment, people are still struggling, and they don’t see a way out of that.’
In this interview, Steve Wright discusses what this means for Labour and the trade unions, and the future of the Labour government. On Labour’s leadership, he believes it cannot simply be about pinning everything on one individual, but that unions should take the opportunity of a change in leader to shape the argument: ‘let’s start setting out what is achievable, what are those principles that we want them to adhere to? My view as an affiliated union is, let’s put that to any leader that stands in front of us to answer those questions.’
Q: What are your members telling you are the main issues for them in terms of the fire service and in terms of their living standards and quality of life at the moment?
Steve Wright: I visit fire stations on a weekly basis. My son’s a two-and-a-half-year firefighter, he’s come home this morning from his night shift and tells me exactly what’s going on on the front line. And I’ve worked on the front line – for 25 years this month, I’ve been in the fire service. So the number one issue that firefighters talk about is their safety and also their ability to protect the public. That comes as no surprise to me, necessarily, but that comes ahead of pay. It comes ahead of their pensions. It comes ahead of their terms and conditions. In fact, they’re really concerned about their safety, and they’re concerned that, the fact that after fifteen years of austerity, where we’ve lost 12,000 firefighters, there are some services still trying to force through cuts, close fire stations, fewer firefighters, and fewer fire engines in our communities. So that is the number one issue that affects them. We’ve seen firefighters killed on the front line. I lost a good friend of mine last year, just coming up to the year anniversary of that in Oxfordshire, where I worked for a large part of my career. And that’s what people are concerned about, that they understand that they’re taking longer to get to operational incidents, which has an impact. If a fire is burning for three minutes longer than it should be, because we’re taking three minutes longer than average to get to these incidents, that has an impact on their safety when they arrive, but also public safety. So they’re the big issues that are affecting them at the moment.
Q: We’re nearly two years into the Labour government, and it’s seen the collapse in its support. The Prime Minister’s ratings are catastrophically low. At first, we saw the rise of Reform, and now we’ve seen the rise of the Greens on the other flank. In your view, what did Labour coming into government get wrong, and why?
SW: I think what they got wrong is they had a huge opportunity, they’ve still got a huge opportunity with a massive number of MPs in parliament, but I think we’ve seen the likes of Labour Together have a stranglehold on the party itself.
I speak to a number of MPs. I was in parliament yesterday talking to MPs about what the future of the Labour Party looks like. People have been isolated, decent people with Labour principles and values – like trade unions – have been just isolated from the party. They did that through motions and rule changes at their conference to sideline people in CLPs – the good, hard-working people who got them elected have just been sidelined.
I don’t feel like the voices of trade unions have been listened to too much. We’ve been supportive of the Employment Rights Act and things, but broadly, people haven’t seen a change to their living standards. And we’re two years down the line now, and I think there is a very real risk and fear that people have of a Reform government. We’ve been very vocal about that, what that would mean to us in the fire service and those working in the public sector.
So they haven’t seen any sign of hope, they haven’t been provided with an alternative. For us in the fire service, with our wages and also with the lack of funding and investment in public services, it’s just been austerity mark II. I have no criticism of why people are looking for alternatives. They’re either turning to Reform because they’re providing an alternative narrative, the wrong one, I think – or they’re turning to the Greens as some kind of saviour of working-class people. And I certainly don’t think the Green Party or Zack Polanski are the saviours of that. I think we need to take back ownership of the Labour Party and what we really know it stands for, and make sure it starts delivering for working people. And I’m quite angry that the party’s got in this position we find ourselves in, but I’m certainly not going to walk away from that. I’m going to try and change it from within.
Q: On Reform, how do you see the labour movement’s role in pushing them back? The rise of Reform is a direct threat to people in their access to their local services and as employees.
SW: I think Reform gets far too much airtime from the press. I don’t think we should be really giving them any more ourselves. I don’t think you out-Reform Reform – that’s a tactic that’s been tried by some in government. I’d say Keir Starmer, the Home Secretary right now, is certainly trying to out-right them. I don’t think you do that. You need to outflank them with decent principles and decent politics, and provide an alternative. I don’t think those ministers in place in the government at the moment are the ones to do that. I think it will be down to working people. It will be down to the likes of trade unions coming together a bit more than we do at the moment. There’s a bit of a crisis within the labour movement at the moment. It seems every time I look at social media, there’s another union in dispute with another union: that is not a good place to be.
It’s about understanding why people are going to Reform because they’re frustrated, they’re angry, they don’t feel like they’re being listened to, and they don’t feel like mainstream politics are delivering for them. So we need to understand why they’re turning to these different elements and then not try and pander to their narrative, but set our own narrative and set our own direction of providing decent jobs, decent pay, investing in funding, in public services that actually do deliver for people. The cost of living crisis, I don’t think, has gone away. People I go down the pub with, people I talk to, their wages, the energy crisis that we’re in at the moment, people are still struggling, and they don’t see a way out of that.
Q: If we take the other side of it, there’s been the Green surge and the attempt to set up the new left party, Your Party. Obviously, all of that has raised the debate about the left, the labour movement, and strategy. Do you think the affiliated unions need a new strategy to deal with all of this upheaval that has taken place in terms of how it relates to the Labour Party?
SW: I’m a newish General Secretary, but there are a number of other new trade union General Secretaries. A number came in around a similar time to me. So I think there’s an opportunity there to try and do that.
I’ve got frustrations around TULO*, which we’re part of, but I certainly believe that is the best voice that we have as a small craft sector-only union, more so than the likes of operating within the TUC which is why I backed and spoke in support of a change to how the TUC operates and works – giving a voice a bit more to smaller unions, in effect, and not just giving the voice to large-scale unions. I think there certainly needs to be some conversation around how we do that. I certainly believe it will be trade unions and those who really do represent people in the working world that can deliver the change. I don’t think that will be from Your Party. I think that’s been an absolute disaster, and I’m quite pleased that there was no call from it within our union to become closely aligned to it. There’s nothing coming to our conference. There’s been nothing brought to our executive. I think it’s just been a bit of a distraction, if I’m honest.
On the Green Party, one thing I’ve reflected on a little bit is that someone who backed Corbyn and supported Corbyn is that you can’t pin everything on one person. We’re at a point in time where it needs to be about the principles of what we believe in, how we’re going to deliver that, and not focus on one person. Yes, I called for Starmer to go a couple of months ago. I thought that probably was the right thing back in March when I did that, because I think it would have given us a better opportunity to maybe win more seats at the upcoming local elections. I think the Labour Party will be absolutely decimated there.
But my point on the Greens, with Zack Polanski – I’m not going to call him a careerist, but you only have to look back at where he stood on things as a Lib Dem. He only became a Green Party Assembly Member in 2021. He’s got no history in the labour movement, led no struggles in any workplace on behalf of workers. He’s not shown any interest in anything that we’ve said or done or any of the big battles that we faced over the past six to eight months of closure of fire stations, cuts to firefighter numbers, whilst we have with the Labour Party, with quite senior people getting involved and assisting us.
I don’t think the Green Party, with their structures as they are, or any commitments that they’re giving other than maybe spouting some similar lines to what we would like to hear, really offer an alternative for the trade union movement.
Q: You have mentioned austerity. Following last year’s budget, you said that although there were steps in the right direction, the government’s approach did not yet provide secure, long-term investment or break with austerity. What do you think needs to happen in terms of economic policy to genuinely break with austerity?
SW: I don’t have any faith that the Chancellor’s going to break her fiscal rules, and I think that is going to continue to tie us. So, unless that position or that person changes, I don’t think we’re going to see a fundamental change in the direction of where this government takes us.
On austerity, I did say that at a time, and I still believe it now: we’re fighting day in, day out, to get better funding arrangements, more money in pretty much every fire and rescue service. There are 49 different fire services across the UK that we represent firefighters in, and on every one, we’re having to take that fight forward. Sometimes we’re winning it with a bit of a political balance on councils. We’ve done that in Avon, we’ve done it in Leicestershire. But in Oxfordshire, we had to take that all the way to a ballot for strike action – 94% of firefighters there voted to take strike action. That’s what managed to stop the closure of fire stations, the loss of 42 jobs, reduction in fire engines. So we are fighting this. Yes, we’re having good conversations with the fire minister and others who are telling us all the things we want to hear, that investment and funding will come down the line. But at the moment, the only extra funding that we’re managing to secure has been around lifting what the taxpayers will pay in their council tax. And I don’t think that is acceptable, I think people in this country are expected to pay a lot anyway for the services that are provided. This needs to be central government redistributing the money that they’ve got to provide public services that can actually deliver. 25 years in and around the fire service – longer with my dad in the job, so I’ve been around it my whole life – I think the fire service is in the worst place it has ever been because of the lack of investment. But that’s replicated across the board, isn’t it – I speak to teachers, and you talk about the lack of investment there. There is no real commitment: there are not even words on the page which really say this is how we’re going to provide, this is how we’re going to fix it.
We’ve been demanding an extra 5000 firefighters to go across the UK, but that would probably only just get us back to a level of safety which we think is acceptable. We actually think we need more than that. We’re attending more incidents than we have since 2015; incidents are going up. More and more risks – Lithium-ion batteries are creating fires on a daily basis, four or five a day in London, we’ve got buildings still clad with the same cladding that was on the Grenfell Tower, flooding, wildfires, all these are on the increase. But there’s no real commitment from anyone at the moment to deliver on that, which is why we were saying we’re on an industrial footing, and if we need to, we will take strike action. Our members and our executive are fundamentally clear about that.
Q: It seems that they went into government with an economic framework that just was not up to the scale of the problem that exists in the public services, or on the level of investment in the economy, and then they’ve run into a series of problems that flow from that. At the TUC last year, there was a succession of motions and fringe events, all of which were essentially on the same theme, which was that you need some kind of economic alternative, for a shift in terms of public expenditure and investment. And the question is whether or not that mood for change in the unions can be translated over into anything politically more widely, including into the Labour Party, because otherwise this will continue.
SW: Well, that’s the challenge, isn’t it? You may ask the question, who do I think should be the next leader of the Labour Party? And my view at the moment is let’s set about a set of principles. I’m certainly having conversations to say, OK, what do we want a Labour government to deliver? And I think we need to be quite harsh about it, that they’ve got three years to deliver. So let’s start setting out what is achievable, what are those principles that we want them to adhere to? My view as an affiliated union is, let’s put that to any leader that stands in front of us to answer those questions.
That said, if you start pinning this on one individual, we’ve seen where that goes. To turn this country around, which is what I think needs to happen right now in favour of working-class people, I think it does need to be a movement. Whoever comes in to be the next leader needs to be willing to involve the trade unions and involve backbench MPs.
Q: There’s whoever comes in as a new leader. But then there’s also the power structures in the Labour Party of who determines policy, conference, the policy forum, etc. You have spoken alongside Left MPs and other unions, including Unison, about restoring democracy in the Labour Party. What are your views about concretely what the changes needed are to achieve that in the next period?
SW: Our President sits on the National Executive Committee, has done so for a number of years now. So I think there needs to be changes around the elements there. I think there does need to be changes or commitments to how we make the Labour conference a bit more democratic. Again, these are big issues to take on, but I think actually there needs to be a commitment to do that. It’s a broad church. This is an argument that I’ll take into our conference when we’re facing disaffiliation motions again, for the fourth year running, where we’re going to have to face that down. It’s to say, why would we walk away from something which we can potentially shape? So I think it’s about bringing about those elements of democracy. It may be small step changes; we may not achieve it all this time, but I think we need to be putting pressure on whoever wants to take up these leadership positions.
We certainly did that with Lucy Powell. Lucy Powell probably wouldn’t have been someone that we’d have ordinarily backed, but we’ve got some commitments from her. Yes, she won’t deliver them on her own, but we’re certainly going to hold her to account. And in fairness, she’s been useful in lots of our campaigns and opened a lot of doors for me personally, to get in the rooms with people. So I think it’s around those elements – the NEC, the democracy around conference. I think trade unions should have more of a voice. It certainly seems like we’re a voice that they don’t really want to hear.
Q: There’s also candidate selection, which was a disgrace in the last Parliament. That relates to trade union representation as well, because a lot of people who were blocked were backed by the unions.
SW: And also, further to that is what they did to Andy Burnham when he tried to stand. We’d have put him under a bit of pressure and asked him to commit to a number of things. But we work well with Andy as the Mayor in Manchester, who oversees fire. But the blocking of that – it just seems to be something new every week, which seems to put another nail in the coffin. MPs and others are just waiting for these elections, and then in a week’s time, I think everything will kick off.
Q: On that, what do you think should happen if the collapse in the elections does transpire – what should the next steps be?
SW: If they’re as bad as all the polls suggest – I’m not a betting man, but I’m sure they’re not going to be great, are they – I think Starmer should stand down. I think he should have stood down a couple of months ago and given me, others, Labour activists, people that are proud of the Labour Party, an opportunity to try and win round some people. It would have been hard, but I think without him there, we could have probably done something. So I think he will go. I think there will be calls for him to go. We just need to have been in a position to try and shape that. It’s inevitable now, isn’t it? I think he’s a bit of a sitting duck.
Q: You rightly made the point earlier, which is not just about change of leader, it’s also about a change of direction.
SW: Well, exactly that. You’ve probably heard similar names to me. I certainly heard a few yesterday that made me shudder. So I think it is setting those principles. We’re having those conversations now. I’ve spoken to other General Secretaries about what we want?
A reflection, a little bit on the deputy leader: yes, maybe a little bit less influential, but I think we all went there, with our own aims, aspirations, of what we wanted them to commit to, just around as firefighters, really. We used that as an opportunity to get some commitments and airtime around that.
But I think for this, that this isn’t just choosing the next leader of the Labour Party – this is choosing the next prime minister, a massive opportunity for trade unions to be a part of. Thousands of our members will get an opportunity to vote on who potentially goes through the door at Number 10. So I’ve said to them, and I said to some MPs that there needs to be a coalescing around some broad principles. I don’t think it needs to be too detailed, but what do we expect from a government over the next three years? What do we expect them to stand by? What do we expect them to be able to deliver on? But also make the case that they need to listen to trade unions. From day one, we spoke out as a union on lots of issues: the two-child benefit cap, the u-turns. Trade unions have always been on the right side of the bad decisions that have been made. But if we can shape [the discussions] beforehand – and I think that’s the point that many of us have made in those TULO meetings – [and] have those conversations, we’re the ones that I think are the only people that really do speak on behalf of working people.
Yes, you can talk to businesses, but if you want to be popular and you want to deliver on what Labour stands for, speak to the unions in advance of some of the decisions that they want to take forward.
So it’s about setting those broader areas that we can coalesce around and hold them to account on.
*Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation – known as Labour Unions, the unions affiliated to the Labour Party
- This article was originally published by Simon Fletcher’s Modern Left on 5 May 2026.
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- Steve Wright is the General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). You can follow him on Twitter/X here, and follow the FBU on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
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