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13 May 2005

The union movement's strict vow of silence ahead of the election came to an end when the leader of more than a million workers said that for Tony Blair to serve a full term as Prime Minister would be "ludicrous".

Derek Simpson, general secretary of Amicus, one of the Labour Party's biggest donors, also presented the Government with a shopping list of new demands and threatened strikes to re-establish national pay negotiations in engineering.

Mr Simpson demanded new employment rights strengthening the so-called Warwick agreement which secured the silence of employees' leaders during the election campaign. In an interview ahead of his union's annual conference, Mr Simpson said it was only with the help of activists from Amicus and other unions that Labour hung on to majorities in marginal constituencies.

He said there should be an "orderly and dignified" handover of power, and Mr Blair should step down a year or two before the next election. "It would be ludicrous if he served a full term. He has to allow a new leader to establish themselves before the next election." He said the identity of his replacement was less important than the policies pursued. It is understood that Amicus and most other unions - which command a third of the votes in the electoral college - will throw their weight behindGordon Brown.

Mr Simpson, who will give his keynote address to the union's conference in Brighton tomorrow, urged the Government to remove the right of employers to take legal action against ballots on industrial action and to scrap laws which enforce regular votes on political donations by unions.

He called for a "level playing field" on employment rights to end a situation where it is "cheaper and easier" for global employers to sack British workers than it is to shed them on the Continent. The Government should legislate, he said, to ensure that employers' contributions to workers' pensions were compulsory.

He expected that a ballot on the principle of an amalgamation to create a 2.4 million-strong organisation could come as early as September.