Former Unite general secretary Len McCluskey appeared on ITV’s Peston Wednesday night to discuss politics and the future of the Labour Party. Mr McCluskey predicted an election will be held within the next 18 months but admitted to doubting that Labour would have a strong chance of winning with Sir Keir Starmer. Sir Keir has seen his leadership questioned on several occasions since taking over from Jeremy Corbyn in April 2020.

       Asked if Sir Keir was in a good position to lead the Labour Party, Mr McCluskey told ITV's Peston: “In my opinion, I think he’ll be in a very good position to do that.

       "I see a general election coming within 18 months, unfortunately at the moment, I don’t believe Labour will win.

       “We need to win our red wall seats back, I think Keir is going about it the wrong way, I think he’ll be removed, and we’ll see whether or not Andy [Burnham] runs in the next election to be an MP.

       "If he does then I think there will be a significant amount of support.”

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       Mr McCluskey, when asked about the next leader of the Labour Party, seemed hopeful that Andy Burnham would run as an MP in the next election.

       Mr Burnham is currently the Labour Mayor of the Greater Manchester area.

       Robert Peston then asked Len McCluskey if he trusted the current leader of the Labour Party, referring to Kier again and without hesitation, the ex-union secretary bluntly said “no."

       The former Unite leader said: "I don’t Robert, in fact, I bought you a copy of my autobiography.

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       “There is a chapter in the book covering the situation with Kier, where he incredibly suspended Jeremy Corbin.

       "He then cut a deal to bring him back with myself which I talk about in the book.”

       "He then cut a deal to bring him back with myself which I talk about in my book.

       "And with John Trickett, and then he reneged on the deal.”

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       Mr McCluskey added: “Now I’ve been a trade union negotiator all my life and the one thing you don’t do, is renege on deals.

       "If I reneged on a deal with an employer they would never trust me and vice versa.

       "So I do say quite honestly in the book, that I lost trust in Keir at that particular point and it has not returned.”

       Mr McCluskey first accused Keir Starmer of reneging on pledges to reinstate Jeremy Corbyn

       In September of this year, with many key Labour sources close to the negotiations hitting back at Len’s allegations.