NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACKLen McCluskey is the standout trade unionist of his era. Head of the giant Unite union for more than a decade, he is a unique and powerful figure on the political stage.In this major autobiography, McCluskey throws back the curtains on life at the top of the Labour movementwith explosive revelations about his dealings with Keir Starmer, the behind-the-scenes battles of the Corbyn era, his secret Brexit negotiations with Theresa Mays government, the spectacular bust-up with his former friend Tom Watson, and his tortuous relationship with Ed Miliband.McCluskey is no run-of-the-mill trade unionist. Fiercely political, unflinchingly left wing, he is a true workers leader. His politics were formed in Liverpool at a time of dock strikes, the Beatles, and the May 1968 revolution in Paris. An eyewitness to the Hillsborough tragedy, he recounts in harrowing detail searching for his son.Witty and sharp, McCluskey delivers a powerful intervention, issuing a manifesto for the future of trade unionism and urging the left not to lose sight of class politics.A central player in a tumultuous period of British political history, McCluskeys account is an essentialand entertainingrecord of our times. Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite the Union for more than a decade, is a trade unionist from Liverpool. Elected a shop steward on the Liverpool docks aged 19, he rose through the Transport and General Workers Union before playing an instrumental role in the creation of Unite. As its leader, he became a national political figure and a powerful influence in the Labour Party. He is a lifelong supporter of Liverpool Football Club and the author of Why You Should Be A Trade Unionist. THE CHICKEN COUPIt was the weekend after Britain voted to leave the European Union. The government was in turmoil. The prime minister had announced his resignation. The Tories looked on the brink of a split. The countrys future was uncertainno one had a clue what would happen next. Millions of people were anxious. Racist hate crimes were surging. But as I flicked between news programmes, all they were talking about was a coup against the leader of the Labour Party.All day it went on as one shadow minister after another resigned live on TV. Late the previous night, on learning that his shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn was plotting a coup against him, Jeremy Corbyn had called his great friends son and sacked him. That fired the starting gun on the coordinated resignations: first Heidi Alexander before 9 a.m., then Gloria De Piero at 11, Ian Murray at noon, Lilian Greenwood at 1, and so on. Twelve resigned through-out the day and eight more the nextmost, not all, scurrilous individuals who should never have been in the shadow cabinet to begin with. The crescendo came when Angela Eagle brought herself to tears over her own resignation on air. What a pitiful display.The sheer arrogance of these MPswho owed their stature to being in the shadow cabinet, not the other way aroundattempting to cancel the democratic choice of hundreds of thousands of Labour members by inflicting as much damage as possible on their own party left me aghast. It was a betrayal that should never be forgiven. With each one that went, part of me thought, Fuck them. Good job theyve gone. Replace them immediately. And thats exactly what happened. Corbyn refused to be bullied out, while some of the worst people in the Labour Party purged themselves from his shadow cabinet, leaving it a considerably better team. Watching those resignations, I didnt have a moments doubt that I would be doing everything possible to defend Corbyns leadership.***The chicken coup of Summer 2016 was one of the most extraordinary and shameful episodes in the history of the Labour Party. It confirmed the worst accusation levelled at the Parliamentary Labour Party and the bureaucracy in HQ: that they would rather destroy their party than allow the left to succeed. But it also brought out the best in the movement that had formed around Jeremy Corbyn, mobilising hundreds of thousands of people to take politics into their own hands and cut the MPs down to size. The role played by the trade unions was critical. This was the moment when, without Unite, Corbyn would have gone under.