Timothy John Roache (born 6 April 1962) is a British trade unionist who served as General Secretary of the GMB union from 2016 to 2020. [1]
Roache was born on 6 April 1962 and grew up in London, where his father was a shop steward on the docks. In 1979, he began working in the postroom of the GMB, over time being promoted to become a legal officer, then an organiser, and finally in 2007 as the union's Regional Secretary for Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. [2]
In 2009, Roache led a 13-week strike of refuse workers and street cleaners employed by Leeds City Council; this was the longest strike in the GMB's history. [3] He also ran the "End Foul Pay" campaign for football clubs to pay ground staff higher wages. [4]
Roache was elected as General Secretary and Treasurer of the GMB in November 2015, receiving 56.7% of the vote on a turnout of 4.2%, beating the one other candidate, Paul McCarthy. [5] Roache took up the post in 2016. [3] He was re-elected in 2019 with 61% of the vote. [6]
In April 2020 Roache resigned suddenly, on the grounds of ill health, [7] [8] amid reports he had been forced to resign. [9] A GMB statement said Roache's chronic fatigue syndrome illness some years ago had restarted and he resigned following medical advice. [10] After receiving anonymous allegations about Roache's conduct, the union conducted a barrister-led internal inquiry, [11] which concluded that bullying, misogyny, cronyism and sexual harassment were "endemic" within the union. [12]
Alongside his role in the GMB, Roache was the chair of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) and also of the Yorkshire and Humber Trades Union Congress. [4] Some reports suggested he was supportive of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party and had criticised the 2015 Labour manifesto drawn up under Ed Miliband, [13] though other reports state he was not an enthusiastic backer, or a critic, of Corbyn. [9] [10] Roache did not back the 2016 challenge to Corbyn's leadership, saying "This is about democracy and respecting the Labour Party’s democratic process. Jeremy has a strong mandate, and it’s hugely disappointing that this is not being respected". [14]
In his spare time, Roache supports Arsenal F.C. and coaches his son's local football team, Kippax Juniors. He is also a father and a husband. [2]
The GMB is a general trade union in the United Kingdom which has more than 460,000 members. Its members work in nearly all industrial sectors, in retail, security, schools, distribution, the utilities, social care, the National Health Service (NHS), ambulance service and local government.
John Simon Bercow is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior to becoming Speaker, he was the first MP since Selwyn Lloyd in 1971 to be elected Speaker without having been a Deputy Speaker. After resigning as Speaker in 2019 and opting not to seek re-election as MP for Buckingham in the 2019 general election, Bercow left Parliament. In 2021, he joined the Labour Party but was suspended in 2022.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. Corbyn sits in the House of Commons as an independent, having had the whip removed in October 2020.
The Socialist Campaign Group, officially the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs and also known as the Campaign Group, is a left-wing, democratic socialist grouping of the Labour Party's Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. It was formed in December 1982 following the 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election when a number of soft left MPs, led by Neil Kinnock, refused to back Tony Benn's campaign, leading a number of left-wing Benn-supporting MPs to split from the Tribune Group to form the Socialist Campaign Group.
Dame Angela Eagle DBE is a British Labour Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallasey since 1992. Eagle was born in Yorkshire and studied PPE at the University of Oxford, before working for the CBI and then a trade union.
Jon Hedley Trickett is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hemsworth in West Yorkshire since a 1996 by-election. He was Shadow Lord President of the Council from 2016 to 2020 and served as Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office from 2011 to 2013 and 2017 to 2020. He was the Labour Party National Campaign Coordinator under Jeremy Corbyn from 2015 to 2017.
Patrick Bosco McFadden is a British politician serving as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, he has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South East since 2005.
Leonard David McCluskey is a British trade unionist. He was General Secretary of Unite the Union, the largest affiliate and a major donor to the Labour Party. As a young adult, he spent some years working in the Liverpool Docks for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company prior to becoming a full-time union official for the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&GWU) in 1979.
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since 2021. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester South since 2011.
Iain Mackenzie McNicol, Baron McNicol of West Kilbride is a British politician, trade unionist and life peer who served as General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2011 to 2018. He was National Political Officer of the GMB trade union from 2004 to 2011.
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.
Richard Burgon is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds East since 2015. Burgon served as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020.
Peter Kyle is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove since 2015.
Joanna Meriel Stevens is a Welsh politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales since 2021, and previously from 2016 to 2017. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff Central since 2015.
Ofunne Kate Osamor is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Edmonton since 2015. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, she was Shadow Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2018. She is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group parliamentary caucus.
Momentum is a British left-wing political organisation which has been described as a grassroots movement supportive of the Labour Party; since January 2017, all Momentum members must be members of the party. It was founded in 2015 by Jon Lansman, Adam Klug, Emma Rees and James Schneider after Jeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to become Labour Party leader and it is reported to have between 20,000 and 30,000 members in 2021.
The 2016 Labour Party leadership election was called when a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party arose following criticism of his approach to the Remain campaign in the referendum on membership of the European Union and questions about his leadership of the party.
The Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn began when Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the UK Labour Party in September 2015, following the resignation of Ed Miliband after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election. Disillusioned by a lack of a left-wing voice in the 2015 leadership contest, Corbyn stood on an anti-austerity platform. Of the candidates who stood, Corbyn received the fewest parliamentary nominations. Many who nominated him said they had done so not to support his candidacy, but to widen the debate by including a socialist voice. However, Corbyn soon became the frontrunner and was elected with a landslide of 59%.
On 26–29 June 2016, 21 members of the Shadow Cabinet resigned from the frontbench. Following the Leave result in the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, Jeremy Corbyn faced heavy criticism for the perceived reluctance of his involvement in the campaign to Remain and his perceived weakness as leader of the Labour Party.
Gary Smith is a Scottish trade union leader.
{{cite magazine}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(help)