BFAWU general secretary Sarah Woolley hit back at Reform leader Nigel Farage yesterday and branded his hard-right party “a private company that seeks to profit from division.”

Ms Woolley told the food union’s annual conference that she will never affiliate with Reform UK as long as she is general secretary.

Following a call from Mr Farage for unions to associate with his party, she said: “The BFAWU will never affiliate to Reform UK Limited as long as I am general secretary.

“And I use the word ‘Limited’ deliberately. Because Reform is not a democratic, membership-led political party in the way trade unionists understand democracy.

“It is a private company controlled from the top. It is a company that seeks to profit from division.”

She said: “We are told repeatedly that Reform is now the party of the working class. We hear it in the media.

“We hear it from commentators. We heard it from Mr Farage himself yesterday. But let’s judge politicians by what they do, not what they say.”

She explained that Reform has “repeatedly voted against measures that would improve the lives of working-class people. He has opposed protections for workers.

“[Mr Farage] has opposed measures that would strengthen working people’s rights. And when communities have faced tensions and unrest, he has too often chosen to inflame divisions rather than heal them.”

Referring to the racist riots seen in Northern Ireland this week, she said: “The riots and disorder we have seen in communities across the country have not improved a single worker’s pay packet.

“They have not reduced anyone’s rent. They have not improved anyone’s terms and conditions. They have not put food on a family’s table.

“That is not a solution. That is a distraction. All they have done is divide working-class communities against one another.”

She said: “Our movement was built on solidarity. Not conditional solidarity or solidarity when it is easy. Not solidarity only with those who look like us, sound like us or live like us. Real solidarity.”

The BFAWU adopted a motion calling for the union to recognise the threat the hard-right party poses for workers, considering the “real gains they have made since the last general election.”

Moving, delegate Chris McGill, from Bellshill near Glasgow, said union leaders should confront Reform leaders directly and “ask them what they are actually doing for workers.”