The firebrand said: "I have no doubt that the smears and attacks on our union and myself will grow stronger over the next 18 months."
Unite boss Len McCluskey predicts the "unscrupulous smears"
directed at his union will increase in the run up to the general election.
Mr
McCluskey said the onslaught in recent weeks was reminiscent of right-wing
attacks against trade unions in the 1970s and 80s.
"I have no doubt that the smears and attacks on our union and
myself will grow stronger over the next 18 months as the Tories seek to use us
as a baton with which to beat Labour," he wrote in the Morning Star
newspaper.
"They will step up their attempts to silence ordinary people.
"It started with employment rights, then the Gagging Bill and now
they seek to silence peaceful protest.
"We are facing unscrupulous smears from within Parliament and the
media, which is now colluding in a further attack on ordinary people.
"I want our members to know that we will not be knocked off course
by such tactics from those very elements imposing and cheerleading the
disastrous policies that are doing so much damage to families up and down
Britain."
Mr McCluskey said the attacks were a clear sign that Unite was
"doing something right".
The Unite general secretary challenged the Prime Minister to make
recent remarks against the union outside Parliament without the cover of
parliamentary privilege.
Unite, which
holds national industrial-sector conferences this week under the slogan,
"fighting back for working people", has been attacked over the bitter dispute at
the Grangemouth oil refinery, and the selection of a Labour candidate in
Falkirk.
