Ed Miliband and Britain’s top trade unions backed away yesterday from open confrontation over the Labour leader’s efforts to change the party’s funding rules that could cost it millions.
Under current rules, Labour receives fees from each of the three million British workers who are members of unions affiliated to the party – which amounts to a quarter of the party’s income.
Mr Miliband wants to move away from this, encouraging trade union members to join the party directly, though many inside and outside Labour predict a haemorrhage of funds.
“The vast majority play no role in our party. They are affiliated in name only. That wasn’t the vision of the founders of our party. I don’t think it’s your vision either,” he told the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Bournemouth.
Describing his plan as “such an exciting idea”, Mr Miliband said Labour would become a party of 500,000 members rather than 200,000, “rooted in every kind of workplace in the country”.
Protest
His plan has already provoked several unions to cut, in protest, the money they contribute to Labour from the funds they gather for political campaigning. Yesterday, however, Mr Miliband and the TUC sought to cover their divisions, conscious that the Conservatives will seek to exploit charges that union leaders are too influential on him.
Though many delegates were barred from speaking openly to journalists, Martin Smith of the GMB – the first union to declare that it is cutting its contribution to Labour – said Mr Miliband had read the mood in Bournemouth “very well”.
“In the end, it’s policies which will win the election for Labour and he spelled out several of them. He got a very warm reception. Nobody had come to barrack or boo him. We need the relationship with Labour and we will be out fighting for the party at the next election,” he said.
Privately, senior Labour figures have spent the last few days urging other union leaders gathered in Bournemouth not to follow the example set by the GMB, which cut its affiliation fees by 90 per cent.
Labour will hold a special conference next March to decide finally the rules to govern party funding, though it is clear the unions will not lose their block vote in Labour ballots even if the money they pay to the party is reduced.
