The £113m ghosts in Labour's machine

As the Collins Review of Labour's internal constitution edges towards its anti-climax at a two hour special conference on 1 March, speculation increases that future trade union affiliation (funding and voting) will be based on £3 per year 'associate membership' thus closing off millions of trade unionists from paying a political levy to Labour.

NHS UK Plc

David Cameron bangs on about trade union donations to the Labour Party. He says it proves that Labour is in hock to the unions. Some may say if only. What then does Cameron call a £17000 bung from Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) to his party’s coffers? The Electoral Commission records show that the huge US health corporation has donated £17000 to the Tories since August 2010.
http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/nhs-contracts-firm-gave-to-tories/5062889.article?blocktitle=Most-commented&contentID=-1

Was Falkirk a false flag operation?

A BBC radio documentary this week confirmed an earlier report by the Guardian’s Seumas Milne that the allegations of impropriety in the Falkirk CLP made against Unite - which led to a Tory anti-union feeding frenzy and Ed Miliband’s panic measure to recommend the end of collective trade union affiliation to the Labour Party – are lacking in substance with little evidence in the body of the internal Labour Party report to substantiate the executive summary.

Lib Dems – only 42,000 members yet they rule over us

With only 55 MPs and 42,000 members Liberal Democrats are at the heart of the UK Government. Within the Coalition they have been the driving force to take ‘big money out of politics’ and staunch supporters of attacks on workers’ rights. No wonder that this almost virtual political party couldn't believe its luck in recent weeks with Ed Miliband repudiating collective trade union affiliation and the Lobbying Bill severely restricting ‘third party support’ in the year preceding a general election. Look out next for attempts to install the life support machine of state funding to guarantee them a long term role on the national stage regardless of their lack of viability as a UK wide political party:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/lib-dem-money-woes-grow-party-membership-hits-new-low

New ways of doing politics - Spot the difference

Coalition Agreement 12 May 2010 ‘We will regulate lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists and ensuring greater transparency. We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics’

Ed Miliband 22 July 2013
‘We want to open up our policy-making, clean up the lobbying industry and take the big money out of politics’.

Crowd Sourcing Political Funds - A Strategy for opening up the Union?

Political Funds and donations to the Labour Party are all the rage this week. The Falkirk selection process and others much like it have been thrown like a beach ball into the middle of a football pitch. So at a time of grinding poverty and misery, with lives and communities in utter turmoil we are being pulled into a debate about the selection of Labour candidates and the role of unions in that. Miliband has been fronted and his instinct was to say `you`re half right`.

Labour - Fiddling while Britain burns

Statement by Dave Prentis, UNISON General Secretary: 'UNISON has always given its members the choice of opting in to its affiliated political fund, that gives them a say in the democratic processes of the Labour Party, or of opting in to the General Political Fund, independent of any political party. Our processes are democratic and transparent. UNISON has never operated the arrangement whereby we pay Labour Party membership fees for new members.

Swindled at the checkout

I purchased some insurance the other day and when the invoice came through the company had deducted a £1.20 donation to the Conservative Party. I tried of course to opt out and get my £1.20 back but they said I had no choice. The same happened on a trip to Top Shop where I bought an overpriced skirt for one of my teenage daughters. This time they took off 80 pence for the Tories.

Nothing 'bold and brave' about Miliband's mess

Following Ed Miliband's announcement that individual trade unionists will be required to opt in to Labour Party contributions various journalists (FT gossip columnist Jim Pickard) and union leaders (Len McCluskey) are spinning that all is intact with union political funds and that opting out will remain. Nothing could be further from the truth. Miliband's unilateral announcement and its aftermath not only demonstrated the subordinate position of affiliated unions. It also paved the way for implementation of the Sir Christopher Kelly review (notably titled 'ending the big donor culture' as per Coalition Agreement) - of which legislation to introduce opting out of union political funds was the major sticking point to the extent that Margaret Becket produced a dissenting report.
    As GMB's Paul Kenny has correctly indicated, following yesterday's panic measure Labour is set to lose the lion's share of union funding. Now it will have no alternative but to sign up to the Kelly recommendations - having sold the pass on the principle of opting out how could it do otherwise when the Con Dem’s decide to legislate? State funding is the ultimate aim of yesterday’s statement. Everyone needs to face up to that fact and the historic implications for unions being pushed out to the margins of party politics as in the USA.

The core issue - killing off the Trade Union collective political voice

'There'll always be a place for unions, but not as part of a political party' said former Tory MP Matthew Parris on Radio 5 Live this morning. Eloquently summing up the historic change about to take place in the Labour Party - which Parris of course commended.

Political fund opt in will be a multi-million windfall for union general funds

Securing individual agreement of union members to opt in to a Labour Party political levy (presumably with periodic renewals) will not be a priority of any union hard pressed by austerity, employer restructuring and privatisation. The requirement for individuals to opt out meant that a default position of a union's rule book political affiliation would apply. Problems of inertia and complex administration favoured affiliation as individuals opposed to the union's collective political stance were required to be proactive.
   Under Miliband's new proposals the reverse will be the case. Most trade unionists will cease to pay the levy. Their erstwhile political fund contribution will be retained by unions and will be allocated to other priorities. Labour's loss will be our gain. Independent political organisation by unions will become a necessity and, in any event, the only show in town within trade union law given the imminent demise of affiliated political funds as we've know them since 1945.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/unions-lose-right-to-enrol-3-million-labour-members-in-new-reforms-announced-by-ed-miliband-8696153.html

Know your history - Opting in to political funds would be a Labour own goal

Throughout the various all-party attempts to review party political funding (including in the latest Kelly review) the Labour Party has stood firm on the issue of opting out of, rather than in to, political fund membership. For very good reason - last time around this resulted in a halving of political funds: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/22/party-funding-shakeup-rejection-promises

Working people need a political voice

Excellent article in today's Guardian by John Harris placing the Falkirk situation in its proper context of a UK party political system dominated by elites, patronage and transactional leaderships. Ahead of Ed Miliband's well trailed speech coming up tomorrow which will announce reforms of the trade union Labour constitutional relationship, Harris cautions against a breaking of the link: 'if millions of working people do not have a dependable means of accessing mainstream politics, capital will have scored another win – and our democracy will be even more impoverished'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/07/falkirk-rotten-state-political-parties/print

Union Numbers Game

The reporting of the Falkirk firestorm has made countless references to Unite as ‘Labour’s biggest donor’ and ‘Britain’s biggest union’ - the former is certainly the case given that two thirds of UNISON members pay a political fund levy to the union’s General Political Fund rather than Labour Link. However a recent independent analysis of Unite’s finance and membership data confirms that Unite’s full (working) member count is 1,101,255 – some 185,000 fewer full members than UNISON’s 1,286,000 full (working members) – making UNISON by a substantial degree Britain’s biggest union of working trade unionists:
http://hopisen.com/2013/len-fiddling-while-unite-burns/

Choice, Transparency & Union Political Funds

#lablink13 A report by the Unlock Democracy pressure group has held up the UNISON political fund - which provides members with the the option to be a member of a General Political Fund, a Labour Affiliated Political Fund, both or none at all, as a model example of transparency:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9580715/Unions-fail-to-inform-members-they-can-opt-out-of-Labour-funding.html

Hands Off the Trade Union Labour Link

#lablink13 UNISON’s Labour Link section - which has the backing of one third of political fund levy payers in the union - is holding its annual forum this weekend. Yesterday General Secretary Dave Prentis in his keynote speech picked up on the media frenzy surrounding Falkirk and defended the legitimacy of union involvement in politics saying that unions 'are a vital part of the Labour Party and we have a perfect right to be involved in all parts of the Party whether that be nationally or at constituency level.’

Low Wattage sheds dim light on Union-Labour link

Former Labour Party General Secretary, Peter Watt, writing on the Dale & Co. Blog, accuses the affiliated unions (including UNISON) who have questioned the excessive influence of the Progress organisation, of being bullies, hypocrites and ‘threatening the long term health of the Labour Party’: http://www.iaindale.com/posts/labour-and-the-trade-unions 

Tories smell blood on Union Labour Link

The Conservative reaction to Ed Miliband’s concession on party funding yesterday brought to mind what the late Mick McGahey once said of a previous Tory Government - "they will only stop chasing when we stop running." Even though Miliband conceded that his proposed £5,000 donation cap would apply to trade union donations (provided that political levy contributions were treated as individual rather than collective donations), the Tories are still not happy – demanding that trade unionists must opt in to the political levy rather than opt out as has been the case since 1945.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7787048/taking-big-money-out-of-politics.thtml

Backlash begins against Union Labour Link

No sooner do we have the latest scandal of corrupt corporate funding of the Tory Party than a concerted attempt is being made by to undermine the Union Labour link.

Political establishment mired in ABC of sleaze but unions clean as a whistle

A is for Abrahams 2007 a secret Labour donor who ran a political money laundering operation described as unlawful by Gordon Brown.
B is for Brown 2005 a fraudster who donated £2.5m to the Liberal Democrats
C is for Cruddas 2012 Tory Party treasurer who ran a cash for access operation repudiated by David Cameron but only after he was caught red handed eliciting £250k to secure meetings with Senior Ministers.