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Attacks on the party's union funding are misplaced, and challenge its very existence, argues Byron Taylor
Whenever there is a public debate on party funding, the link between the Labour Party and its affiliated trade unions always comes under close scrutiny. Bring it on – we’ve had this debate twice in the last eight years and the affiliated trade unions always emerge with a clean bill of health.
Yet despite the reports of the Electoral Commission (2004), and the Neill Committee before it (1998), there are ill informed commentators who continue to regard the relationship as improper. I’ve never considered the Guardian to be in that category but the editorial comment, ‘A difficult union’ (Tuesday 6th June) took that very position.
The offending article made two assertions – that Labour is seeking to cut Tory funding whilst leaving trade unions affiliations untouched; and that trade unions exert power over Labour in return for those monies.
The Labour Party, in common with its sister parties in other countries, is an association of organisations and individuals. The trade unions and socialist societies affiliate to Labour by making collective membership payments on behalf of their members, unlike private donations. This is a constitutional process governed by the rulebook of the Party - there are specific seats for trade unionists on the National Executive Committee, at Party Conference and in the National Policy Forum. Yet despite this presence, and despite having created the Party, the trade unions do not have a majority on these bodies – they rely on persuading others within the Party to win support for their policies. To attack trade union funding is to attack the principle of affiliation and challenges the very existence of the Labour Party.
To suggest that Labour is seeking to attack Tory funding while leaving its own ‘routes of supply’ untouched is fanciful. Trade union money is needed to counteract the great funding advantage that the Tories have historically enjoyed as the Party of the wealthy. Current Tory proposals for a £50,000 donation cap would give them a huge partisan advantage. Not only would it wipe out a major source of Labour funding, but it would advantage the Tories by virtue of the fact that they have three times as many individual donors as Labour and twice as many corporate donors. That advantage would conveniently be compounded by the taxpayer if we were to accept their proposal for tax relief for political donations. To put it into perspective – it would require only 150 donations of £50,000 to match the affiliation fees of 2.5 million trade unionists.
Nor do the affiliated trade unions ‘exert power in return for their money’. Even during a period of Labour Government it would be hard to demonstrate the political power that trade union affiliations enjoy – recent party conferences have carried trade union resolutions on a host of issues, from employee rights to pensions and manufacturing but these have not been accepted by the government. Has anyone noticed that the Labour Party officially supports the re-nationalisation of the railways or compliance with international labour standards? The reality is that affiliations give trade unions a voice in a party that shares many of the same values, but this does not translate easily into the exertion of power.
Trade union affiliations to the Labour Party are already the most highly regulated political expenditure in the western world – their members must collectively agree to maintain a political fund and to support the Labour Party, and these debates take place on an almost annual basis at union conferences. Even then, a member has the right to opt out of making a contribution. Yet despite this level of regulation, trade unions affiliations continue to give 2.5 million members a voice in British politics.
At a time when the global power of business is increasing, why are some commentators so keen to remove ordinary working people from the political process?
This article first appeared in the Guardian Newspaper on Friday 9th June 2006. Click here to view.
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