by Chris McLaughlin
A FRESH battle to save the trade union link with Labour is underway following a renewed attack in the wake of the party’s illegal donations affair.
Although no union – or any union cash – is involved in the fiasco over proxy donations of up to £660,000 from north east businessman David Abrahams, the spotlight has switched to trade union donations and affiliations.
Gordon Brown’s reopening of the door in a cross-party agreement on future party political funding led to immediate demands from David Cameron for the historic and constitutional link with the unions to be broken.
In the margins of last weekend’s meeting of the party’s National Policy Forum, Mr Brown appeared to secure a deal with union leaders which would mean acceptance of a cap on corporate and individual donations at £50,000. But the unions are insisting that individual affiliations should be protected.
Currently set at £3 per member a year, affiliations provide about £6 million a year to party funds. The level could be raised to compensate for the fall in donations that would follow a new cap.
However, the Tories have claimed the concession is not sufficient and are pressing for affiliations to be capped, as well as a change in the rules which would require members to opt in to the political levy rather than, as at present, to opt out.
Francis Maude, the shadow minister involved in the funding negotiations, has also signalled that no cross-party consensus will be won unless union members are allowed to choose which party the affiliation fee goes to.
Unions believe they have gone as far as possible without jeopardising the hundred-year-old basis of their relationship with the Labour Party. There is anger that, after blunders involving officers in the upper hierarchy over secret donations, it is the unions that are once again being put in the dock.
That anger was shared by NPF members who made their displeasure clear in a question-and-answer session with Mr Brown.
With MPs in despair and disbelief at the mess caused by the secret Abrahams donations to the party and to the election campaign of deputy party leader Harriet Harman, the crisis deepened over a £950 personal donation to Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander’s election campaign from a businessman based in Jersey.
The affairs, and Mr Brown’s attempt to dampen the political damage by reopening talks on capping union donations, have handed the Tories the opportunity to renew pressure for a break in the link which was successfully resisted, in spite of Number 10’s interventions on behalf of then Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the Hayden Phillips talks.
Pressure is also mounting among MPs for tighter rules and a spending cap on leadership campaigns. Latest official party figures reveal Mr Brown spent £203,852 on an uncontested campaign.
For the deputy contest, Jon Cruddas spent £144,735, half of which was estimated as “in kindâ€; Hilary Benn spent £98,359; Harriet Harman £96,422; Peter Hain £78,098; Alan Johnson £54,208 (half in kind); and Hazel Blears £51,850.
