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Unite slashes Labour Party funding

Party plunged into crisis by £1.5m cut

Labour Party activists warned of a deep crisis for the party yesterday as Britain's biggest union slashed its membership payments.

Unite announced that it will halve its membership contribution from £3 million to £1.5 million annually.

The union will affiliate just half a million of its members to Labour at £3 each - instead of one million members.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said that almost half of the union's members did not vote Labour, but had still been affiliated in the past.

This was "untenable," he argued.

But the union's executive also agreed to offer Labour additional payments in the run-up to the 2015 general election.

Labour national executive member Dennis Skinner MP said the Unite decision was "a direct consequence" of last weekend's special conference vote to accept Lord Collins's plan to weaken the union link.

"I can only describe the whole situation as like somebody cutting off their nose to spite their face," said Mr Skinner.

Reports that multimillionaire warmonger Tony Blair was poised to make a large donation to Labour whetted the appetites of rightwingers hoping to replace trade union money with dodgy dosh from rich donors.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has already accepted a sum of "over £7,500" from renegade rightwinger Lord Owen, one of the "gang of four" who torpedoed the party's election chances by setting up the Social Democratic Party in 1981.

The Unite executive decision follows a drastic reduction in annual affiliation payments by the GMB union from £1.2 million to just £150,000.

Leaders of GMB, Britain's third largest union, announced last autumn that the union's executive had voted to reduce membership affiliation to the Labour Party from 420,000 to 50,000 this year.

Veteran Labour MP Mr Skinner voted against the Collins proposals at the party executive last month, and warned of the dangerous loss of large amounts of money from the trade unions.

He yesterday reiterated his appeal to the party leadership to commit to a formal review of the impact of the rule changes, so that total disaster can be averted.

MP Diane Abbott, a leadership candidate in 2010, also urged the party yesterday to "leave ourselves the option of reviewing the situation."

Ms Abbott said she strongly opposed the idea that the party should rely on donations from rich men.

"I feel even more strongly against the introduction of state funding, which would spell the end of a vibrant labour movement."

Mr Lansman expressed grave concern about the party's finances and urged the leadership to keep open the option of returning to the traditional link with the unions.

He said the CLPD would join the campaign to recruit the largest possible number of trade unionists as affiliated supporters.

"But it is going to be difficult unless the policies of the Labour Party are more union-friendly.

"Labour has got to present radical policies if it wants to win back the five million voters lost under new Labour."

Unite parliamentary group chairman Jim Sheridan MP said: "I am extremely disappointed by the union's decision to reduce the affiliation payment, but I can fully understand the reasons.

"Many of us saw this coming, but our warnings were ignored."

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