Yesterday's leading article in The Times on the Labour Party leadership election system more reflects the paper's enduring hostility to trade unionism than a serious concern for Labour's integrity. What other proposal for extending democracy would begin by proposing a radical reduction in the electorate?
Tony Woodley is the joint general secretary of Unite
Yesterday’s leading article in The Times (£) on the Labour party leadership election system more reflects the paper’s enduring hostility to trade unionism than a serious concern for Labour’s integrity. What other proposal for extending democracy would begin by proposing a radical reduction in the electorate?
Trade unions did not vote for Ed Miliband in the leadership election. Trade unionists did, in a secret postal ballot – and they gave the new Leader a far wider majority in terms of the votes of actual individuals voting than the weighted percentages cited by The Times indicate.
The direct votes of Labour-supporting trade unionists in the leadership election should be seen as a strength not a weakness – they are analogous to the votes cast in US primaries, which no-one seems to object to, and help ensure that the party leader is connected to the broad range of sympathetic voters. Were the vote to be confined to individual members alone, no doubt The Times would claim that it was all in the hands of unrepresentative activists.
On the larger point regarding the future of New Labour, none of the politicians cited by The Times in their reports seem to have grasped the implications of the crash of 2008 for any political project based, as New Labour was, on over-reliance on markets and, in particular, the finance sector.
I would only add that it is odious to read Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking, describing unions as “irrelevant in British society” (£) when her re-election this year in the face of a BNP challenge was so dependent on supporters we in the unions mobilised from outside her own constituency, a fact she acknowledged at the time.
This letter was originally sent to The Times but failed to make it into today’s paper.
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37 Responses to “The votes of trade unionists are a strength to Labour not a weakness”
Pete
This would be much more impressive if the GMB hadn’t sent out voting forms in support Ed envelopes.
What was the turnout from the individual union members? Of those that voted how many of them where union activists doing what they where told.
Chris
@Ed
No, the unions did not “stuff ballots” with Ed’s literature. In accordance with Labour’s rules each ballot paper was sealed in its own envelope with a candidates booklet (containing a brief statement from each candidate) and a return envelope.
The ballot envelope was then delivered inside another envelope or shrink wrapping. In the case of unison, inside the shrink wrapping was a union magazine, union-labour link magazine (again containing a statement from each candidate) and a letter stating that unison had endorsed Ed Miliband.
“Explain to me how that doesn’t constitute undue influence from the unions?”
Union members aren’t drones without the power of higher level thought processes, a letter stating that they’d endorsed a specific candidate isn’t undue influence ffs!
Chris
@Pete
“This would be much more impressive if the GMB hadn’t sent out voting forms in support Ed envelopes.”
The GMB ballot papers were inside plain sealed envelope.
“What was the turnout from the individual union members?”
Look it up on the Labour website.
“Of those that voted how many of them where union activists doing what they where told.”
WTF? Unions aren’t authoritarian dictatorships, it was a secret ballot with no way of knowing who somebody voted for.
Pete
@Chris.
“This would be much more impressive if the GMB hadn’t sent out voting forms in support Ed envelopes.”
The GMB ballot papers were inside plain sealed envelope…”
The Guardian seems to disagree.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/24/ed-miliband-union-gmb-labour-leadership
Hugh
Unite certainly tried in May to stave off the Con-Dem coalition by writing to scores of Labour MPs after the election to urge them to back a deal with the Lib Dems. If Reid, Blunkett, Burnham and others had followed their example perhaps the country wouldn’t now be adopting its masochistic economic policy. Of course they’re not perfect, but the unions deserve credit for trying to inject some sanity into the PLP, rather than their influence being questioned.