Union of Willy Wavers

The Sunday Herald did a great job of bringing Labour's vote rigging scandal in Falkirk to national attention - an example of investigative journalism at its best.

But I also admired this comment piece by Dan Hodges, a former Labour insider who blogs for the Telegraph on a regular basis - and who hit the nail square on the head by comparing the ridiculous Len McCluskey to the equally preposterous Fred Kite, a fictional character from the film 'I'm All Right Jack'.

Signing up new Labour members en bloc and paying their membership fees centrally smacks of union manipulation - not democracy - and the whole business ought to be outlawed by the Labour Party leadership because it is wide open to abuse.        

Unite should change its name to the National Union of Willy Wavers

By Dan Hodges

Yesterday the Labour Party officially confirmed what everyone else in the Labour Party already knew: the Unite trade union has been trying to stitch up the parliamentary selection in Falkirk. Hundreds of “new” members had been signed up in an attempt to fix the process in favour of the union’s candidate, Carie Murphy. It’s important to stress Ms Murphy had no involvement in, or knowledge of, these procedural abuses.

According to a Labour party statement: "After an internal inquiry into the Falkirk constituency we have found there is sufficient evidence to raise concern about the legitimacy of members qualifying to participate in the selection of a Westminster candidate”. Having been caught bang to rights, Unite did what any self-respecting union would do in these circumstances, and tried to blame the whole thing on Peter Mandelson. “The intervention by Party officials into this process has been driven by Blairite pressure to exclude trade unionists from any influence in the Party, an ambition clearly spelt out by Peter Mandelson last month”, it said in its own statement.

Actually, I say any self-respecting union, but that description no longer really applies to the TUC’s largest affiliate. Unite long ago ceased to have the slightest shred of respect for itself, or anyone else.

The union has become a parody; a caricature. It would be much kinder to all concerned if Len McCluskey was asked to step down, and was replaced by Fred Kite, the communist shop steward played by Peter Sellers in the 1950s anti-trade union farce I’m All Right Jack.

Just take the protestations of injured innocence emanating over Falkirk. We know full well that Unite is trying to manipulate Labour’s selection processes on behalf of its preferred candidates. And we know this because Unite can’t help bragging about it. “Unite's aim is simple – to recruit members to the party (welcome, I would have thought) and then encourage them to endorse union-supported candidates in one member-one vote selections”, Len McCluskey wrote in the Guardian on 21 May.

Last year I was forwarded a copy of Unite’s internal political strategy. In a passage that seemed to have been drafted by veteran Jedi shop steward Yoda, it warned, “Forces more or less openly hostile to our agenda remain strong within [Labour] and are well financed outside Parliament by groups like Progress”. To counter this threat from the dark side, Unite planned on recruiting 5,000 trade unionists to Labour ranks. For the avoidance of doubt it was made clear this move was “emphatically not just a recruitment offensive to benefit the Labour Party,” but to ensure an “impact on constituency parties” on behalf of the union itself.

To date the response from Unite and their supporters has been, “Well, what’s wrong with all this?”. In his Guardian smack-down of Lord Mandelson, Len McCluskey piously stated, “Your report does not have him alleging any breach of party rules or procedural abuses, perhaps because there are none”. Well there were. When Peter Mandelson accused Unite of "manipulating selection procedures" he was right. That’s precisely what the Union was doing.

To be fair, Labour party selections have always been manipulated. Patronage in the allocation of parliamentary seats has always been used as a means of exercising political control. And Len McCluskey is right when he says the practice was rife under New Labour. Although what he fails to mention is that those stitch-ups were also done with the connivance of the unions.

I think there are two problems with Unite’s attempted hijacking of Labour selections, neither of which are actually based on any great abuse of principle. The first is that this is not actually being done in the name of any grand political strategy. Oh, that’s the pretext: more good, honest working-class people in a position to pass more laws that benefit good, honest workers. And yes, Unite want to see Ed Miliband dancing to their tune.

But that’s not what it’s really about. Unite are trying to fix selections simply because they can. Lots of middle-aged men, (it’s still always men), wandering around showing how big and hard they are. They should just go the whole hog and rename themselves the National Union of Willy Wavers.

The second problem is the new politics wasn’t supposed to be like this. Ed Miliband’s party spent the best part of a year going through an entire, tortuous process called “Refounding Labour”. It was a total and utter waste of time. Nothing has been “refounded”. People are fitting-up selections for their mates and their cliques in the same way that they always did.

Not that you’ll hear many people complaining. That’s because they can’t. If you’re an MP, you need Unite’s votes to ensure your reselection. If you’re a wannabe MP, you need Unite’s votes to ensure your selection. So today, those people who are normally up in arms at the merest procedural missteps within the party machine will stay silent.

I don’t care about the abuse. What I object to is the hypocrisy. The way people continue to pretend Labour has consigned the fixing and the stitch-ups to the dustbin of history, when in reality they are carrying on right in front of their eyes.

Here is a serious, practical suggestion. Labour should simply change the rules to allow Unite to personally select 100 of the party’s candidates for the next election. That would do away with all the messing around recruiting plastic new members, fiddling with all-women shortlists and bent selection interviews. “Len, who do you want? Fine? There’s your 100 candidates. Now bugger off and organise your general strike.

In return Unite should have to do one thing. They should be forced to change their name to the NUWW first.