Unrepresentative Unions

Ed Miliband needs help from Len McCluskey like he needs an extra hold in his head at the moment, but the Unite leader's intervention will only fuel fears south of the border that Labour might gain power by the 'back door'.

Because while it's one thing to form an alliance with other democratically elected MPs, it's quite another to be seen dancing to the tune of an unelected trade union boss who helped Ed Miliband become Labour leader in the first place.

Even more so when you consider this 50-50 baloney that Len McCluskey is banging on about with his officials telling the The Times that:

"Unite sources said that it reflected the union’s membership in Scotland, where support is divided 50-50 between Labour and the SNP"

Now this is nonsense, of course, since trade union members vote the same way as the rest of the population and according to the latest opinion poll only 22% of Scots now support Labour - a trend which has been very clear for some time.

So the majority of Unite members support the SNP and other parties, in just the same away as in other trade unions, and the challenge facing Len McCluskey is to make his own union properly representative instead of promoting a tribal, pro-Labour agenda.

Which means not just talking about policies and politics in a general sense, but in actively recruiting an promoting talented people from an SNP and other non-Labour backgrounds to senior positions within Unite.   

Whereas at the moment Unite operates as a dreary, Labour-only closed shop.

Unite will push Miliband into making deal with Nationalists


The head of the Unite union said the Scottish National party, led by Nicola Sturgeon, had changed the contours of the political scene - Reuters

By Laura Pitel, Sam Coates and Lindsay McIntosh - The Times

The head of the Unite union has given his blessing for Labour to work with the Scottish National party after May 7, paying tribute to the Nationalists for upending the general election.

A new poll gave the SNP a 32-point lead over Labour. The TNS poll put the SNP on 54 per cent and Labour on 22 per cent, and could mean the Nationalists taking 57 of Scotland’s 59 seats, with only one for Labour and one for the Liberal Democrats.

Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, said that in the event of a hung parliament he would be expecting Ed Miliband to work with “any progressive party” that sought to support the Labour leader’s vision for Britain.

Asked if that definition could include the SNP, Mr McCluskey said that the party had “undoubtedly changed the contours of the political scene”. He added that both Mr Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, had been “impressive”.

“It would be wrong of me to launch an attack against the SNP, who have a manifesto that is anti-austerity, which is Unite’s policy, and many of the issues that they talk about are in line with the policies of my membership,” he said.

His stance jars with Mr Miliband’s efforts to assure voters that there would be no deal of “any kind” with Ms Sturgeon as he tries to fend off Tory warnings about the dangers of a tie-up.

Unite sources said that it reflected the union’s membership in Scotland, where support is divided 50-50 between Labour and the SNP.

Mr McCluskey’s remarks also put him at odds with other major trade unions, reopening a fault line that appeared during the campaign for last year’s vote on Scottish independence. Unite and Unison, the two biggest unions with 2.7 million members between them, took a neutral stance rather than backing Labour’s campaign for a “no” vote. The GMB, Aslef, Usdaw and the Communications Workers’ Union, whose combined membership is 1.3 million, were opposed to independence.

A GMB spokesman said: “GMB is working flat-out for a Labour victory. That is the beginning, middle and end of our position.”

Usdaw, the shop-workers’ union, has issued leaflets attacking SNP cuts to schools and the NHS and warning: “Voting SNP will let the Tories back in.” A Unison statement said that it was up to individual members how they voted.

Stewart Hosie, the SNP’s deputy leader, has fuelled fears of another referendum by saying that there would be a new push for independence if Westminster refused to devolve powers to an extent known as devo-max.

Mr Hosie’s comments raise the prospect of a new vote because Labour and the Conservatives have ruled out such a large-scale transfer of power, also known as full fiscal autonomy.

A video of Mr Hosie’s remarks was flagged up by Scottish Labour yesterday morning. The recording, which was made at a hustings for the deputy leadership last year, shows Mr Hosie telling activists that the successful candidate “takes a key role in keeping the Yes campaign or independence movement together”.

Meanwhile, a ComRes poll for Newsnight on BBC Two suggested that any attempt by Mr Miliband to become prime minister if Labour won fewer seats than the Tories would be questioned by the public.

About 55 per cent of those questioned said that the prime minister should be the leader of the party with the most MPs, while 34 per cent said it should be the leader of the party who can form a partnership of the largest number of MPs including from smaller parties — the constitutionally accurate position.

Stephan Shakespeare, chief executive of YouGov, suggested that questioning the legitimacy of a minority Labour government could help to get Ukip voters to return to backing the Tories.

“[Former Tory-Ukippers] are the only group of possible tactical switchers large enough to make a decisive difference, and so the final week needs to go beyond the economy,” he said. “Legitimacy could grow into a powerful issue in the final week and plays into the resonant theme of fairness.”