GMB cuts Labour party funding

The GMB said there will also be further reductions in spending on Labour party campaigns and initiatives.

The decision by the 65-member executive follows plans by Labour leader Ed Miliband to give individual union members the choice of opting to join the party rather than being automatically affiliated.

The plans were unveiled amid a row between Labour and the Unite union about candidate selection in Falkirk.

There have been estimates that the change will cost Labour at least £9m, a figure backed up by the GMB decision.

The union has affiliated 420,000 of its members to Labour, at £3 per member per year, but that figure will be cut to 50,000 from January.

Best estimate

The 50,000 figure is based on the GMB’s best estimate of how many of its members would choose to affiliate to Labour.

It reflects the number of members declaring their support for the party in a tick box on the ballot paper for the 2010 Labour leadership elections, and the union says it is abiding with Mr Miliband’s wishes.

Read Michael Crick's blog: Labour set to pay political price for union funding row

The GMB is keen for its members to join Labour – promoting the party in its magazines and website – but does not detect much enthusiasm. It has no plans to hold a fresh ballot of members on individual Labour affiliation.

Ian Lavery, who chairs the trade union group of Labour MPs, said he believed fewer than 15 per cent of union members would opt to join Labour under the changes.

“People are not queuing up to join Labour – quite the opposite. They are waiting to see what the party will bring to the table in its manifesto,” he said.

GMB say their much reduced affiliation contributions to Labour won’t be replaced with increased donations: “Ed doesn’t want our money.”

— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) September 4, 2013

Labour MP Tom Watson wrote in his blog: “If this is the beginning of the end of that historic link, it is a very serious development that threatens a pillar of our democracy that has endured for over one hundred years.”

Labour is holding a special conference in the spring of 2014 to discuss Mr Miliband’s proposed reforms. The GMB has now announced its intentions. What about Labour’s other big donors?

Unison gives the party £1.5m a year at a national level. This sum is based on the 500,000 Unison members (out of a total of 1.3 million) who have ticked a box saying they want to fund the Labour party.

The union has no plans to change its current system, which Mr Miliband has commended.

Unite told Channel 4 News it had no comment to make.

Of the TUC’s 54 affiliated unions, 15 are affiliated to Labour. These 15 unions have 3 million members.

Union members are more likely to vote Labour than any other party. A poll of Unite members carried out by the Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft in July found that 49 per cent would vote Labour, 23 per cent Tory, 12 per cent Ukip and 7 per cent Liberal Democrat.

But 73 per cent said they would not pay to join Labour as an individual member “if members who opted in to the political fund were no longer automatically made affiliate members of the Labour party”.

‘Further reductions’

The GMB said in a statement: “The GMB central executive council (CEC) has voted to reduce its current levels of affiliation to the Labour party from 420,000 to 50,000 from 2014.

“This will reduce the union’s basic affiliation fee to the Labour party by £1.1m per year. It is expected that there will further reductions in spending on Labour party campaigns and initiatives.

“GMB CEC expressed considerable regret about the apparent lack of understanding the proposal mooted by Ed Miliband will have on the collective nature of trade union engagement with the Labour party.

Labour and the unions - the key questions

“A further source of considerable regret to the CEC is that the party that had been formed to represent the interest of working people in this country intends to end collective engagement of trade unions in the party they helped to form.

“The CEC also decided to scale down by one third the level of its national political fund.”

The executive of the GMB, the third biggest union in the country, made its decision after a lengthy discussion at a meeting in Dublin. It is understood that only one member disagreed with the decision to cut the affiliation funds.

FactCheck reported in July that Unite was Labour’s biggest donor, with £11.9m handed to the party since the general election.

Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey has told Channel 4 News that under Mr Miliband’s proposals, the union could end up affliating just 50,000 of its 1.42 million members to the party. This would be worth just £150,000 a year to Labour.

Small donations

Shadow Treasury secretary Rachel Reeves said she was “confident” more trade union members would sign up under the new system.

“Most of the money that the Labour party receives comes from small donations and members,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Of course we welcome the support that we get from the trade unions, but this is a decision for the GMB.”