John McDonnell on the Labour-union link

Posted on Wednesday 13 December, 2006
Filed Under John McDonnell

Labour leadership contender John McDonnell has his say over the Phillips proposals on party funding:

‘I have today tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons in opposition to the Hayden Phillips proposals on party funding.

‘These proposals are a threat not only to the historic link between the Labour Party and the trade unions but to the very existence of the Labour Party as the voice for working people in this country.

‘I am calling upon all Labour leadership and deputy leadership candidates to demonstrate their opposition to these damaging proposals by signing a statement declaring their commitment to oppose the Hayden Phillips recommendations.

‘It is understood that these proposals have the backing and are being promoted by the prime minister, with implicit support from the chancellor of the exchequer.

‘There is no doubt that this move represents one of the last acts of the prime minister’s legacy agenda to turn the Labour Party into merely a Democrat or Republican convention, unaccountable to and separated from the very members of the trade union movement who founded our Party.

‘I take this issue so seriously that I am placing it at the very centre of the debate for the future of our party in this way. I will not stand by and watch Blair destroy our Party. To quote a past Labour leader, I will fight, fight and fight again to save the Party I love.’

I’d concur with the main political points being made here. After Blair took the Labour leadership, there was plenty of speculation that he wished to break the union link. The speculation reached its apex with the notorious Stephen Byers ‘fish supper’ outburst to the press in 1996. So the plans have been ten years in the making.

And after that, the story went rather dead. Somehow, the Blairites never did follow through. But with Blair finally on his way out, it seems he has finally determined to take down the house with him.

Calling comrades Cruddas and Hain. Where do you stand on this one? And oi, Woodley. Oi, Simpson. What about you two?

Update: At the recommendation of Chris Baldwin in the comments box, I’ve just taken a butcher’s at Jon Cruddas’s blog, which I haven’t seen since breaking the story of its launch.

The man is doing a good impersonation of a mid-eighties soft leftist, and has this to say on Sir Hayden:

‘First off, Labour’s link with trade unionists works. It is good for the party, because it helps keep us rooted in the communities we represent. Secondly, I am going to stick with the Labour Party’s policy – unanimously agreed at our conference – whereby the party itself openly and transparently decides the level of a donation cap. At the end of the day it is not up to the state to interfere with the internal constitutions of independent parties.’

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