Date: Wed, 6 Mar 96 08:31:37 GMT
From: Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>
Subject: Re: Labo(u)r Parties in Aust & UK (was Conservatives win Australian



> 
> To my knowledge, the national conference structures of the two Labour 
> parties remained quite similar until BLP John Smith's omov (one man one 
> vote) which was finished by Blair. This has moved out the unions 
> influence in the BLP.
>

This simply isn't true.

Labour gets about 85% of its funds from Trade Unions, the rest mainly from
individuals, and a tiny amount from business.

The Labour Party recently announced it was to end Trade Union Sponsorship of
MP's. I was quite startled to hear this on the radio - but then later on
in that same news item it came out that the sponsorship was to be given to
constituency parties instead. Big deal.

Labour under Blair wants to distance itself from the unions. The union
leaders are "voluntarily" going along with it, because they want Blair
elected and because they themselves have very low expectations of
a  Labour government - but still higher than what Blair is going to
give them.

On the radio today there was a case where the AEEU ( the Engineering union )
was taking the Labour Party to court because it had excluded its male
candidate from the all women short list.

Of course, the union leaderships are quite happy to by pass their own rank +
file's influence in the Labour Party by using OMOV, just as the Labour
Party is quite happy to bypass its own activists. And of course, physically
speaking these people are the same people or at least the same sort of
people.

It's not impossible that Blair and Mandelson ( shudder - get the garlic 
out, make a sign of the cross - he's even worse than Blair ) would try to break
the links via a merger with the Liberals and/or state funding - but this would
be a massive upheaval in the Labour Party and would be opposed bitterly. Besides,
I can't see why they'd want to - the real advantage of the Labour Party to the
ruling class is precisely its links with the unions.

The negative proof of my argument is how few union leaders have moved over to
the SLP.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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