Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, is the key funder of the Labour Party, providing some £11m to the party since 2007. Since the Union Modernisation fund was established in 2006, the Union has received £4.4m from the government, which is of course a Labour government.
And next week, the Unite Trade Union will put the travelling public of the United Kingdom and overseas through a living hell, destroying holidays and scuppering the efforts of millions of British citizens, who pay their taxes to the government… to pay to the Union to ruin their holiday.
Unite’s relationship with the Labour Party rewards careful attention. Let’s look at just the latest revelations:
- Clare Moody, a political office staffer in 10 Downing Street, is 100% paid for by the Unite trade union. That’s a bit unusual, you would hope. Even more unusually, her salary is declared as a ‘gift from the union’ to the Electoral commission.
- Joe Irvine, Gordon Brown’s Political Secretary, is paid by the Labour Party (which is of course funded by Unite) and is a former senior Unite official.
- Ray Collins, Labour’s General Secretary, is a former Unite official and described as ‘extremely friendly’ toward Unite.
- Charlie Whelan, previously sacked by Brown for the ad-hominem nature of his briefing against Blairites in the government, is the Political Director of Unite, and now back in the planning for the next General Election. He has been given a security pass for the House of Commons, along with Tony Woodley, the leader of Unite who has failed to condemn the plans for the strike.
Many British citizens who pay their taxes will wonder, if Unite can afford to make a political donation to the Labour Party of £11m, why the Labour Government should pay £4.4m to Unite. The Conservative Party should make the same point over and over again, as holiday chaos ensues.
(Much information for this post gleaned from the London Evening Standard and The Guardian)
