As unions hold back on funding, millionaires step in to bail out Blair
Party for Sale!
THE LATEST revelations of a series of hefty £2m donations to the Labour Party are just another symptom of the way the Party has been hi-jacked by Tony Blair's "modernisers" and is happily breaking free from its links with the unions and its working class base.
Of course Labour has often had its less savoury backers: who can forget the portly figure of Robert Maxwell, who would routinely double the collection at Labour conference and make other token gestures to keep his influence with Labour's leaders?
Geoffrey Robinson was by no means the first millionaire to sit as a Labour minister.
But Blair's government has gone further than ever before in explicitly courting support from big business and the ultra-wealthy. And by no means all of their donations have been returned in the way that Bernie Ecclestone's £1m had to be refunded in a storm of controversy.
This year's Labour conference exhibition had more stalls from big firms than did the increasingly unelectable and europhobic Tories.
And the wealthy feel confident that Tony Blair will use their money to help people like them stay rich. They might not be overtly buying specific policies, but the pressure their donations tacitly apply helps steer Blair's government ever further from any radical reform or socialist agenda.
The millionaires have certainly had a good deal from New Labour: taxes on top earners remain as low as under Thatcher, taxes on business have been held down, privatisation and speculation continue unfettered, and Thatcher's anti-union laws hold workers in check and help keep profits rolling in.
Which raises the obvious question: just what has New Labour done to merit the millions it still receives from the unions?
Last autumn several of the larger unions decided to hold back on payments towards Labour's electoral war-chest, seeking some sign that Blair's team was at least prepared to listen to some of their concerns.
Instead Labour has carried on regardless, forcing through more privatisation, PFI schemes, and holding down public sector pay.
Isn't it time Millbank-dominated unions like UNISON were forced to carry out a value for money audit on the effectiveness of handing over millions from low-paid members' subs - to back a government that has consistently kicked them in the teeth?
Blair's answer to the unions is simply to raise two contemptuous fingers: he knows that less than a dozen millionaires would be easily enough to stump up the £15m which Jack Straw is about to impose as a spending limit for the next General Election.
With friends like these, New Labour can shut its eyes and ears to the workers' movement.
The unions can't outbid the millionaires: only by challenging Labour's policies can they fight to win back control of the party, built by the unions to represent workers - not the rich.