How can the Unions respond to Brown?

Apologies dear readers if this blog isn’t updated as regularly as I would like over the next week, but not only is the first week back after Conference always hectic, but I have to cram frantically for an exam.

I can’t say I am shocked that Gordon Brown wants to dilute the influence of the trade unions within the Labour Party machinery – after all he flirted with the idea of Liberal Democrats in the Cabinet. The Blair project was always about securing the extinction of Labour as a left-of-centre social democratic party rooted in the working class movement. Union leaders can continue to ignore this but that won't make it go away.

The implications of this direction of travel were analysed quite well I thought in a “Unity in UNISON” bulletin handed out by supporters of the Communist Party of Britain at UNISON Conference, which called on the big unions to affiliate to the Labour Representation Committee, and for the unions to stop supporting MPs who consistently vote against key union policies.

I know that there are many in our Union with a respect for the Communist Party based upon its long tradition in our movement. They need to be prepared to engage in a dialogue with others on the left if we are to find a way out of the present political impasse and respond creatively to the crisis of political representation of the working class.