Ed Miliband was clear yesterday when he announced that he will run a special party conference next spring to vote through his reforms to Labour’s relationship with the unions that there would be a ‘cost’ to the party. Now we have the first indications of how great that cost might be. Lord Ashcroft has released one of his inimitable polls, this time of Unite union members. It finds that only 30 per cent of members would choose to opt in to Unite’s political fund, while 53 per cent said they would not and 17 per cent had not decided. There wasn’t much support for the current opt-out system, either, with 31 per cent saying they backed it, and 57 per cent saying they preferred an opt-in. When asked whether hey would join the party, 12 per cent said they would.
These findings underline Miliband’s assertion that his reforms are a ‘cost’ and a ‘gamble’. They suggest that the Labour leader is being pretty bold to push ahead with them as they could cost the party a great deal of money, as individual affiliated union leaders have already warned.
The findings might not come as a surprise to Labour strategists, but there are also interesting findings that the Conservative party should take heed of. While 49 per cent of Unite members said they would vote Labour in an election tomorrow, 23 per cent said they would vote Tory, 12 per cent Ukip and 7 per cent Lib Dem. In 2010, 28 per cent of members had voted Conservative, 40 per cent Labour and 20 per cent Lib Dem, with Ed Miliband beating David Cameron on the question of who would make the best Prime Minister by six percentage points (46 per cent to 40 per cent, with Nick Clegg on 13 per cent).
This shows that there is gain from a Tory charm offensive aimed at union members as opposed to union leaders, as I argued recently in the Telegraph. Indeed, if the party wanted to employ a ‘lions led by donkeys’ line advocated by many backbenchers and picked up not by the PM but one of his backbench colleagues, Mark Reckless, at PMQs recently, they would find it resonated among Unite members: the poll found 61 per cent felt neither Ed Miliband nor Len McCluskey really represented them or the things they cared about. And one of the most stunning findings was that 86 per cent of Unite members support the government’s £26,000 benefit cap, reviled by the unions and the left of the Labour party. And 57 per cent opposed Unite’s call for an anti-austerity campaign of strikes and civil disobedience.
The Conservatives are naturally thrilled: backbencher Priti Patel said tonight:
‘This poll proves that union bosses are totally out of touch with their grassroots members, many of whom agree with Conservative policies like the benefit cap, support David Cameron as Prime Minister, and don’t want to give their hard-earned money to weak Ed Miliband. Unlike the cartel of union barons at the top, most ordinary Unite members know Labour means more spending, more borrowing, and more debt – and it’s hardworking people who would pay the price, with higher mortgages and higher bills.’
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