`In an interview with the Sunday Times last week, the General Secretary of the Unite Trade Union, Len McCluskey, said that he and his union would “kick the New Labour cuckoos out of our nest” in their attempt to “reclaim Labour” and promote a “renewed socialist agenda”. Since Unite is the largest trade union in the country, with over a million and  a half members, and is the Labour Party’s biggest donor (having given £6 million over the last two years) his threats are not to be taken lightly. In a typically anti-democratic move by a typically dictatorial trade unionist, McCluskey has said that Unite will not provide financial support for any Labour MP who doesn’t  share the aims and views of Unite. Welcome back to the 1970s.

Those of us who were around during that troublesome decade will recall how the unions  brought the country to its knees with almost constant industrial action and strikes called regularly whenever things weren’t going quite the way they wished. It seemed as though the Labour government of then Prime Minister James Callaghan was at the mercy and beck and call of the unions and in many ways, of course, it (and he) was. Now it looks as though the Labour Party  (irrespective of the fact that they, like any other political party, are beholden to the public who democratically elected their MPs) will once more dance to the tune of unions like Unite. Should the Labour Party, as seems perfectly possible, gain power in the 2015 general election then the whole country can look forward (an unfortunate  expression I know) to government by trade union.

Unite’s “struggle for Labour’s soul” is illustrated by its aim of persuading 5,000 trade unionists to sign up to the Labour Party (and thus increase their control) by December of this year. Evidently they are on target to achieve that aim so it looks like the Labour Party will once more be home to socialist firebrands whose dogmatic aims will always be put before the prosperity of the nation as a whole.  

We’ve already seen how destructive Unite can be with its call for strikes to disrupt the recent Olympics and its support for the petrol tanker drivers strike earlier this year. They have amassed a £25 million fighting fund to back further strikes over the next few months so their threats are clearly not hollow. Book your flight tickets now since a winter of discontent to match that of 1978-9 is a distinct possibility.