Overwhelming vote or not, the decision taken by Labour’s special “conference” at the weekend was a backward step for Britain’s labour movement.

Who would have imagined that Labour Party pioneer Keir Hardie, Scottish Communist miners’ leader Mick McGahey and Miliband’s socialist father Ralph would all be resurrected to give posthumous credibility to the shabby manoeuvre to sideline the trade unions?

No assertion was too tendentious for the advocates of change, such as Keith Vaz’s claim that ditching collective union involvement would “open up the Labour Party for black and Asian people.”

Most black people, of African, Caribbean or south Asian origin, traditionally voted Labour on the grounds that they are working class.

Their participation has declined in recent years, as with working people of other ethnic origins, because they feel neglected by the political caste that dominates Labour at Westminster.

To suggest that Labour has been unwelcoming to black people because of the unions’ role in its federal structures, is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The idea that black people or trade unionists of any background who pay the political levy will be doing jigs of delight to welcome the weekend vote is fanciful.

Receiving congratulations from Tony Blair and a £7,500 cheque from David Owen — a war criminal and a back-stabber — reveals those fully behind the anti-union stance.

But didn’t the affiliated unions, with the exception of bakers’ union BFAWU, back change?

Yes, they did. The Morning Star disagrees with that position, although their tactical decision to back the party leadership cannot be equated with that of the dedicated opponents of trade union involvement in Labour’s structures.

Most unions remember Miliband’s panic-stricken response to lurid media headlines about the involvement of Unite in Falkirk Labour Party.

The Labour leader called in the police, announcing an internal party inquiry and a special conference to trim the unions’ wings.

The entire process was “justified” by the false premise that Unite and its victimised Grangemouth oil refinery senior shop steward Stevie Deans had done something wrong.

Unfortunately for the smearmongers, neither the police nor the internal inquiry found fault with either Unite or Deans.

Their real crime, in the eyes of the Westminster village, was to believe that Labour Party local democracy exists to facilitate adoption of grass-roots working-class candidates rather than to rubber-stamp Brewers Green policy wonk parachutists.

Unite was not alone among the trade union movement in feeling angry about the Falkirk experience and Miliband’s apparent willingness to forgo large-scale union funding of affiliated members.

GMB has reduced its affiliation fees and Unite will consider a proposal to halve its own payments this Wednesday.

These responses are a more accurate guide to trade unionists’ true feelings than the truncated blether that passed for a conference on Saturday.

However, they have clearly opted, at least for the moment, to remove themselves from inner-party conflict by giving Miliband what he wants so as to concentrate on the key aim of defeating the conservative coalition at the general election.

Labour alone has the capacity to supplant the Tories and Liberal Democrats, but replacing their austerity agenda with pro-working-class policies is integral to that approach if it is not to prove a hollow victory.

The ongoing battle to win socialist understanding within the labour movement, building on the solid work of the People’s Assembly, is essential to combating the coalition and its new Labour allies.