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Unite diverts Labour funds to grassroots movements

‘We want to use our political funding to support and nurture newer voices in the movement,’ Unite general secretary Len McCluskey says

UNITE is cutting its funding of Labour and directing money to grassroots movements instead, in a move partly driven by anger at the damages paid to Panorama “whistleblowers.”

Britain’s largest trade union is to reduce its affiliation to the party by 10 per cent, or 50,000 members – understood to amount to £1 million – after its executive council narrowly voted for the move on Tuesday night.

Announcing the decision today, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey stressed that the union would remain Labour’s biggest affiliate despite the cuts. 

“We know that it is this union’s financial support and dedicated activists that help ensure that the Labour Party is not just election-ready but sustained between elections,” he said. 

“But we also want to use our political funding to support and nurture the newer voices in our movement.  

“There are some very talented thinkers and energetic organisations out there who could do with our assistance – and the Labour Party needs their enthusiasm and ideas too.”

Speaking on BBC Newsnight before Tuesday’s vote, Mr McCluskey said that there was “a lot of anger” at the Labour leadership’s decision to reach a settlement with former staff who contributed to a BBC investigation into allegations of anti-semitism in the party. 

The party agreed to offer “substantial damages,” totalling between £600,000 and £750,000, to former employees and Panorama journalist John Ware. 

Mr McCluskey said that Unite members believed it an “absolute mistake” to hand out the vast sums “when Labour's own legal people were saying that they would lose that case if it went to court, so we shouldn’t have paid them anything.” 

He also issued a warning about the future direction of the party under current leader Keir Starmer, pointing out that the New Labour era had seen members call for Unite to withdraw funding from the party. 

The vote comes amid criticism of the Labour leadership for failing to hold the government effectively to account over its handling of the Covid-19 crisis and ordering MPs to abstain on two new pieces of controversial legislation. 

The Labour Party was contacted for comment. 

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