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Labour and the unions: a relationship worth saving?
The Labour Party, under the control of its right wing, has long sought to be free of its link to the unions — should the left still be fighting this, or looking at extraparliamenarry routes to working-class influence, ask NICK WRIGHT
Chancellor James Callaghan, then PM Harold Wilson and assistant general secretary
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IT’S COMPLICATED. All relationships are. But the partnership for life between the trade unions — the working-class organisations that created the Labour Party — and the party itself has entered a new stage in which some, on both left and right, are questioning whether that relationship in its present form can survive.
On the right of the party — in Parliament and in the party apparatus — there is a clear sense that the powerful presence of trade unions in decision-making, candidate selection and policy formation now represents a threat to its 21st century project to decouple Labour from a politically engaged working-class movement and permanently occupy the centre ground.
Over a century, with occasional interruptions, Labour’s leaders enjoyed a comfortable relationship with right-wing union leaders who were content to allow the parliamentary party to determine policies.
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