UNITE the union has decided to cut its affiliation to the Labour Party by more than half a million pounds a year, or more than 40 per cent.

The immediate reason is the continuing incapacity of the government to resolve the bin strike in Birmingham, triggered by the determination of the Labour-run council to cut workers’ wages.

Indeed, some of the money saved in affiliation fees will go towards paying court fines imposed in the course of the dispute, which has now been going on for more than a year.

To that extent, Unite’s move is wholly understandable. It surely responds to the real anger the union’s membership will feel about the Birmingham dispute.

The move also follows strident but accurate criticisms of Labour’s record on a range of issues by Unite general secretary Sharon Graham. She has described the government as “devoid of purpose” and failing to act in the working-class interest.

Graham was one of the strongest critics of the winter fuel benefit cut, of the watering down of the Employment Rights Act and the attack on welfare.

On all these issues she has spoken for millions across the country who feel profoundly let down by Keir Starmer’s government.

The burning question now is how the trade unions can lead the movement in imposing a new course on Labour before power is handed over to Nigel Farage and the Reform hard right.

That means both changing the party leader and the government’s orientation. The latter may prove harder than the former, if reports that Angela Rayner, a likely contender to succeed him, assured City bigwigs that the government would not move leftwards under her direction are to be believed.

This situation demands a thought-out political strategy by the trade unions. Cutting funding sends a message — but is unlikely to be sufficient to change Labour policy.

The gap in Labour’s accounts will doubtless be plugged by donations from business and the rich. Union influence within the party, already diluted by decades of right-wing hostility, could diminish further.

It may be argued that Labour is a write-off for working-class interests. Many feel that argument is premature, but even were it to be conceded the need would be for a political alternative in some form or other, rather than neutrality.

That alternative does not presently exist. Your Party’s divisions have sapped its credibility, and it has made scant effort to reach out to unions in any case.

The Greens are not a working-class party and, despite many progressive policies, make an implausible vehicle for working-class socialist aspirations, at least as presently constituted.

Some unions may feel it sufficient to lobby politically on issues of immediate concern to their members, or to work with sympathetic MPs and parliamentary candidates regardless of party.

Those options represent a step back for the working-class movement. Only through its own mass political party can the working class organise itself as an alternative to the present system, and address the broad problems of class society, capitalist crisis and imperialist war.

The Labour Party’s failures historically have often been due to inadequate pressure from the organisations that founded it, the trade unions, without neglecting the blinkers of reformism which have often blinded unions and parliamentarians alike.

The unions, particularly those affiliated to Labour, need to urgently concert on political strategy. The most straightforward would be a united and determined assertion of control over the Labour Party, breaking the grip of Starmer, the Labour Together gang and the Blairite holdovers.

Failing that, discussions should be opened out to the consideration of alternative projects.