The Trades Unions and Funding Labour

Ed Miliband has proposed a cap of £5,000 on donations to political parties but does not want to change the way the Trades Unions fund the Labour party. The manner in which the Trades Unions help themselves to their members' money is quite shocking. First of all you have to opt out of the political levy if you do not want to support the Labour party and even if you opt out there is no reduction in your subscription. This sounds very fishy and no other organisation would be allowed to get away with it. It becomes clear why they won't reduce the subscription which is because under their rules they have the right to put the amount equivalent to the political levy into a fund over which they have complete discretion as to how it will be disbursed. You've guessed of course what they will use it for - yes to support the Labour party. It really is time that not only should Trades Unions be forced to pay for those they employ instead of the organisations in which their representatives are embedded but that the opt out should be changed into an opt in. Furthermore they should be forbidden to place any part of their members' subscriptions into any fund that can be used to support the Labour party or any of its causes save for a part of the subscriptions their members have opted to make available to the political levy. It is simply an outrage that Union members can be treated in this way and that the rest of us be bushwhacked as a result of the manipulation by the Unions of funds they have collected in this opaque manner. MP Priti Patel has a good article on this issue here. The behaviour of the Unions is like that of a tax evader. The Unions are no better than the ECHR which told Home Office lawyers that the final day for appeal was Monday but all of a sudden changed it to yesterday, Tuesday, thus allowing Abu Qatada to make a last minute appeal against the finding of the ECHR ruling on his deportation. These people are slippery. Who wants to have anything to do with them?