Ed’s finally reforming Labour. So why are the unions happy?

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[/audioplayer]Ed Miliband has his legacy. Or, at least, what he hopes will be the first part of it. He has succeeded in scrapping the system by which he was elected Labour leader. Gone is the electoral college split three ways between MPs, trade unions and ordinary party members. It has been replaced by a one-member, one-vote system. This will be simpler and more democratic. It will mean that unions can’t send out ballot papers with leaflets telling people who to vote for, and nobody will have the advantage of wielding multiple votes.

Considering how dramatic these changes are, it’s surprising that they haven’t caused more of a row. That union bosses are going along with them has created a suspicion that in reality, if not in theory, the reforms will strengthen their influence. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have been busy trying to fan this particular flame. But the removal from the unions of the right to send out ballot papers makes it far harder for them to influence how their members vote.

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Trade union barons aren’t the only ones who will lose out. MPs have lost their section of the electoral college, and given that a candidate only needs the support of 15 per cent of Labour MPs to be nominated, it is now far easier for someone who has relatively little support in the parliamentary Labour party to be elected its leader. This is not a wise move.

Ed Miliband was only narrowly beaten among MPs by his brother David. But the fact that he didn’t win the support of a majority of them still causes him problems whenever the going gets tough. If someone were elected Labour leader with the support of only, say, a fifth of MPs, they would find their position untenable.