Peter Oborne

In the past the unions have turned on Labour prime ministers. They are winding up to do so again

issue 14 September 2002

Blackpool

For the last 20 years the annual TUC conference has occupied a subsidiary role in the political season. During 18 years of Tory government, the unions carried no weight. Their autumnal seaside rumblings could be ignored with a clear conscience. Nor did they relinquish this peripheral role when Tony Blair first came to power five years ago. Trade union leaders were so delighted at a Labour government that they resolved to cause no trouble. This was roughly the state of affairs right up to Tony Blair’s second election victory in June 2001.

It would be wrong, on the other hand, to assume that the unions were of no account during this 22-year period of comparative invisibility. They mattered desperately – but only for Labour. Fundamentally, the Labour party – even Tony Blair’s New Labour – and the trade unions are one and the same thing. In many parts of the country the two are impossible to tell apart, either organisationally or financially.

This profound interdependence explains the paradox that, while it was undoubtedly the unions that destroyed Jim Callaghan’s government in 1979, they saved the party in the years that followed.

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