Making Real Unity Into Real Strength

I am all for trade unions and their political role, just as I am all for the businesses that employ their members. But just as overlarge business is economically, socially, culturally and politically bad, so, too, are overlarge unions, to which the term "trade union" does not properly apply.

I have to say that Unite, in particular, has engaged in activities very similar to corporate takeovers of old local or niche firms. The incorporation of the British Airways Stewards' and Stewardesses' Association is a case in point. So we now have a union which contains nearly one in 30 of the entire population, sponsoring well over 100 MPs. This is unprecedented, and is not exactly made any better by the specific political agenda being advanced by a union of which a leading ornament and political favourite is Mr Harriet Harman.

Those are also the agenda of at least two other enormous unions, one of which has arranged a safe parliamentary seat for the President of the NUM as part of its takeover of that union's considerable wealth, calling to mind the means used by giant corporations to get "the family" out of the way in order to gobble up once-great firms that have seen better days but still have plenty of assets to strip.

On the question of the de facto political parties maintained in Parliament by super-unions, the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives has seven caucuses, sometimes an irritation but also a sign of the strength that is being a much more broadly-based party than the Republicans have become. There may be a case for something similar here. The Campaign Group and its wider milieu could be one. Big Unions for Globalism, European Federalism and Political Correctness (again, just like Big Business) could be another. The League of Candle-Lighters Before The Picture of Tony Blair could be a third.

That last could be a cross-party affair, but some pretence to the contrary seems more likely, with an identical lot for nominal Tories. Those who would call themselves Thatcherites, although their position bears little or no resemblance to her record, could form another one. The Faith, Flag and Family lot could form a third. And the Lib Dems? Anyone's guess, but no doubt they could come to some arrangement.

In principle, all caucuses would be open to all members, any of whom could belong to up to two, or possibly three. Each would have a clear Basis to which each member would publicly subscribe. Assuming around 600 MPs, the 12 largest would have the right to maintain Committees mirroring the Select Committees, to nominate a member to each Select Committee, to propose amendments as if it were a party, to have half-days as there are Opposition Days, and so on. There might even be a requirement that any legislation required the approval of seven of them, at least if it were of sufficient importance, such as the constitutional legislation already identifiable as subject to special procedures of the House.

Where would that leave the voter? Those who suggest STV for multimember constituencies are wasting their breath. Rather, anyone who votes for a Blue Dog, or a New Democrat, or a Progressive Caucus member, knows for whom and for what that vote is being cast. We don't need STV, which would not deliver this diversity of candidates, among its many other failings. We need the parties to submit their shortlists to the voters as the final stage of the selection process. And we need the equivalent of the 50-state strategy, with each party running a serious candidate in every constituency, giving every voter a meaningful choice. That we do not already have this illustrates what we need instead: new parties. Those can only come about as the old ones did, by the coming together of new MPs returned from the length and breadth of the land, who then encounter each other at Westminster.