The Labour Party has woken up a million pounds poorer this morning. The GMB union’s expensive slap in Ed’s face sees it slash its funding of the party from £1.2 million to a meagre £150,000. That’s equivalent to a loss of 3% of Labour’s annual income.

“The GMB central executive council (CEC) has voted to reduce its current levels of affiliation to the Labour party from 420,000 to 50,000 from 2014.

This will reduce the union’s basic affiliation fee to Labour party by £1.1m per year. It is expected that there will further reductions in spending on Labour party campaigns and initiatives.

GMB CEC expressed considerable regret about the apparent lack of understanding the proposal mooted by Ed Miliband will have on the collective nature of trade union engagement with the Labour party.

A further source of considerable regret to the CEC is that the party that had been formed to represent the interest of working people in this country intends to end collective engagement of trade unions in the party they helped to form.

The CEC also decided to scale down by one-third the level of its national political fund.”

That cut to the GMB political fund of a third is a particular wounder for Miliband. They won’t be helping to sign up new members either. It also means Unite can now potentially significantly increase their influence in the party…