Labour is on the brink of their second financial crash in 20 years: its biggest donor, Unite the Union, is threatening to pull all its “remaining financial support” to the cash-strapped party over a pay dispute between Coventry Council and its bin lorry drivers. Having already reduced its affiliation fee by 10% back in October 2020, Unite is now promising all-out war unless Labour acts like “the party for workers” again. New General Secretary Sharon Graham has warned, “if we have to escalate, we will escalate” and called Sir Keir’s party “bad employers”. Dear General Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money…

Since Starmer became leader, Labour’s finances have nosedived thanks to – in the words of party General Secretary David Evans – “lost members and dealing with antisemitism cases”. Back in the summer, they had just enough cash for one month’s payroll. Even last week, a Labour spokesperson said they were being “open about the challenges [they] faced”. Challenges, in this case, meaning they’ve already passed mass redundancies and offered a real-terms pay cut to those who stayed…

Despite a Unison source pointing out to The Times last night, “Who are they going to ask to pay for May’s elections? Other unions are skint,” a Labour spokesperson boldly shot back:

“We’re not going to get into the specifics of this dispute. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party will always act in the public interest. These sort of threats won’t work in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. We would have hoped that Unite would have got the message that the Labour Party is under new management.”

It’s not all bad for the Labour Party coffers, however. As Guido pointed out yesterday, the BBC’s supposed Tory donor who slammed Boris hasn’t actually donated to the Conservatives since 2020, and last year gave £25,000 to Sir Keir’s party. Surely they can tap him up to plug the multi-million funding hole…