GMB Labour funding statement

Kevin Curran, GMB general secretary

The GMB is disappointed, but not surprised, that our decision to fund individual Labour candidates, rather than the Party centrally, is being spun by anonymous individuals as merely the result of the latest spat in a battle of personalities at the top of the Government.

While some in the Party and the media might be obsessed with personalities, the GMB is solely concerned about the effect that their policies have on working people.

Our union has decided that in future we will only fund and help those MP’s who share our aims and values.

The GMB executive was clear yesterday that those aims include action to stem the tide of manufacturing job losses; a new pensions system to avoid millions of working people being condemned into poverty in retirement; rights for British citizens at work and an end to the two tier workforce in our public services.

The simple fact is that what concerns the GMB is the impact of policies on GMB members.

That some people are incapable of seeing the GMB Executive’s decision as being in response to what is happening to the members that they represent in the real world – and is nothing to do with the little bubble that they inhabit – only adds to the impression that these people are increasingly detached from reality.