Alex Miller

At its national conference last month, the Fire Brigades Union voted by 31,105 to 14,611 to break its 86-year-old tie with the Labour Party.

The massive majority in favour of disaffiliation with Labour was achieved despite strong resistance from the national leaders of the FBU, who favoured a policy of staying tied to Labour and attempting to change it from within.

The FBU joins the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) which was divorced by Labour earlier in the year when several branches and the Scottish region of the RMT broke with Labour and affiliated with the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP).

Sandy McNiven, secretary of the Strathclyde branch of the FBU, told the June 25 Scottish Socialist Voice: “Labour has used every dirty trick in the book against us. We give it our money yet it threatens our right to strike for a decent wage. It's absurd. They demonise us, calling us wretched, wreckers, cowardly, and fascists.

“Labour-controlled local authorities have introduced savage cuts to fire cover. The Labour Party is no longer the friend of the working class. It has found new friends in big business. Yet the trade unions perversely throw money at it whilst it grinds us into the dirt at every turn.”

The Voice reported that McNiven told the FBU conference: “This is just the beginnings of change. We have got to forge new links and build relationships with political parties or individual politicians prepared to work with us to achieve the aspirations of the FBU and its members.”

In a press release posted on the SSP website on June 16, Tommy Sheridan, the SSP national convenor, welcomed the FBU conference decision: “Now that the FBU has followed the path the RMT has taken, it is clear that the industrial trade unions have realised that New Labour is no longer the party of the millions but instead represents the millionaires.

“The recent disgraceful treatment of Scotland's nursery nurses by the Labour Party in Scotland puts pressure on the UK's largest union UNISON to stop funding the party that kicked its members in the teeth. The SSP will welcome with open arms any trade union that wishes to join us in our fight for workers rights and socialism.”

From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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