Unions cling to party ties

(First Edition)

THE LABOUR Party leadership's insistence that formal ties with the trade unions should be severed before the next election was a 'sad, unnecessary and unwanted conflict', the leader of the one of Britain's largest unions said yesterday, James Cusick.

Addressing a fringe meeting at the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Glasgow, John Edmonds of the GMB general union was replying to John Smith's demand that one member one vote was the only option for Labour's autumn conference to adopt.

Mr Edmonds acknowledged that the party would be damaged if Mr Smith left the conference without getting his way. 'It is a position nobody wants,' he said. 'But you will not get trade unions volunteering to leave the Labour Party.'