Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone has dismissed the criticism of Unite's actions in the Falkirk Constituency Labour Party, saying he is delighted the trade union has recruited more members.
A day after Kim Howells, the former Labour Foreign Office Minister, warned Ed Miliband that he had to take action to tackle the trade union movement's hold over the party, Mr Livingstone, an ex-Labour MP, came to Unite's defence.
The selection in the seat, he insisted, "can't be fixed because everybody in that constituency will have the same vote.
"The Labour Party membership has halved since 20 years ago and in many areas we struggle to have anything like a functioning party. Now it's started to turn round for Ed Miliband and I'm delighted trade unions are encouraging their members to join in and get involved".
Mr Livingstone said union members would get a ballot and "if they don't like the Unite candidate, they don't have to vote for them".
He said: "It's a secret ballot and all that you will have in Falkirk is more members with the right to vote than there were a year ago."
Last month, an internal report considered by Labour's ruling National Executive Committee found "sufficient evidence for concern" about the legitimacy of some new recruits to the Falkirk party following claims Unite had stuffed it with its members.
Len McCluskey, the Unite leader, insists his union has done nothing wrong and has threatened legal action against the party.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article