LABOUR'S General Election campaign fund has been given a £1.5m boost from Unite as union bosses fear the Tories could be re-elected on "a tide of big business cash".
It has not ruled out giving more.
Reports have suggested that David Cameron's Conservatives are likely to spend up to the legal limit of £19.5m in the year to polling day, which would be more than double Labour's expenditure of around £8m or so.
At the end of 2013, the Opposition's outstanding debts were almost £6m compared to the Tories' of just £600,000.
Following a meeting of its executive council, Unite said: "It heard reports from the general secretary and the political director concerning Labour's General Election campaign, the development of Labour's policy proposals on a range of issues of importance to Unite members and all working people, and Unite's own plans to campaign for the political change the country needs.
"The union is determined that the present Government should not be allowed to float to re-election on a tide of big business cash, while Labour remains under-resourced."
It added: "The council therefore agrees to make a donation of £1.5m to the Labour Party's campaign funds and will consider further support in due course."
The donation is separate from Unite's affiliation fees to Labour, which are worth around £1.5m a year.
Last year, Unite halved the number of members it affiliates to Labour to around half a million following a review of Labour's links with unions instigated by party leader Ed Miliband.
It was agreed that affiliation fees should only be made on behalf of those who consented to the payment. Consequently, the move led to a cut in affiliation fees by Unite and the GMB union.
In response to Unite's largesse, Bob Neill, the Tory Party vice-chairman said: "This huge donation from Unite doesn't come for free. We all know Len McCluskey and Unite buy Labour's policies, choose Labour's leader and pick Labour's candidates."
He added: "Just three months away from the most important general election of our generation, the choice couldn't be clearer: between a competent Conservative Government that stands up for hardworking British taxpayers and an incompetent Labour party under Ed Miliband who's too weak to stand up to his trade union paymasters."
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