As usual, the Daily Mail is frothing at the mouth because they discovered that trade unions are funding the Labour Party. What a revelation.
Kate Garraway announced it on Good Morning Britain as if she’d just personally solved the climate crisis:
Breaking news from the Daily Mail: trade unions fund the Labour party. pic.twitter.com/kmrkCLpDpn
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) August 19, 2024
I mean who knew? The Labour movement is supported by the Labour force. What a revelation
— David Palmer (@davestillravin) August 19, 2024
From the ground up
Where does the right-wing media think the ‘Labour’ Party came from? Rich upper-class people who just wanted to kill some time? The Labour Party was founded by trade unions. Obviously they wouldn’t understand the concept of putting in a hard-days work:
Garraway thinks she’s made the announcement of the year!! Fuck me don’t they understand what Labour is? Why is it all these media twats are all Tory? Is it a requirement on the job description
— Steve Robb 🏴♍️🐒 save the NHS💙 (@srobb68) August 19, 2024
The Labour Party was formed in 1900 off the back of years of struggle by the working class, trade unionists, and socialists. Ultimately, they wanted to unite so that working-class voices would be represented in British parliament:
Trade unions, those huge unaccountable organisations trying to force employers into paying their staff more money, answerable to no one, except the millions of workers who are members and pay their subs.
— brixton hatter (@BrixtonHatter) August 19, 2024
Who is the other half in the pay of?, that is the question – memo to anyone reading this exchange: the Labour Party was created as its political arm by the unions….
— greeneralia.net (@greeneraliauk) August 19, 2024
Whether the Labour Party still represents the voices of the working class is up for debate. However, it is comical that the right-wing press choose to pounce on it now when they ignored the literal corporate criminals funding the Tories for 14 years:
Why oh Why is it ‘breaking news’. The GrifTories received 100’s of millions over the years from wealthy tax dodging grifters.. who then were awarded billions in government contracts.
Why is a trade union donation to elect mp’s different or worse than the GrifTories??
Someone…
— UKpbr2 (@UKpbr2) August 19, 2024
Quite the revelation. It’s taken them more than 100 years to catch up.
213 Labour MPs receiving £1.8m in donations. Not much, considering self-confessed white supremacist Frank Hester gave £20 million to the Tories and earns more than £500 million a year in government contracts.
— Frank Page (@Frank_Page2003) August 19, 2024
Michelle Mone donated to the Tories, got a peerage, and sold over £200m-worth of defective PPE to the NHS. You didn’t read about that on the front page of the Daily Mail.
— David__Osland (@David__Osland) August 19, 2024
Daily Mail: deflecting from the real problems
Meanwhile, the corporate media continue to deflect on the real problems. For example – Israel funded a quarter of all MP’s in the last parliament, including one in three Tory MPs. The Daily Mail and Good Morning Britain seemed to gloss over that one:
A bit of deflection from the growing awareness of 🇮🇱 funding across UK politics…
— ILIYAS (@mm0mmn) August 19, 2024
More concerning is how many MP’s are in the pocket of the Israeli lobby but the Daily Mail won’t have that as a headline, virtually a news blackout over the FCDO resignation on Friday, over Israeli War Crimes, his job was to sign off Licences for Arms sales to Israel,
— Alan.R.Taylor (@artaylors) August 19, 2024
Not to mention the number of Tory MPs profiting from businesses and foreign billionaires:
The good old reliable Daily Mail tells us 50% of Labour MPs are “in the pay” of the unions but fails to tell us 100% of Tory MPs have directorships and consulting retainers from business
— Barnaby Spen (@Barnabyspeak) August 18, 2024
This is not the flex the Daily Mail thinks it is.
MPs getting donations from organisations which represent working people? Good.
Better than donations from rich people demanding peerages, companies demanding tax concessions, shady foreign billionaires, and Russian oligarchs. pic.twitter.com/Ru0T2WzBOG
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) August 19, 2024
Concern for the country?
It is worth mentioning that the Daily Mail is owned by Jonathan Harmsworth, a British peer. Notably, he has a net worth of $1.30bn. His non-domicile tax status means he pays zero tax in the UK. Additionally, he owns all of his media businesses through offshore holdings and trusts. Sounding sketchy yet?
He claims his non-dom status is because his father (who is dead) resided in France. However, he has a stately home in Wiltshire and his status as a Freeman of the City of London makes that even more questionable.
So it goes without saying, the people who own the corporate media literally have their own agendas, profit, and ideas way out in front of any concern for the country:
Funding of a political party by unions that represent thousands of people is far less concerning than the donations of the very wealthy who use their wealth to buy access to power.https://t.co/0RI32HH3vh
— David Evans (@dave161256) August 19, 2024
Why the sudden ‘Daily Fail’ pandemonium over Labour union funding you might wonder? That would be the right-wing’s latest whataboutism over train drivers union ASLEF. It followed similar groundless outrage over Labour negotiating a pay deal with junior doctors on strike:
Interesting framing.
Ignoring the fact that this article concerns a deal offered to ASLEF members, Tories are now trying to play off workers against pensioners.
Remind us, how much did the Conservative government waste on unusable PPE during the pandemic?
(Answer: £10 billion) https://t.co/fmI3rQWTGW— RMT (@RMTunion) August 16, 2024
To the right-wing capitalist cronies, Labour is surrendering to the unions – while throwing pensioners under the bus with winter fuel payments. The second part is true of course, but it’s not because the new Labour government has been improving the lot of workers. As the Canary previously reported, the Labour junior doctors pay deal is a real-terms pay cut. It turns out, the same it true for train drivers.
Ultimately though, the Daily Mail is doing what the rightwing corporate shit-rags do best. Trying to seed division between marginalised communities.
In reality, Labour union funding is a red herring. The real problems in parliament come from the capitalist-funded establishment minions sitting pretty in Westminster. If the Daily Mail want to do some real journalism, we can point it in the right direction.
Feature image via Saul Staniworth – X
