The Labour Party is facing financial retrenchment or bankruptcy; the members of the National Executive may be liable in the event of insolvency. For a party run by lawyers, Blairite modernisation did not extend to the organisation. Delicious irony aside, this leaves the party in power beholden to the trade unions, their main backers. A resurgent Tory party, financed privately through donations from the wealthy, has established an unequal playing field. To overturn this lack of social justice, Labour is angling to gain a financial advantage by drying up and tying up Tory donations, whilst allowing the unions a free hand.
Francis Maude, the Conservative spokesman for the Cabinet Office, said the Tories would insist that there be no deal unless reform of trade union funding was also on the table.
The party wants individual members to give their consent before their funds are given to Labour.
Mr Maude said: "Any reform of party funding must clean up politics and end the big donor culture, and we will support sensible reform proposals that create a sustainable long-term settlement.
"However, taxpayers should be very concerned that Gordon Brown wants state funding for the Labour Party to bail out his failing political party from bankruptcy."
Labour now has less than two years to achieve another electoral victory and overturn Tory dominance in the polls. This demands a long game, where their hold on the legislature is used to gain advantage: expect to see a left-wing lurch to appease the unions, laws on party funding to suck at the taxpayer's teat and, if none of these work, a final, desperate tinkering with the voting system. Or perhaps they will just use the Civil Contingencies Act, instead and prorogue any party that is insufficiently European.