GMB cuts its Labour affiliaton fees by 87% - and the balance of power shifts even further to Unite

By Mark Wallace
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It has now been two months since Ed Miliband made his big speech intended to nip in the bud the crisis over Labour's trade union funding.

We still don't have any answers to the many questions about how his reforms will work in detail - most notably whether he will reject money from unions who refuse to implement an opt-in and how Labour's constitution will be rewritten. 

But we can already see some of the fallout of his inept response to teh scandal.

In high dudgeon, the GMB have cut the affiliation fee paid to Labour from £1.2m to £150,000. Whereas the union previously automatically affiliated 420,000 people to Labour, it now estimates that those who would actually choose to affiliate only number 50,000.