IF Justice Secretary Jack Straw really thinks that, as a part of doing a chummy little deal with the other parliamentary parties over funding rules, he can haul every penny of trade union cash given to the Labour Party straight into its central funds, to be dispensed as party HQ sees fit, then he has got another think coming.

One can only wonder what view of the relationship between the Labour Party and the trade unions Mr Straw holds.

While Labour loyalists are struggling to hold the Labour-union link together, pleading that things will get better in the face of serial betrayals by new Labour that have left an enormous majority of the trade union membership in this country disillusioned and bitter, Mr Straw seems only to see an endless source of funding that new Labour’s upper echelons can commandeer. Well, it simply isn’t so.

The days of blanket support for Labour are long gone and trade unionists are becoming ever more distrustful of the party’s leadership, and with good cause.

The recruitment of CBI bigwigs into the government, the dismal treachery of the non-delivery of most of the elements of the Warwick agreement, the abolition of the 10p basic tax rate for the low-paid, the lack of movement on pensions justice and, most visibly of all, the government’s grovelling self-abasement to big business and its refusal to do anything about bringing the City fat-cat profiteers into line have all but destroyed the credibility of Labour in the eyes of most trade unionists.

Union after union has severed ties with the party and many more are now demanding the more discriminating use of their funds.

Support is being increasingly directed only at constituencies and members of Parliament who have earned the trust and the respect of the unions and that trend will inevitably continue and intensify.

And it is in this atmosphere that Mr Straw thinks that he can manipulate away even more of the unions’ input into policy.

Labour Party conference has already been effectively neutralised and this dirty little deal could, if Mr Straw got away with it, almost entirely sever the trade union link with Labour, while keeping the money conduit open and running – in one direction only, of course.

There is, it is said, no such thing as a free lunch and that holds as true for the Labour-union link as for anything else.

Mr Straw and his Downing Street master need to remember that the unions do not support Labour and keep it financially afloat merely because of Mr Brown’s nice smile or because the MPs are such jolly good chaps.

They support it when it serves, as it was formed to do, working-class interests. And when it opposes them, as it is increasingly doing, that support will be more and more difficult to win.

It is almost unbelievable that, as John McDonnell MP points out: “When the Labour Party is at its lowest ebb in the polls for years and we are facing local elections in a fortnight, the Labour leadership is picking a fight with its most loyal supporters.”

Take note, Mr Straw. New Labour and its luminaries have abused the trade union movement for long enough. It is time to mend your ways, not to try and wriggle out of your commitments. If new Labour thinks that it can stand alone without the unions, it will fail and no amount of subterfuge will keep this failing marriage from the divorce courts.