The 1927 Trade Disputes Act gutted Labour Party funding by reversing contracting-out rules

Evidence

Another crucial aspect of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act was the limits it placed on the political power of labor, striking at its party and unions. Th e Labour Party was robbed of much of its funding with the prohibition of “any contribution to the political fund of a trade union” unless a formal notice was sent out declaring the union members’ “willingness to contribute to that fund.” Instead of “contracting out,” as stipulated by the 1913 Trade Union Act, union members now had to “contract in.” As a result of this legislation, in just two years the Labour Party lost substantial fi nancial resources (a quarter of its total income from affi liation funds) and a third of its subscriptions (Cole 1948, 195). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1696

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the modern debate over union funding and political party finance, and to the reader’s central thesis of austerity as class weapon — the state structurally defunding labor’s political arm.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the reader’s broader austerity-as-class-weapon framing, extending the sacrificial theme: the state is willing to starve labor’s institutions, not just its wages.