BRITAIN: The Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr John Reid, warned the British Labour Party yesterday to get ready for impending battles within its own ranks as Scottish union leaders threatened to withdraw funding.
Dr Reid spoke on the closing day of the party's annual Scottish conference in Perth, where three major unions rebelled against plans to continue using private money in public sector projects.
In a fresh twist to the continuing tensions between unions and Labour in Scotland, the conference called on the British government to "explicitly reject" privatising the Post Office.
Dr Reid said reform of public services was the government's "third great objective", but divisions about how to achieve that objective could be "fatal".
He continued: "We have been chosen by the people to govern. Government means hard choices. It doesn't get any easier for us. But it has got a little easier for millions of people we represent precisely because we were not afraid to make those choices.
"So we're not afraid of debate, nor of hard choices. But we also know that if debate can be healthy, division can be fatal." Dr Reid said Labour had taken on and defeated the Tories, as well as "conservatives with a small C" within its own party to modernise and become electable.
And he added: "That's my message for the party here today as we enter another period of challenge.
"For a truly radical party there is no challenge without struggle - a patient, ideological, sometimes protracted and sometimes controversial struggle of ideas."
Dr Reid's speech, which received a standing ovation from delegates, was delivered as union leaders issued a veiled threat to withdraw financial backing for the party's Scottish elections next year.
Unison, the TGWU and the GMB have all rebelled in votes on the party's policy documents on health, education and local government over their objection to the private finance initiative.
Mr Robert Parker, the Scottish secretary of the GMB, said "difficult decisions" had to be taken. On Scottish Television's Seven Days programme, he said: "We will obviously support those Labour candidates both in local elections and the Scottish elections, if they are supporting the concept of public services directly provided for the communities in Scotland."
Mr John Lambie, Unison's assistant Scottish secretary, added: "We will be giving very, very careful consideration indeed to those constituencies within which we have trade union candidates standing."
But a Scottish Labour spokesman said: "If unions are going to threaten to do that, the place to do it is not through newspapers. We have made it clear we don't make policy on the hoof - nor do we make it on the basis of threats." - (PA)