Co-op vote could end support for Labour MPs

Financial support for prominent Labour MPs including shadow chancellor Ed Balls, Stella Creasy and Chris Leslie could be hit if the Co-operative Group votes next month to end its history of political donations.

The Co-op Group last year gave £625,000 to the Co-op party, which is fielding 41 candidates on joint tickets with Labour at the general election, including Mr Balls, the shadow chancellor. In 2013 the group provided £50,000 to help run Mr Balls's office, and it is also providing £1,200 towards the campaigns of Co-op/Labour candidates in next month's election.

A motion before the Co-op Group's annual meeting on May 16 will review the policy of political donations and ask members whether the society should make any donations.

The board has not given a view - Allan Leighton, Co-op chairman, said the only option was to "let the membership decide". But the Co-op party says that members are not being given the information they need to make an informed decision on whether to carry on supporting the movement's political wing.

Karin Christiansen, general secretary of the Co-op Party, said the political operations of the movement were crucial to promote a society where wealth and power were shared more widely. "This must be an informed debate," she said. "As it stands, the Co-operative Group is not providing members with information about the co-operative movement's history of political engagement and the work of the party."

Most of the Co-op Group's funding of the political party does not go directly to individual MPs or candidates but to the organisation of conferences, research and other political work. It is committed to giving the Co-op Party £400,000 in the current financial year and the withdrawal of that donation would be a blow to the finances of the wider Labour movement.

Labour has become heavily dependent on donations from trade unions; receiving cash from the co-operative movement would traditionally be seen as less politically contentious. But the financial link between Labour and the Co-op Bank became a political problem in 2013 following the downfall of Paul Flowers, its former chairman, who quit after being charged with drug possession.

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