Labour MP wants wealthy party supporters to have their membership fee increased to £1,000

A Labour MP wants wealthy party supporters with homes valued at over £1mto have their membership fee increased to £1,000.

The party is worried that the new Trade Union Bill could leave it £6m poorer because it would change the way cash is funnelled from trade unions to Labour.

At the moment a share of members' monthly subs is passed automatically to the party.The new law, which is expected to receive royal assent, would force trade union members to 'opt-in'.John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, believes that rich supporters may have to make up the shortfall.

In a statement explaining his reasoning, hesaid most new members who took advantage of a cheap post-election deal to join the party were middle class and from affluent communities.

"The Labour wealth tax should be based onthe total number of properties owned, so that those with second homes and property empires have the opportunity to make a more egalitarian contribution," he argues.

He went on: "Some might want to label thisas the Labour mansion tax, which in realityit is, but it is enabling the socialist principleof redistribution of wealth which for many goes to the very core of the Labour Party's values and priorities."Mr Mann is a frequent critic of Jeremy Corbyn - the leader who owns a home in London's trendy district of Islington.

It suggests a division is emerging betweentraditional working-class Labour supporters in the north and those more closely aligned with Mr Corbyn, who come from richer, urban areas in the south of thecountry.

At Monday's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Lord Watts stirred the pot, after a fractious shadow cabinet reshuffle."My advice to my own party leadership is that they should take less notice of the London-centric, hard-left political class who sit around in their £1m mansions, eating their croissants at breakfast and seeking to lay the foundations for a socialist revolution," he said.

[sky news] 

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