Dialogue With a Labour Donor

I've kept my letter short:

I have just learnt that the Coop bank, of whom I am a customer, holds a very substantial 13.5 million pounds in loans with the UK Labour Party.

Given the wars and weapons shipments that its top leadership has consistently supported over the past decade, what is your argument that this is an ethical organization?

If we're lucky we might force them to make a proper official press statement about this.

My sense is it's related to the strange Coop Party to whom about 30 Labour MPs nominally belong. It's bogus; there is no "cooperative movement". Maybe there once was, but it's long been supplanted by the New Coop Party and the rampant middle-class consumerism of the John Lewis Partnership.

I'm depressed about this. The Co-op bank is probably about as ethical as a BP petrol station with solar panels is carbon neutral. It's a marketing stunt, and we've been duped. People have to keep asking about it and remain resolutely unable to see the distinction between support for the Labour Party, and support for what Tony Blair does.

** update:

The standard reply from Colin Baines looks like it's going to be

We are committed "To be non-partisan in all social, political, racial and religious matters."

Needless to say, this is not good enough, since it is trying to imply that they if the organization is a political party, they are willing to bankroll it no matter what it does.

Good letters, guys.

I think you could persuade the Mail to take this up.

By the way, any ideas what the Labour Party might have blown 9 million quid on in the last three months?

I've been forced to write back.

Thank you for your swift reply.

It's not just the ethics. In the recent loans for peerages scandal, the Labour Party's leadership appeared to commit two offences of selling seats in the House of Lords, and not declaring sums of money that were practically donations. When a bank steps in with this kind of money and pays off several of these undeclared loans, it could be accused of political interference.

Guys,

I find this interesting as the CO-OP are enticing business through their 'ethical policy'.

Have you considered approaching either trading standards or perhaps the advertising standards agency as they are probably in violation of their stated policies?

Q, fabulous letter! Plain brilliant!

Guido on the job too, concentrating on that subsidiary of the Co-op, the Unity Trust Bank, with the FSA investigating .

Great letters, all of you. Cartoonist got in with my first superlatives, and too late at night to think of more original in english.

After the Terror Porn shock horror liquid bombers of 10/8, and the ongoing ME catastrophes,and new PoliceState measures, we are in for a continuing "interesting" time.

This mini-campaign is a classic example of how to wear the fcukers down.

GOOD !

Many employees and customers will feel as we do, because if I lived your side of the channel would probably bank there too. But now ?

CO-OP SUPPORTS CLUSTER-BOMBER BLAIR has a certain ring to it , but only a first try.

I dont see why the Daily Mail, would bother publish this story (other than what they have already covered of labour cash problems), only returning value to shareholders is important to the Mail.

Why would they bother attacking them when they sell 'The Daily Mail', in co-op stores, and sell advertisement space to them, and are a PROUD sponsor's of ITV's 'The Bill'(A POLICE PROPOGANDA SHOW!) of which the Daily Mail own 20% of ITV, so why bother damaging the CO-OPERATIVE BRAND, so its a good thing the brand attacked is "Unity Trust Bank" as it is outside the mainstream consummerist brands of banks.

The 'ethics' of co-op are just a marketing tool, to intice people that you can enjoy “strong growth and a clear conscience” by opening a CIS Sustainable Leaders Trust investment.

I recommend to concerned customers with a conscience not to delve too deeply into the details of the bank, otherwise you might loose the 'clear conscience' that you might have needed to justify the return on your moeny.

I ran into Mark Thomas yesterday and told him all about it. He is VERY interested. I emailed him the details with links to these posts. Hopefully he might use the story as part of his show and get the media interested.

Tell Mark Thomas, never mind attacking them about the lack of ethics in funding the Labour Party, we won't nail them there.

We should attack on the main point of their response, which is:

"Our Mission Statement includes the following commitment: 'To be non-partisan in all social, political, racial and religious matters.' We are bankers to the Labour Party, irrespective of whether there is a Labour government or not. We are also bankers to other political organisations."

The Coop are also bankers to me. But they won't lend me £9.5m because, as a bank, they know there is too great a risk that they won't get it back.

If the Co-op was being non-partisan, they would look at the Labour Party like they would at any other not-for-profit institution in financial difficulty, they would look at Labour Party's turnover, its plummetting financial base of membership subscriptions, the drying up of donations, and utterly refuse an overdraft of anything like this amount.

The point is, by ignoring the basic principles of good banking business for this uniquely privileged customer, the Co-op is being partisan, precisely the opposite of its own mission statement.

We should attack the Co-op's board & executive on this basis, plus the classic society member's indictment that the Society's Board is behaving irresponsibly with its members' money.

More pedantry, this time from me:
What does "...has supported Israel in IT IS recent destruction of Lebanon..." mean, anyway...?

I'm glad I don't bank with this outfit...

>What does "...has supported Israel in IT IS recent destruction of Lebanon..." mean, anyway...?

Suspect that's a grammar checker at work. Author typed "it's" meaning "its" and clever-but-dim machine expanded it to "it is".

Another trap for Grauniad hacks... :-)

A campaign against the Co-operative Bank stikes me as a little stupid. They're the best bank by miles and their ethical policy seems very good indeed, (Ethical Consumer say they're the only bank with a "credible ethical policy" and Friends of the Earth also highly recommend them). Could anyone imagine Barclays, HSBC etc knocking back £10 million of business because of ethical concerns such as global warming, poor labour conditions or oppressive regimes? Don't be ridiculous. I would recommend people look at its website and decide for themselves.

With regard to the loans for peerages scandal, if i'm not wrong, wasn't the Labour Party treasurer unaware of them. It was Blair raising his own money, seperate from the party, so he can carry on his pro US, pro war, pro privatisation, anti civil rights agenda and completely ignore the concerns the Labour Party has. I'm not a Labour Party member, but I feel people like Tony Benn and Bob Marshall Andrews are probably more representative of the Labour Party and its membership than Blair. Blair is a virtual dictator, a minor one mind, taking his orders from Bush, Murdock, BAE systems etc etc. He is not answerable to 'his' party or the electorate. Labour Party MPs are guilty of not getting rid of him as only they can (I think they are either fearful of the Daily Mail, Sun etc, corrupted by power or just Blairite placemen imposed on Labour constituencies) but much of Blair policies/actions are not the Labour Party's, they are in spite of the party not because of it. Under Blair there has been a massive undermining of democracy in this country, I just hope someone like Marshall Andrews will run against Brown, under whom I fear for more of the same.

Anyway back to the Co-op Bank, I'm not saying they're perfect, they're a bank after all, but their ethical policy does seem to stand up, and to dismiss it as a marketing ploy is unfair. As a customer I've read the policy, it is very specific and obviously doesn't catch every ethical issue you can think of, I asked them at the time why is it only interested in arms to oppressive regimes when the arms trade in general is unethical for instance. I was advised the policy is based on the ethical concerns of its customers and its customers thought the UK and other independent nations had a right to self defence and therefore they could not exclude all involvement in arms on ethical grounds as it is their customers ethics they are seeking to reflect - fair enough. They went on to say every statement in it was voted for by at least 70% of its customers and over 1 million customers took part. Again, could you imagine any other Bank doing this. Not perfect but a decent stab at being democratic to some degree and the fact that it puts other social and eco concerns before pure profit should be applauded.

So sure pressure them to improve their ethical policy, but attacking\campaigning against what is probably one of the most responsible businesses around seems self defeating.

Just sent a query to the Co-op myself. Will let you know the outcome. Have you thought about doing a Co-op/Blair campaign using Pledgebank to raise the profile? I'm sure people like Tim Ireland would support it.

I've compared the list of names on Cash for peerages (wikipedia) and the electorial commission's labour loans, and they all seem to match up. The Tories had to let a few donors find a way out before their illegally secret loans were made public.

I don't see why we shouldn't hold the Co-op bank to the highest standards. It's pretty obvious to everyone that these loans don't make any commercial sense or they could have easily been borrowed from Barclays. No one donates to the Labour party if they don't want most of it going straight into the pockets of Chai Patel et al, because that's what debts are about. Blair thought he could make this secret deal, and we would be stupid enough to carry the tab.

I wonder if when the Tories need a couple of million quid whether they could get it so readily. Perhaps the fact that they are not in government means they don't have access to corruption -- I beg your pardon -- the necessary collateral.

Ultimately it's about prolonging Blair's tenure, and this move by this bank is doing untold damage by helping it to happen. It's ultimately the institutions you most want to believe in who are best able to sell you out.

Maybe if the Co-op was just some other anonymous bank their flawed ethics would be of little interest. The point is that their unique selling point - and the ONLY reason thousands of consumers including trade unions bank with them - is their supposed policy of not supporting, among others, arms traders and human rights violaters. When that's been exposed as a bunch of shabby lies, what's left? A bank just like any other, with middling financial performance, which lies to its customers. That's better than Barclays how exactly?

Oh, and Friends of the Earth's seal of approval doesn't impress me. I want an ethical investment policy, not a bank that sucks up to power-seeking anti-science fundamentalists.

It's not good enough that they have a 'partial ethical policy'. I have significant sums of money invested with the Coop Bank and I am not happy that my cash is supporting a party whose actions I otherwise devote considerable time and money to opposing. I'm not going to move my money elsewhere but I want to hold the Coop to account. I am pretty sure that there will be other Coop Bank customers who feel this way. We must keep pushing on this one.