NUM to lose its vote for Labour leader: Party rejects two pleas for branch ballots

TENSION between left-wing unions and Labour over 'one member, one vote' was reactivated yesterday as it emerged that Arthur Scargill's miners and 130,000 building workers will be denied a vote in the leadership elections.

The ruling National Executive Committee rejected plans by the National Union of Mineworkers and Ucatt, the construction union, to hold branch ballots for the contests, insisting these would breach the Omov principle.

The committee yesterday formally eliminated Ucatt from the elections while sending a final plea to Mr Scargill, the NUM president, to reconsider his decision not to hold a pithead or postal ballot on grounds of cost. Mr Scargill is unlikely to change his mind.

The dispute is the first ripple of the difficulties that were predicted when John Smith pushed through one member, one vote for party members and political-levy payers at last year's party conference.

The NUM has a long history of high turn-out pithead ballots, supervised by the Electoral Reform Society. But while the run-down of the industry means the number of political-levy paying members has dropped dramatically - estimates vary from 6,000 to about 10,000 - the union is in dire financial straits.

In the wake of British Coal's decision to withdraw the check-off system of paying union dues, it would also be difficult for the NUM to identify all its levy-paying members.

Mr Scargill said yesterday: 'We cannot afford either a postal ballot or a workplace ballot, which costs even more. We would be delighted to participate in this ballot. We have nominated John Prescott as leader and Margaret Beckett as deputy leader. But the problem we face is that we cannot afford the pounds 10,000, pounds 15,000 or pounds 20,000 it would cost us to operate a postal ballot or workplace ballot.'

The committee insists that branch ballots - open to influence from outspoken activists and where only those attending meetings would vote - are unacceptable.

A spokesman for Ucatt, which maintains that a postal ballot of its 130,000 members would cost pounds 70,000, said members had been 'disenfranchised', a claim denied by Labour.

Many unions have baulked at the large sums of money they will have to pay out for postal ballots, but most have quietly gritted their teeth and got on with them.

David Blunkett, the party chairman, said the unions were disenfranchising themselves. 'All other unions have found a way round the difficulties. We think that some people are making a point, and it's a point at the expense of their members.'