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It's time for the trade unions to march proudly out of Labour’s front door instead of being slowly bundled out of the back.

Rather than enduring a thousand indignities, organised labour should take its money and people and abandon institutional links with the party it fathered, nurtured, saved and continues to sustain. However Ed ­Miliband dresses up these far-reaching reforms, which were triggered by his blind panic over the selection of a parliamentary ­candidate in Falkirk, the truth is he wants union cash but not the unions.

The Labour leader elected on the back of members is terrified of the “Red Ed” tag, never forgiving those who awarded him the top job. Miliband’s treatment of the unions reminds me of the Tony Blair era when the general secretary of the TUC, John Monks, complained they were treated like “embarrassing elderly relatives” by an ungrateful leader.

Votes were fixed weeks ago to pass Miliband’s package at this week’s meeting of Labour’s national executive committee and a shamefully short two-hour conference on St David’s Day.

Yet speaking to very senior figures in the biggest unions, including Unite, Unison and the GMB, I know they feel they get poor value for money as they begin contemplating a moment when they could formally break from the party. They shouldn’t be afraid when a split might benefit both, mutual ­interests better served by space when living in each other’s pockets creates an unhappy marriage.

It’s an issue I’ve wrestled with for years, listening to the arguments from both sides.

The great Jack Jones counselled “murder yes, divorce never” but I believe Labour and the unions are a couple who need to go their separate ways.

The argument for one member, one vote in Labour will always trounce justifications of creaking federal structures. Miliband changing how leaders are elected prompts questions he hasn’t thought through about his own ­legitimacy under a discredited system.

And he’s in La-La land if he thinks anything short of outlawing union membership and transporting activists to Australia would end Tory smears.

But Miliband can do his job and union leaders can negotiate policies for donations rather than handing over millions of pounds in return for sniping and ingratitude. The party over the past few decades got more out of the link than the unions. A prominent Labour figure, a supporter of party ties, told me it was ­frustrating that ­unaffiliated unions such as the teachers, cops and nurses were courted while ­affiliated unions were vilified. A Labour MP, a champion of the union link, ­whispered that he was afraid Ed is opening a Pandora’s box.

Left-wing unions ­withholding up to £4million from Labour under a new ­membership system, he said, would have the resources to fund a rival party. Creating a UKIP of the Left would be self-defeating for indulgent unions, with Tories the only winners if a weakened Labour is electorally drained. The challenge for independent unions would be to issue bold agendas and seek to radicalise Labour from the outside, instead of swallowing abuse on the inside.

Miliband’s reforms are essentially a power grab dressed up as democracy.

He is a leader who strengthened his patronage by abolishing elections for Labour’s Shadow Cabinet and Chief Whip. Emperor Ed raising from 12.5% to 20% the number of MPs required before a candidate may stand for the leadership is a narrowing of Labour politics intended to stop a Leftie winning a party vote.

The rule would’ve barred Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott, limiting the last contest to a family affair, with elder brother David likely to have beaten the younger Miliband the most delicious irony of the reforms.

Tellingly, not one union has affiliated to Labour since the Second World War and a couple, the RMT railworkers and FBU firefighters, departed. The other unions should call ­Miliband’s bluff and leave by that front door. Once out, they’ll never want to go back in.

These cuts all add up

People will be worse off in 2015 than 2010 after five years of the ConDems.

Cameron refusing to answer a killer question on living standards was the most significant political moment of the past week.

“I’ll leave the statisticians,” squirmed Dodgy Dave, “to argue these things out.”

Well, the statisticians, Prime Minister, have argued it out and found that families are paying a high price for your austerity.

Statto Paul Johnson, chief number cruncher at the authoritative Institute for Fiscal Studies, declared household incomes at the election will “still be below” when you entered No10.

People will be worse off under the ConDems. End of.

Wen it comes to the miners Cameron is a minor

Cameron was at Eton when the miners’ strike began in 1984 and buying his Bullingdon Club tail coat when it ended. MPs who want him to apologise for Maggie’s destruction of the coal industry are talking to a clueless posh boy who thinks a miner is a pupil at a prep school.

How wet can Labour get?

At a private meeting, GMB union reps urged Labour frontbencher Maria Eagle to promise she’d halt Environment Agency job cuts blamed for flooding.

She wouldn’t. Labour attacks on the ConDems are a wet blanket when the party just sticks a red rosette on austerity.