TORIES still consider trade unionists to be “the enemy within,” Labour shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle warned yesterday, as she urged CWU members to swing behind Ed Miliband.

Addressing the union’s annual conference, Ms Eagle said: “I’ve heard the accusation that ‘you’re all the same and voting makes no difference’,” she told delegates. “Nothing could be further from the truth.

“They don’t want you to campaign against extreme cuts they’re planning in next few years.

“They don’t want voters to notice £12 billion of cuts.

“We’ve got just 11 days to stop this nightmare happening.”

Ms Eagle, who has been leading her party’s workers’ rights campaigns and is touring workplaces to campaign for a Labour victory, said the Tory campaign was “lurching from fear to smear.”

She said a Labour government would “call time on the Tory race to the bottom on pay and conditions” and “defend people with disabilities who have been scapegoated by this government.”

Ms Eagle told delegates the Conservative Party manifesto “threatens the very existence of trade unions in the UK.”
“They still seem to believe that trade unions are the enemy within,” she blasted.

Ms Eagle also paid tribute to outgoing general secretary Billy Hayes and welcomed his successor Dave Ward.