Trade union members did not shape the Labour leadership result as much as in past elections

Following changes to the Labour leadership election procedures under Ed Miliband, critics claimed that this election would be swamped by affiliated members from the trade unions who could opt in to get a ballot (unlike the old system in which they were capped at a one third share). However, Mark Wickham-Jones finds that trade unionists came nowhere near playing the kind of role that they had done in previous contests. Though they comprised over 30 per cent of the original electorate, in terms of votes returned only 17 per cent came from trade union members.