Not so long ago, the thought of Unite withdrawing its financial support for Labour would have been fanciful.
When Jeremy Corbyn was leader, relations between Labour and the UK’s second largest union could not have been closer.
Len McCluskey, Unite’s then general Secretary, made sure the union spent as much time campaigning for a Labour government as it did representing its members.
On top of the millions of pounds Unite shoveled into Labour coffers, the union also bankrolled legal cases involving Corbyn-supporting websites, and even handed out free ice creams to revellers at the ill-fated Labour Live festival.
Times have changed, however. Corbyn and McCluskey are gone, replaced by Keir Starmer and Sharon Graham respectively. And both have made no secret of their desire to do things differently from their predecessors.
On her first day in the job, Graham made it clear that Unite would no longer concern itself with internal Labour Party affairs and would instead be more like, well, a trade union.
Starmer’s determination to turn the page on the Corbyn era is shown by the fact that the former Labour leader no longer has the party whip - a situation that is unlikely to change.
It is through this prism that we should view the public spat between Labour and Unite, which has culminated in the union threatening to withdraw all of its funding from the party.
The current row revolves around a dispute in Coventry, where the local Labour-led council is refusing to give in to wage demands made on behalf of bin lorry drivers by Unite.
In a tweet on Wednesday night, Graham said: “Let me be very clear - the remaining financial support of Labour Party is now under review. Your behaviour and mistreatment of our members will not be accepted. It’s time to act like labour, be the party for workers.”
In a punchy response, a Labour spokesman said: “These sort of threats won’t work in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. We would have hoped that Unite would have got the message that the Labour Party is under new management.“
It is true that Labour, which recently went through the painful process of laying off staff to cut costs, can ill-afford to turn its nose up at any offer of financial assistance.
Party sources say Unite has donated little, if anything, more than their £1m Labour affiliation fee in recent years. But even that is now at risk.
There are bigger factors at play - namely Starmer’s need to show sceptical voters that his party is a very different beast from what it was in the Corbyn years.
A source tells HuffPost UK: “Sensible people in both the party and the union don’t think we should break a 100-plus year affiliation because of a few disagreements.
“But Labour won’t be pushed around by bully boys anymore.”
It’s significant that this row broke on the same day in which Starmer used an interview in The Times to pledge Labour’s renewed support for NATO at a time when a Russian invasion of Ukraine appears all-but inevitable.
He told the paper: “The message is that we are firm and united in our support for Nato, that we are reasserting Labour’s history and tradition — the Bevin tradition — of the Labour Party, and making it very, very clear that we don’t just see that as part of our history and tradition. It’s part of our values, as relevant today as it’s ever been.“
It should also be noted that while Starmer is rubbing shoulders with NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg, Corbyn will be addressing a Stop The War rally titled ‘No war in Ukraine - Stop NATO expansion’.
Just like Graham suggesting Unite could sever all links with Labour, Corbyn confirming he is at odds with the party’s policy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict is not unhelpful for Starmer.
If both events help to cement in the public’s mind that Labour truly is “under new management”, it will have been a good 24 hours work for the party’s leader.