DELEGATES at train drivers’ union Aslef voted yesterday to donate £1,000 to the Morning Star at their annual assembly.

Speaking to delegates at the conference in Durham, Steve Gurdler, retired members’ section, said: “The Morning Star is one of the few voices of the left that is left.

“We don’t agree with everything they think, say, or write but we should support them.”

San Senik, Sheffield No 1 branch, said: “I am a communist. A Marxist-Lennist. I make no secret of that.

“But the Morning Star is a paper of the broad left and represents the Labour Party, and the labour movement, in a way the mainstream media does not.”

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said: “We are a broad church in this movement.

“We don’t always agree with the Morning Star but at every Morning Star rally, it’s us, the FBU and Unite standing on their platform.

“The BBC isn’t reporting Palestine in real time, the Morning Star is. No-one else has reported the president’s speech this week. The Morning Star did.

“It’s the maintenance of a voice of our movement. We tell them when we think they are wrong. But, conference, please support.”

Delegates voted 65-16, with four abstentions, to donate £1,000 to the paper.

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko said: “We are humbled by this generous donation from Aslef, a militant union whose strength and unity had broken the Tory Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) anti-union legislation even before Labour repealed it.

“We are proud to work closely with the union and will continue to fight together for a nationalised, rationalised railway.”