Union leaders hand Labour a checklist of 130 demands as Brown's position weakens

Gordon Brown was locked in a risky confrontation with the trade unions last night over their demands for a range of new powers.

His allies were trying to head off a row over proposals including a return to secondary picketing that Labour insiders warned would make the party 'unelectable'.

Ministers spent the day in talks with union bosses in an attempt to cut back a shopping list of 130 demands.

They include calls to extend the minimum wage to 18 to 21-year-olds and apprentices, free school meals for all primary children and a tax deduction for union membership dues.

The talks are aimed at averting a clash at a crucial Labour summit next week where the party will hammer out what amounts to a draft manifesto for the next election.

Unions, activists and MPs have tabled more than 4,000 amendments for the party's national policy forum, many of which pose a direct challenge to Mr Brown's authority.

So far these have been cut to about 2,000, and by the end of next week only around 500 will have been accepted for debate at the forum in Warwick.

But it is the key demands issued by the unions that pose the biggest threat to Mr Brown, amid claims they want payback for the millions they are pumping into the party.

With Labour's finances in crisis, the party relies on regular injections of cash from the unions to meet its daily running costs and service its £18million in debts.

They now contribute £9 out of every £10 donated to the party.

Ed Miliband, the Cabinet minister in charge of drawing up the Labour manifesto, and Pat McFadden the employment minister who chairs the national policy forum, met with trade union leaders yesterday to discuss their demands.

The forum will open just hours after Labour has learned the result of the Glasgow East by-election.

Defeat could turn the meeting in Warwick into a weekend of plotting and speculation about Mr Brown's future.

Last night insiders refused to say what Mr Brown's 'red lines' for the unions would be apart from ruling out secondary picketing.

'We need a decent policy platform for the next election in order to be electable.

'There are things here that would make us unelectable,' one said.

'But this is a complex negotiation and we are making clear to them that there are things they can't have.

'The Prime Minister has made that clear.'

Earlier this week Mr Brown said: 'There will be no return to the 1970s, 1980s or even the 1990s when it comes to union rights, no retreat from continued modernisation, and there can be no question of any reintroduction of secondary picketing rights.