Osborne judgment

In the United Kingdom in 1909 the Osborne judgment ruled that members of trade unions would now have to "contract in" if they wanted a portion of their salary to go to a trade union, unlike the previous system of "contracting out", in which the portion of salary was taken unless the individual explicitly stated otherwise. The judgment threatened one of the Labour party's main funding sources. This was especially detrimental to the Labour party as it supporters were generally poorer than other political parties. The two elections in 1910 saw Labour gain 40 seats and 42 seats respectively.

In 1911 Herbert Henry Asquith's government decided for the first time that MPs should receive a salary. Previously, only people with savings or funding organizations behind them could become members of parliament. David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave MPs a wage of £400 per annum, which alleviated the financial problems.

The Osborne judgment was overturned in 1913, by the Trade Union Act (1913).