Details of a draft version of Labour’s pitch to the country have leaked, with Jeremy Corbyn’s party hoping to make manifesto commitments to part-nationalise some public utilities and to make funds available for social care.
Below is a summary of what the party leadership would like to do in government.
- Respect the Brexit referendum result and give a meaningful vote on any deal to parliament. EU citizens living in the UK would have their rights guaranteed unilaterally. Theresa May’s Brexit white paper would be replaced with a plan that aims to retain the benefits of the customs union and single market.
- Bring parts of the energy industry into public ownership and introduce a local, socially owned energy firm in every area. Also introduce an “immediate emergency price cap” to make sure dual fuel bills stay below £1,000 a year.
- Nationalise the railways.
- Phase out tuition fees.
- Make more funds available for childcare and social care.
- Retain the Trident nuclear deterrent. A sentence from earlier drafts saying that a prime minister should be “extremely cautious” about using a weapon that would kill “millions of innocent civilians” has been removed.
- Place “peace, universal rights and international law” at the heart of foreign policy, while committing to spend 2% of GDP on defence, as required by Nato.
- Make zero-hours contracts illegal.
- Build 100,000 new council houses per year.
- Complete HS2 from London to Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Scotland.
- Borrow £250bn to invest in infrastructure but stick to the fiscal credibility rule to balance day-to-day spending. Also raise taxes for people earning more than £80,000 and reverse corporation and inheritance-tax cuts.
- Insulate homes of disabled veterans for free.
- Extend the right to abortion to Northern Ireland.
- Oppose a second Scottish referendum.
- Lower the voting age to 16.
- Employ 1,000 more border guards.
- End the badger cull, keep the fox-hunting ban and support a ban on wild animals in circuses, as well as protecting bees by banning neonicotinoids.
- Extend the Freedom of Information Act to private companies running public services.
- Review universal credit cuts with a view to reversing them.
- Recognise the benefit that immigrants have brought but introduce fair rules and reasonable management, working with employers that need to recruit from abroad but deterring exploitation.