Fast-track Labour’s New Deal into law

Labour’s New Deal for Working People will be a game-changer. It will restore rights at work for millions of people. So I want to see it turned into legislation in the first year of a Labour government.

I want union organisers given access to every workplace by law; a fair pay agreement negotiated in every sector of industry; full employment rights for every worker from day one of the job; an end to zero hours contracts, bogus self employment and “fire-and-rehire”.

Decades of experience as a trade union rep tell me this will not be easy. As an NUJ activist in the late 1990s I saw Labour’s Employment Relations Act watered down by corporate pressure. The UK’s entire business model has been built around insecure work, unequal pay, and stagnating real wages.

We need to scrap the Tory anti-union laws. And wherever Labour is wields influence – from councils to city regions to the new national industrial strategy we’ve pledged – I want to see unions recognised as statutory social partners.

In the meantime I will always stand with them on the picket line. I took part in the first mass picket of the Thatcher era – at Hadfields in Sheffield. I was on the picket lines during the 1984-5 miners’s strike and at Wapping. So I know that everything working people have, we had to fight for.

Cap rents. Build homes.

Last year, there were more people were made homeless in England than bought their first home.

Sky high rents, averaging £2.5k a month in London, mean that 49 per cent of children living in private rented homes in the capital live in poverty.

That’s why I support the call by Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan for powers to cap and control rents. We need to end the injustice of insecure tenancies, no fault evictions and unsafe homes. And I support calls by Generation Rent for a comprehensive set of rights and protections against unscrupulous landlords.

Rent controls alone won’t solve the problem but they could bring immediate relief: two-year rent freeze could save the average household £3,374.

The answer is a crash programme of homebuilding: social housing, council housing and affordable new homes with state-backed mortgage guarantees. To do that we’re going to need to invest.

I want to see a Labour government close tax loopholes worth billions a year. We need to start taxing wealth as well as incomes, and adopt the steeply progressive tax principles of the successful post-war Labour governments. I also want to see big disincentives for speculative development of the kind that is leaving homes unoccupied, with the lights off, while their owners pocket rising values.

That, plus a revolution in planning, is how we get Britain’s builders to build for the many, not the few.

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Strong on Defence

Russia’s attack on Ukraine signals a new period of global conflict – in which totalitarian regimes like Russia and China are trying to break up the system of treaties and laws that have kept order since 1945. They don’t just dislike our democratic way of life: they want to destroy it.

I’ve been in the forefront in building solidarity with Ukraine in the UK – I was in Kyiv until 36 hours before the bombs dropped, making links with unions and human rights groups there. We should go on supporting arms, aid and training for Ukraine – whatever it takes to defeat Putin, and we should boost our own defence output to do so.

In a dangerous world like ours, we need strong alliances. That’s why I opposed Brexit, and support Labour’s plans for a security pact with the EU.

It’s why I pushed for Labour to declare its commitment to NATO “unshakeable”, and renew our commitment to the nuclear deterrent. As more of our European left and socialist partners join NATO I have campaigned for the reform of the alliance, prioritising democracy, human security and human rights.

The Tories are failing us on defence. Look at Afghanistan – the possibility of collapse was not even mentioned in the risk assessment they published before our troops had to scramble to rescue those facing Taliban repression. Look at the billions they’ve wasted on failed procurement schemes. But done right, defence spending can boost growth and security at the same time.

I want a Labour government to match Tory the defence spending “aspiration” – of 2.5% of GDP by 2030 – but to rapidly overhaul procurement, which is squandering billions through lack of transparency and oversight. We need to buy and build as much as possible here in the UK, expanding both defence production and research capacity as part of Labour’s new industrial strategy.

I want to see the UK’s armed forces more deeply embedded in the society they defend – and to look more like the communities they come from. Those changes are already under way in the armed forces, and Labour should accelerate them.

One of the ways we can do this is to enshrine the rights of veterans and service families to first class public services into law. Another is to expand the reserves system, so that every community has a visible, active relationship to the men and women defending us.

We need to face down Russia’s threats with a strong deterrent force, but always with an eye on the rules-based global peace we must construct once the dictators are overthrown.

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Defend democracy

Twelve years of Tory rule, on top of decades of free-market chaos, have severely weakened our democracy. We’ve got ministries run by crony appointees, the electoral commission weakened, the media awash with right-wing disinformation, compulsory ID at polling booths.

So with democracy, it’s time to use it or lose it. We need a radical devolution of power to towns, cities, regions, nations and neighbourhoods.

Labour conference policy is to support PR at Westminster elections. I want to see that commitment in our manifesto and programme for government.

I want to see an elected House of Lords. I support increased devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales, and strong regional devolution for England.

Kick out the cronies
On the first day of a Labour government I want to see all the cronies appointed by the Tories – to the BBC, the National Trust etc – dismissed, along with the “non-executive directors” they’ve placed in government departments. The bizarre arrangements that allow corporate CEOs to decide how public money is spent should be scrapped: public service should be done by neutral public servants only.

Reject the far-right
With the far-right trying to exploit the migration crisis, backed by well-funded far-right media operations, I’m proud that the Labour and trade union movement has led the counter-offensive from the grassroots up. I’m proud of the decades I’ve spent as an anti-fascist campaigner. I want to see the broadest possible movement to oppose the new far right, and to push back against the misogyny and racism that are driving it. I am a life long supporter of A Woman’s Right to Choose, and want to see abortion completely decriminalised in the UK.

When Labour takes power, the tabloids and the far-right social media influencers will declare war on us as a government. We need to stick to our principles – and offer fascism’s target audience a radical alternative and a narrative of hope.

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Fighting Climate Change

The climate emergency is intensifying. From coastal erosion, wildfires, floods and heatwaves … we can feel it happening here in Britain: but in parts of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa the effects are already devastating for millions of people.

Yet it’s not too late to act.

Labour has pledged take the carbon out of our electricity system by 2030, with a massive programme of public investment that aims to leverage in billions of pounds from the private sector.

The aim is to use £24bn of public spending – financed by borrowing and a windfall tax – alongside a radical change to planning and pension fund rules, to give investors in wind, solar, nuclear and our energy infrastructure long term certainty.

Done right, that could trigger the smart, green reindustrialisation of Britain, providing tens of thousands of decent jobs and cheap electricity.

But in the journey to zero net carbon, we have to take all communities with us. The “just transition” can’t be merely a phrase.

That’s why I’ve become a UK champion for the Fossil-fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty: so that we commit all countries to ending investment in new fossil fuel extraction at the same time – so that UK oil and gas communities, and the poorest consumers of energy, do not lose out to unfair competition.

To reduce household bills I want Labour to nationalise the energy retailers as proposed by the TUC. I support Labour’s call for a bigger windfall tax on the oil and gas giants.

To achieve a carbon-free electricity system we need to take the National Grid into public ownership, or at the very least take a controlling public stake, and reconfigure it as a network that takes renewable-generated electricity from homes, small solar sites, nuclear – at small scale and large – and a renewed onshore wind sector. We also need to build zero net carbon priorities into the energy planning system.

At the same time we’ll need more investment locally in flood defences, water conservation, coastal adaptation and more fire and rescue services to cope with the extreme weather events associated with climate change. That, in turn, means we need better funding for local government.

The key to making it happen is money. If we borrow to invest now, the government’s own figures show that will be cheaper than doing it later. Greening our energy system has to be a long-term public private partnership, and that means government creating long-term certainty and stability. Let’s make it happen.

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Crime is a Class Issue

Crime is a working class issue. From nuisance and anti-social behaviour, through to low prosecution rates for rape and domestic violence, and the long-term failure to combat organised crime and corporate corruption – failures in the criminal justice system are eroding the quality of life in our communities, and even belief in a democratic system.

And the poorest suffer the most: twice as likely to suffer violence, or be burgled, three times more likely to be robbed; six times as likely to be a victim of domestic violence, according to Public Health England. According to the public health expert Michael Marmot: “Anti-social behaviour undermines social cohesion and community function and increases community dissatisfaction and feeling unsafe in the community, all of which undermine health”.

I want the police to become crimefighters – not crime administrators. I want the criminal justice system to become an engine of rehabilitation and social justice. That means more police officers, more probation staff, more prison staff and a fully resourced courts system.

It means removing the pressure on police forces to deal with problems that other services are too stretched to handle – like homelessness, addiction and mental health problems. A strong welfare state, with resilient communities, public services we can rely on can free police resources to prevent and prosecute crime.

A combination of cuts, staff shortages, and routine racism have undermined morale and leadership in too many of our police forces. There can be zero tolerance for the kind of racism and misogyny revealed in recent investigations. I want to see swift and transparent justice for the victims where policing goes wrong. And more powers for police and crime commissioners to demand change.

I was proud to stand alongside protesters on the Black Lives Matter demonstrations of 2020 – just as I played a leading role in justice campaigns for victims of police racism in the 1990s. I want to see the Spycops enquiry speeded up, so that the full story of politicised policing and misconduct can be revealed – and to make sure it never happens again.

Fighting crime effectively means more national co-ordination. Alongside our local police forces I want to see the National Crime Agency beefed up into an FBI-style body whose main purpose is to convict the organised fraudsters, the major drug gangs, the people traffickers and the corrupt businesses that launder their money, and the money of the super-rich. That agency, together with the Serious Fraud Office, should have independent powers to pro-actively investigate allegations of corruption among politicians, too.

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Free healthcare – across the board

The NHS is in crisis. That is the result of more than a decade of underfunding, a crisis in the care system and acute social pressures affecting public health. The Tories are war on the NHS workforce. And some Tory MPs are now suggesting we have to start paying for NHS treatments.

It’s more important than ever to defend the principle of free, timely healthcare, across the board – provided by publicly-owned services and a workforce that is well paid and respected.

But we need to transform and modernise the health service.

We have to redesign it so that it promotes health and wellbeing for all, and makes maximum use of new technology, so that health and social are workers can move from crisis management to the kind of 21st century system they dream of running.

We need more money across the board: for primary care; for more staff on decent wages; for universal access to elderly social care and access to mental health services for all who need them.

I want to see government setting mandatory public health targets – not just for local authorities but for industry sectors – and building in the Marmot Indicators (on child mortality, wellbeing, decent housing etc) into all aspects of government policy.

Labour’s priority should be to provide free universal healthcare, social care, dentistry and mental health services for all. These are the foundations of a 21st century economy that puts people before profit.

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