BRIGHTON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 26: Deputy Labour party leader Tom Watson speaks to delegates in the main hall, on day three of the annual Labour Party Conference on September 26, 2017 in Brighton, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Afternoon summary
- Jeremy Corbyn has said that he is not planning a second referendum on Brexit, but has refused to rule out Labour backing one. He has also said there are some “positives” from leaving the EU. (See 3.09pm.)
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
A delegates comes up to point out that Watson’s speech was only supposed to last five minutes, but stretched to 22 minutes.
Watson had been expecting to speak mid afternoon, but then it was decided that he would come on at 5pm. He did not start until almost 6pm because the session overran. It was the graveyard slot.
Watson was one of the very many Labour MPs who refused to support Corbyn when his leadership was challenged last summer, and it seems that the Corbyn loyalists in charge of the conference scheduling haven’t forgotten ...
After Watson finished he was joined on stage by the whole shadow cabinet, to pose for pictures alongside Jeremy Corbyn. There was some “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” chanting too.
And this is how Watson wound up his speech. It ended up a bit Richard Curtis ....
Winding up my speech last year, I predicted an early election. In which, I also said, we’re going to give the Tories the surprise of their lives. Well conference, we did it.
Jeremy, you did it. So this year I’m going to go out on another limb.
Yes, there’s hard work to do and no, we mustn’t be complacent, but Jeremy Corbyn has broken the spell of fear the Tories sought to cast on this country. He has helped us all to remember that politics should be about inspiring hope, not peddling despair. He has shown us again what a real alternative to Toryism looks like and what it can achieve.
And because of that, I tell you, Conference, Jeremy Corbyn will be our next prime minister ...
Politics now is a fight between those who want to be feared and those who’re not frightened to love. Britain’s run out of patience with the tin-pot Machiavellis. Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Liam Fox and the rest of you: your time is up.
This country is ready for change. Ready to throw off the shackles, to turn back the tide; ready to do the right thing and to do the thing right. In place of fear, love.
Conference, Britain is ready for Labour.
Love wins and so will we.
Watson says Labour will soon publish the report from the commission into the future of work he announced at last year’s conference. It was chaired by Helen Mountfield.
Watson says all workers should get employment rights
Watson says all workers should get employment rights.
So let’s extend employment rights to all workers in the gig economy - the self-employed, agency workers and contractors as well as the traditionally employed. Let’s stop dancing on the head of a legalistic pin about when is a job not a job and when is self-employed not really self-employed. It’s a fake fight which big business always wins and Tory governments love to hide behind.
Watson turns to the election. He says:
This year’s election showed that real change is possible. We can and we will form a radical government which does things differently.
We have the imagination; we have the drive; we have the momentum.
The final pun (Momentum) gets a laugh in the conference, not least because Watson once described Momentum as “a bit of a rabble”.
Watson turns to Uber, which Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, did not mention in his speech. Watson says:
Uber, you’re becoming the perfect picture of how the future gig economy must not look. You may think you’re immune because your friends in the Tory party run Britain and its newspapers. You know the Tories don’t care about level playing fields and orderly markets. They don’t care about consumer protection. They certainly don’t care about workers’ rights. But they don’t run London - and that’s where you make your money.
Updated
Labour would ban football clubs from signing shirt sponsorship deals with betting companies, Watson says
Watson says as culture secretary in a Labour government one of his early priorities will be tackling problem gambling.
The damage to the families of gambling addicts can be terrible. Yet some gambling firms, driven by greed, are deliberately targeting our poorest communities. We now know that when vulnerable people try to opt out of online gambling, companies don’t always block their accounts as they should.
Gambling companies are even harvesting data to deliberately target low-income gamblers and people who’ve given up.
As Mike Dixon, boss of mental health charity Addaction says, “gambling addiction tears lives and families apart. It’s outrageous that an industry with a £13bn revenue contributes less than £10m to treatment”.
Well Mike, I can tell you that a Labour government will introduce a compulsory levy.
Can you imagine the uproar if the drinks industry started targeting Alcoholics Anonymous by selling drink outside AA meetings? We wouldn’t tolerate that - and we shouldn’t tolerate the same kind of behavior by some bookmakers. And addicts must be given the help they need. Gambling addiction is an illness and it’s about time it was taken seriously.
So I can announce today that, together with Jonathan Ashworth, our shadow health secretary, I’m launching a thorough review of gambling addiction in this country and current provision for treatment on the NHS ...
Our review will look at how best to fund NHS treatment and help free problem gamblers from the destructive cycle of addiction. My message to gambling firms today is clear: stop targeting vulnerable people. Start acting properly. And meet your obligation to help those whose lives have been blighted by addiction.
You can do it now, because it’s the right thing to do. Or you can wait for the next Labour government to do it for you.
Oh and by the way, the same applies to the organisations that run football in this country. If you won’t ban football clubs from signing shirt sponsorship deals with betting companies - Labour will.
- Watson says Labour would ban football clubs from signing shirt sponsorship deals with betting companies.
- A Labour government would introduce a compulsory levy on the betting industry, Watson says.
- Labour will review gambling addiction and how it is treated by the NHS.
Tom Watson's speech
Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader and shadow culture secretary, is delivering his speech now.
Near the start Watson tried to get the audience joining in with the chant, “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.” His stunt fell flat, because very few people joined in.
Here is the passage.
Machiavelli’s famous advice was that it’s better to be feared than to be loved. This mantra runs as deep in the Tory party as blue through a stick of Brighton rock. Fear is how they win. Fear is how they govern ...
Mrs May, the Tory party was never loved. But you were happy to be feared. It worked for you. Well not any more. 15 months in, you still seem as dazed as on day one. Caught between your enemies and, even worse, your friends. Caught in the headlights. Living on Boris time.
As shadow culture secretary, I’ve got one of the best jobs there is. When I get invited to the theatre or to the cinema or, yes, to Glastonbury, I get to say I’m only there for work. And one of the most surreal moments of my political life happened to me late at night, in a field, surrounded by people much younger and far more stylish than me.
I realised something as the crowd at Glastonbury’s silent disco began to sing:
“Oh, Jeremy Corbyn....” And as they sang, I realised it’s actually better to be loved than to be feared. And Jeremy has shown us that it’s possible.
Updated
Corbyn says he's often 'deeply embarrassed' by personal adulation he attracts
In his Sky News interview Faisal Islam pointed out to Jeremy Corbyn that last year Corbyn said he was not in favour of a “cult of personality”. How was that going, Islam asked. Corbyn he often felt “deeply embarrassed” by all the personal attention he was getting.
I often feel deeply embarrassed by it. It’s not my wish, not my doing.
Richard Leonard, the leftwing candidate in the Scottish Labour leadership contest, and the favourite, has announced that two more unions are backing his candidate: Unison and the bakers’ union, BFAWU. That means he now has six unions backing him. His rival, Anas Sarwar, has not been backed by any union.
Here is the Laura Kuenssberg’s full BBC interview with Jeremy Corbyn.
In full: Jeremy Corbyn interview with Laura Kuenssberg https://t.co/SigIWWQq7j
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 26, 2017
And here is Faisal Islam’s interview with Corbyn for Sky News.
Full interview with the Leader of the Opposition - on sterling, personality cults, PFI, nationalisation, the EEA - https://t.co/RnuiI75jfq
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) September 26, 2017
Keeley says Labour will invite expert panel to help develop plans for national care service
Barbara Keeley, the shadow minister for mental health and social care, told the conference in her speech that Labour would set up a national care service, spending £3bn a year on it at the start. She said:
A service in which we pool the risk of high care costs so that no-one is faced with catastrophic costs as they are now.
In its first years, our national care service will receive an extra £3bn in public funds every year:
Enough to place a cap on what individuals have to pay towards care
Enough to raise the asset threshold for paying for care
Enough to provide free end of life care
To act on our pledge, we will invite an independent, expert panel to advise us on how we move from the current broken system of care to a sustainable service for the long term.
FBU could withdraw cooperation from Grenfell Tower inquiry if it's becoming 'whitewash', says union chief
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, has just given a speech moving an emergency motion on assaults on emergency service workers.
Most of his speech was about the Grenfell Tower fire. He said people had been criticised for “politicising” the fire. But it happened as a results of decisions taken by politicians.
He said politicians should be summoned to give evidence to the inquiry.
But he said that, if it became clear to the FBU and community representative that “the whole thing is working towards a whitewash”, the FBU would consider withdrawing cooperation from it.
We need to ask questions about the privatisation and deregulation of building controls, of fire risk assessments, the destruction of the fire inspecting role within the fire service, the elimination of publicly funded fire research within the UK, the abolition of national standards within the fire service.
We have to look at why housing becomes more and more a commodity for the production of profit for developers. We need to look at why local authority funding is cut as never before, the fire service is cut as never before. And when regeneration means forcing out working class communities out of our city centres and into other areas.
Wrack also spoke about the Grenfell Tower fire at a fringe meeting last night, saying it was a crime that should bring down the government.
Leonard and Sarwar take part in Scottish Labour leadership hustings
Scottish Labour leadership candidate Anas Sarwar has called for the “spirit of the rules” of the contest to be respected amid claims there could be a trade union stitch-up in favour of his rival Richard Leonard, the Press Association reports. PA says:
The Jeremy Corbyn-supporting Leonard said he was “delighted” to have received support from all the unions that had so far declared, including Unite, the UK’s largest.
He said the rules of the leadership contest had been agreed and it was wrong to “call foul” after the decisions had been taken.
The two rivals to replace Kezia Dugdale were taking part in a hustings at the Labour party conference following a report in the Huffington Post that Unite had signed up 2,700 members to the union’s political levy - a payment that makes them eligible to vote in the leadership contest - in just two days last weekend.
The Herald newspaper reported sources close to Sarwar warning that Scottish Labour activists “wouldn’t take kindly” to any attempt by Unite to return the party to “a branch office”.
At the hustings, Sarwar said he wanted more people to join Labour or sign up as supporters in order to vote in the contest.
But he added: “Through that process we have all got to make sure we play by the rules - that’s in terms of the written rules and also the spirit of the rules as well.
“As long as all of us do that I have no problem with more Unite members or any other trade union members joining this process, voting in this contest and hopefully then engaging with us as well as we return a UK Labour government and also a Scottish Labour government, too.”
At the hustings in Brighton, organised by the Daily Record, Leonard said: “The trade unions are going through due process of deciding who it is they are going to back and I don’t think it’s right to call foul about those rules after decisions have been taken.
“If there’s a problem with the rules you should say that there is a problem with the rules up front.”
He added that Unite’s support came following a hustings and it was “not a decision taken by Len McCluskey”, the union chief who is close to Corbyn, but rather by the “rank and file” of the organisation in Scotland.
At the Brighton event, Sarwar said he would not be afraid to clash with Corbyn if it was in the interests of Scotland.
“That’s not to say we are going to pick deliberate fights with the UK Labour party of Jeremy Corbyn,” he said.
“It’s about saying in a grown-up environment, with an autonomous Scottish Labour party not being a branch office ... that we can take different decisions in Scotland that are right for Scotland’s interests.”
Jonathan Ashworth's speech - Summary
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, delivered one of the best received speeches of the conference a bit earlier. Here are the key points.
- Ashworth said Labour would reverse the marketisation of the NHS.
Our NHS is undermined by millions of pounds wasted on endless tendering of services to private providers. It is patient care that suffers.
Let me give a quick example, an ambulance contract here in Sussex handed to a private company who didn’t own any ambulances so they sub-contracted to 20 other companies. Two ceased trading, and ambulances drivers couldn’t be paid. Thankfully the contract was taken back off private hands.
I had the privilege of meeting those ambulance drivers recently. They continued taking patients to appointments for 8 weeks without pay. Doesn’t that show public service is about a greater calling, is about compassion, care and public duty, not contracts, markets and commercialisation.
So a Labour government will legislate to reinstate the Secretary of State’s duty to provide universal care, we’ll reintegrate the NHS, reverse the Health and Social Care Act, fight fire sales of hospital assets and end Tory privatisation.
- He said he would introduce a national strategy to help the children of alcoholics and drug users.
This year £43m will be slashed from alcohol and drug addiction treatment services. Recently, I chose to speak out very personally about my own circumstances, growing up with a dad who had a drink problem. He was an alcoholic.
His drinking hung over my childhood with the fridge empty other than bottles of drink. His drinking became so bad in his final years he couldn’t bring himself to come to my wedding because he felt too embarrassed.
I tell this story not for your indulgence or sympathy. But because 2 million children grow up with an alcoholic parent, 335,000 children grow up with a parent with drug abuse issues.
So as part of our assault on child ill health, I will put in place the first ever national strategy to support children of alcoholics and drug users and we’ll invest in addiction treatment and prevention as well.
- He said Labour would allocated an extra £45bn for health and social care. There would also be a new £500m “emergency winter fund”.
Here’s a clip from Naomi Klein’s speech.
In his TV interviews Jeremy Corbyn has also said antisemitism is “completely at odds with the beliefs of this party”, saying Labour was “not a nasty party”, a day after delegates attended a fringe meeting where a speaker said free speech should include the right to question the Holocaust, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Corbyn dismisses suggestions Labour government would trigger run on pound
In the various interviews he has been giving today, Jeremy Corbyn also defended John McDonnell’s decision to talk about the possibility of a Labour government facing a run on the pound. (See 1.18pm.) Asked about McDonnell’s comments, he said:
What he is doing is saying we look at all scenarios that may affect a Labour government. It is worth seeing these things through. Surely that’s what an opposition serious about getting into government wants to do ...
Now, today, in the Treasury, there is a whole team of brilliant people looking at speculation against the pound and runs on the pound that might affect our economy. John is making the point that we have got to look at all these things and all these scenarios.
Asked if he thought there would be a run on the pound if he came to power, he replied:
There’s been a run on the pound for the past two years.
In an interview with 5 News, Jeremy Corbyn was asked about North Korea, and whether he thought President Trump was as bad as the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Corbyn replied:
I think he has responded more than over the top in this matter. Surely reaching out would be a good thing?
There were suggestions that for quite a while there was a private channel of communication between the US and North Korea. I would suggest they open up any channel of communication they can.
Corbyn says Labour 'not planning' second EU referendum and Brexit has some 'positives'
Jeremy Corbyn has played down the prospect of the party offering a second referendum on the Brexit deal, after mayor of London Sadiq Khan suggested it was “possible” it might be included in the next Labour manifesto (see 2.49pm), the Press Association reports. And in comments which may dismay Labour supporters of EU membership, the party leader said that he saw “positives” in Brexit, PA says.
Speaking to Sky News, Corbyn stressed that Labour had always made clear it accepted and respected the result of last year’s referendum to leave the EU. He said:
We are not planning any referendum. Sadiq is obviously thinking through all scenarios and possibilities. He represents a city which overwhelmingly voted for Remain. As you know, the referendum result across the country was a majority to leave.
Corbyn’s answer is in line with what the party has said before, but it is significant that he is not ruling a second referendum out.
Asked on Five News whether he saw any opportunities for Britain from EU withdrawal, Corbyn said:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is all going to be positive. It is going to be difficult and complicated. But there are positives there.
EU withdrawal would allow powers to be devolved from Brussels to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and English regions, he said.
Updated
Naomi Klein says Corbyn's Labour is inspiring progressives around the world
The writer and activist Naomi Klein finished her speech to the conference a few minutes ago. She was speaking in the slot reserved for an international visitor. The full text of the speech is here, and it is worth reading. The passage that went down best was probably this one, where she described Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour party as an inspiration to progressives around the world.
The public is hungry for deep change - they are crying out for it.
The trouble is, in far too many countries, it’s only the far right that is offering it, or seeming to, with that toxic combination of fake economic populism and very real racism.
You showed us another way.
One that speaks the language of decency and fairness, that names the true forces most responsible for this mess - no matter how powerful.
And that is unafraid of some of the ideas we were told were gone for good.
Like wealth redistribution.
And nationalising essential public services.
Now, thanks to all of your boldness, we know that this isn’t just a moral strategy.
It’s a winning strategy.
It fires up the base, and it activates constituencies that long ago stopped voting altogether.
If you can keep doing that between now and the next election, you will be unbeatable.
You showed us something else in the last election too, and it’s just as important.
You showed that political parties don’t need to fear the creativity and independence of social movements - and social movements, likewise, have a huge amount to gain from engaging with electoral politics.
That’s a very big deal.
Because let’s be honest: political parties tend to be a bit freakish about control.
And real grassroots movements ..... we cherish our independence - and we’re pretty much impossible to control.
But what we are seeing with the remarkable relationship between Labour and Momentum, and with other wonderful campaign organizations, is that it is possible to combine the best of both worlds.
If we listen and learn from each other, we can create a force that is both stronger and more nimble than anything either parties or movements can pull off on their own.
I want you to know that what you have done here is reverberating around the world - so many of us are watching your ongoing experiment in this new kind of politics with rapt attention.
The Evening Standard has splashed on a story about Labour figures pushing for a second referendum on Brexit. As well as quoting Kezia Dugdale (see 8.38am), it also features an interview with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. Khan’s direct quotes in the story are relatively non-committal, but the paper says he does not see how “any Brexit deal emerging ... would be good enough to accept without offering a second referendum”. It also says Khan will push for a commitment to a second referendum being included in the next manifesto (although presumably by then it could be too late.)
Today’s @EveningStandard: exclusive interview with Khan in which he raises prospect of 2nd EU referendum + Lampard on @ChelseaFC pic.twitter.com/WBWqOZoEUV
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) September 26, 2017
While the idea of a vote on continued single market membership post-Brexit might have been quashed at the conference, the party’s soft-Brexit-backing MPs are not giving up. I was at a fringe event dedicated to debating single market membership, where two of the strongest voices on the issue, Alison McGovern and Chuka Umunna, explained why they disagreed with the official Labour managed ambiguity over the issue.
McGovern said do she feared a hard Brexit would be disastrous for manufacturing in her Wirral South constituency. She said:
If you’re one of my constituents who produces wings of planes for Airbus you will see the obvious nightmare of a bureaucratic barrier that could stop your part of the high-tech, high value aircraft being able to join its fellow components in Toulouse to make the aircraft that Airbus produce right across the European Union.
McGovern said such a Brexit could finish off the process of destroying industry begun by Margaret Thatcher.
For me this is absolutely personal - it is about the fortunes of our constituents, And people should remember that. I’ve seen this before. When I was growing up I watched the shipbuilding industry collapse in Birkenhead when Campbell Laird was closed. I do not want the situation for my community, the people I love, to be that Brexit finishes what Thatcher started.
Umunna said it seemed strange to debate domestic issues sat the conference when Brexit – which would affect these so much – was sidelined. He said:
Although there have been attempts to segregate Brexit from domestic issues and the radical policy agenda at the Labour party movement, they are the same thing, which is why the shenanigans that went on around the Brexit motion - which would have made the control freaks of the New Labour era blush - was so ridiculous.
This argument that somehow debating the NHS is more important than, and disconnected from, Brexit is ludicrous.
Survation has released a new poll for LabourList. It has Labour two points ahead of the Conservatives (41% to 39%), and would result in Labour being the largest party in a hung parliament, Survation says.
When Tory HQ wants to put out a press release bashing Labour, it normally quotes a humbler backbencher (often James Cleverly, for some reason). Cabinet ministers are mostly deemed too grand for this sort of low-level hit job.
But CCHQ has just sent out a press notice with a quote from Philip Hammond, the chancellor. He has picked up what John McDonnell said about the election of a Labour government leading to a possible run on the pound. (See 1.18pm.) McDonnell said he did not think it was likely, but he did acknowledge it is a possibility. In response Hammond said:
After giving his conference speech, the shadow chancellor privately conceded the disastrous effects that Labour’s plans would have on Britain’s economy – a collapse in business investment and a crash in the value of the pound, causing a shock wave of inflation.
Labour’s plans would go too far, and ordinary working people will end up footing the bill.
The afternoon session of conference will start soon, and at some point the vote will be taken on the party rule changes debated earlier. The changes proposed by the NEC will go through easily.
In an interview on the World at One Jon Lansman, the founder of the pro-Corbyn group Momentum, said that allowing candidates to stand for the leadership with the backing of just 10% of MPs and MEPs, not 15% as now, was a step forward. But he said he would like to go further. Asked if he would like to see the threshold reduced to 5%, he said.
I think it [10%] is a good step forward. But, yes, I would like it to be as open as possible, so that all members can be confident ... that they’ve got someone for them on the ballot paper who speaks for them.
He also welcomed the new, tighter rules covering antisemitism.
I think we’ve showed today in the debate we’ve had, which is one of the best debates we’ve had on antisemitism in the party, shows that there is a universal opposition to antisemitism. I’m delighted we’ve agreed the national executive committee rule change on antisemitism, not just on antisemitism, on all manner of discriminations and hate. And actually the debate was good because people listened. There were different views about some aspects, and they were expressed, and people listened attentively and respectfully.
And, asked about the abuse directed at the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg by some pro-Corbyn supporters online, he said:
I’m appalled by the need for that. I know she has suffered from threats], as have many Labour MPs, particularly women. I think the abuse and hate on social media is a problem in our society.
He also said some “really quite awful” abuse was directed at people by rightwingers on Tory websites.
Jeremy Corbyn may not have given an interview to the Today programme (see 10.33am), but he has been interviewed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. The Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn has posted a picture, showing her bodyguard looking on.
Who's protecting who from who? @bbclaurak's bodyguard looks on as she interviews Corbyn pic.twitter.com/1Yay14zCad
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) September 26, 2017
The Jewish Labour Movement has complained about the allegation in the debate this morning about Labour rule changes that it colludes with the rightwing media. (See 11.52am.)
1 year from @ruthsmeeth being accused of colluding w right wing media, now it's JLM being accused of it. We hope @UKLabour will take action
— JewishLabourMovement (@JewishLabour) September 26, 2017
In a Twitter thread Richard Angell, director of Progress, the group seen as “centrist” or “moderate” or Blairite, also complains about this comment, and others in the debate.
THREAD: In a debate about tacking antisemitism in Labour one delegate said 'the Palestians are the many' inferring Jews are 'the few' #Lab17
— (((Richard Angell))) (@RichardAngell) September 26, 2017
Christopher Hope, a Telegraph journalist who covered the antisemitism story in today’s paper, and included a quote from the Jewish Labour Movement chair Jeremy Newmark, dismisses the suggestion that his story came from them.
To be clear JLM did NOT "run to the Daily Telegraph" last night. I went to a fringe, and reported the speeches about anti-semitism. End of. https://t.co/KWm8WWXdH5
— Christopher Hope 📝 (@christopherhope) September 26, 2017
Prescott says Blair government wrong to use PFI for NHS
John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, has told ITV that he backs John McDonnell’s proposal to wind up PFI contracts. Prescott was in government when the Blair government massively expanded the PFI programme originally introduced by John Major’s government. Prescott said that initially PFI was useful, but that it should never have been used for the NHS. He told ITV:
All our problems on this have largely come from health.
It meant you built a huge debt up on public borrowing requirement and it’s crucifying our health system.
I thought it was wrong there, evidence shows it’s wrong, but you can be much more intelligent about private and public money coming together to help the public services.
At a fringe meeting last night John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said the party had to be ready for the possibility of a run on the pound if it takes office. As the BBC reports he said:
We’re not going to be a traditional government; we’re going to be a radical government.
We’re going to face all the challenges ... and we’ve got to scenario-plan for those, bringing the relevant expertise together at every level to talk through what happens if there is such and such a reaction.
What if there is a run on the pound? What happens if there is this concept of capital flight? I don’t think there will be, but you never know.
Rayner publishes draft charter for national education service
Rayner says Labour’s proposed national education service won’t stop at 18. It will make further education more available. And Labour will invest £1bn making T-levels (new technical qualifications) “a true gold standard”.
Our national education service will be lifelong, providing for people at every stage of their life.
And the national education service won’t stop at eighteen, or sixteen. Further education isn’t just for those who ‘didn’t get the chance’ to go to university; it serves the majority of young people. They too deserve a world-class education.
She says today she is publishing a 10-point draft charter for the national education service.
Updated
Rayner says Labour would fund the full £13bn needed to modernise school buildings.
Instead of wasting millions of pounds on an inefficient free schools programme, we will provide funding to ensure our schools are safe – that flammable cladding can be removed, sprinklers installed and asbestos cleared.
Rayner says she would allocate £10m a year from the education department’s budget for free sanitary towels “to end the scandal of period poverty in our schools”.
Rayner says she is publishing a plan for free childcare.
The Tories promised free childcare to the children of working parents. They promised over 600,000 places. But they created less than a quarter of them. The most disadvantaged aren’t even eligible and costs are rising more than twice as fast as wages.
Today, we are publishing a report setting out the alternative. Free, high-quality early education, universally available for every two to four-year-old, and extra affordable care for every family, saving them thousands of pounds a year. So our children will be ready for school. And when children arrive, they won’t be let down for a lack of resources there either.
Rayner says Labour would put extra £500m a year into Sure Start
Rayner says Labour would introduce a national education service. She says she has personal experience of how politics can make a difference to people’s lives.
When I became pregnant at sixteen, it was easy to think that the direction of my life, and that of my young son, was already set. My mum had a difficult life, and so did I, and it looked like my son would simply have the same.
Instead, the last Labour government, through support of my local Sure Start centre, transformed my son’s childhood, and made sure that his life would not have to be as hard as mine had been. So when I say that politics changes lives, I say it as someone whose own life was changed.
Rayner says since 2012 £437m has been cut from the Sure Start budget. Labour would reverse those cuts, putting in an extra £500m a year, she says.
Angela Rayner's speech
Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, is speaking now.
She says it has been a surprising day.
Theresa May started it by warning of a coalition of chaos. Now she leads it. And her education ministers have spent the last few months ripping up their own manifesto page by page.
They wanted to open new grammar schools. But they can’t. They said they’d build 140 free schools. They couldn’t. They pledged the healthy pupils fund would not fall below £400 million. Now it will. They promised they’d provide free school breakfasts. But they won’t.
When we beat them on tuition fees, they refused to accept it. Instead they will just stop turning up for votes. They’ve gone from running the place to running away from the place.
In fact, I went through their manifesto line by line. There are more education policies that they are reviewing or abandoning than they are actually implementing.
Later today the US department of commerce will release its preliminary findings into a complaint about Bombardier, the aerospace company. Boeing has complained about the amount of state aid Bombardier has received. Potentially 1,000 jobs at a Bombardier plant in Northern Ireland are at risk, and delegates have been debating an emergency motion on this from Unite.
Unite’s assistant general secretary Tony Burke said:
We call upon the British and Canadian governments to meet with Boeing to resolve this crisis.
Workers in Belfast are holding their breath.
The prime minister and the government need to make it clear to Trump they will not stand back and watch our members jobs and our communities threatened like this.
Mrs May needs to stand up for our members in the aerospace industry and for decent jobs and for manufacturing in the UK.
Clive Lewis, the former shadow business secretary, told a fringe meeting this morning that trade unions which are involved in the nuclear industry have become “a voice for big business”.
He singled out GMB for being too close to the nuclear lobby and said it was not speaking up for renewable energy because it does not have members there. He also questioned why unions “fight to the bitter end” for the arms industry.
His comments reflect tensions within the Labour movement over union support for nuclear power and a nuclear deterrent. GMB, Unite and Prospect have tens of thousands of members in the nuclear and arms industries.
Lewis told a fringe event on energy:
One of the problems with where trade unions are at the moment is that they have been so weakened that I think they have become, and have been used by big business as, a voice for big business.
Because big business understands that if you have a unionised workforce they also become spokespeople for you. They create a situation where you have a wide and broad spectrum politically of people supporting your particular position.
On nuclear, yes, GMB and other unions are staunchly supporting it because the jobs there generate union members. Contrast that to the highly self-employed solar sector, the unions have no trade unions there. They are not speaking up at all for them.
UPDATE: The GMB union has responded to Lewis’s comments. A spokesperson said:
We’ll put copies of the Uber and Addison Lee judgements in the post for Clive. He can have a read about what taking on big business and organising ‘self-employed workers’ really looks like.
Our energy workers keep the lights on. Of course we want more renewables - and we want good renewable jobs here in the UK - but right now they don’t exist because the government isn’t investing.
GMB will always stand up for our members and their jobs - that’s who we speak for, that’s what a trade union does.
Updated
Long-Bailey ended her speech announcing a review of alternative models of ownership.
We’ll ensure that workers themselves can have a stake in our industrial journey alongside business.
Imagine if the technology which allows us to hail a taxi or order a takeaway via an app was shared by those who rely on it for work. They would have the power to agree their own terms and conditions and rates of pay, with the profits shared among them or re-invested for the future.
That’s why we are today launching a Report on Alternative Models of Ownership.
To start asking fundamental questions about how we achieve real diversity of business in the digital age, and how to ensure that it’s enormous potential benefits serve the many, not the few.
Amongst the applause, someone started chanting “Oh, Rebecca Long-Bailey” to the tune of the Jeremy Corbyn/Seven Nations Army chant.
Updated
Long-Bailey says Labour's industrial strategy will be even more transformative than FDR"s New Deal
Long-Bailey says Labour’s industrial strategy will be even more transformative than Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal.
We’ll restore the rights of workers – rolling out sectoral collective bargaining and guaranteeing unions access to the workplace – to ensure that new technology is not just an excuse for disgraced old employment practices. Because there is nothing cutting edge about hire-and-fire, casual contracts.
We’ll create the conditions for business to make those really ‘transformative’ discoveries which can change all our lives for the better, with an industrial agenda that is so transformational, it will eclipse the new deal set out by Franklin D Roosevelt in the history books.
We’ll bring investment in research and development in line with other major economies and create national missions to deal with the big issues of our time
And our National Education Service will allow every single person in this country to obtain the skills they need to thrive in a modern economy and ensure real diversity in our workplaces.
Long-Bailey says she has just turned 38. Twenty years ago, when she was 18, you had to dial up the internet, she says.
The pace of change we have seen in the last 20 years will pale in comparison to the next 20. Over the last few centuries, we have gradually learnt how to transfer more and more human skills to machines. With current technological breakthroughs, we are, for the first time, designing machines that do cognitive and non-routine work.
Machines that think!
But, with some estimates suggesting that half of all jobs could be lost to automation, and that few businesses are ready to harness change, it also brings the threat of rising poverty and inequality. There is no doubt about what the digital age will look like under the Tories: monopoly profits for the few, and increased exploitation for the many.
Only Labour will ensure that workers and businesses are equipped to enjoy the prosperity this changing economy can bring.
Long-Bailey says the UK is “standing on the precipice of the fourth industrial revolution,a pace of technological and digital change so immense it will leave you feeling dizzy.”
It will transform industry, it will transform our economy. And it has the potential to transform the quality of life of every single person in Britain.
But it will only do this if a Labour government is holding the reins.
Rebecca Long-Bailey's speech
Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, is speaking now. She starts by talking about her father, who had a job in Salford unloading oil tankers.
My dad’s work was unskilled, but it paid well. My parents even managed to get a mortgage for their own little house.
And from poverty-plagued childhoods, which made the film Angela’s Ashes look like an advert for a luxury minibreak, they felt proud of their achievement! And that was true of so many working class people right across Britain, for the first time in history they were truly being offered the chance to aspire!
But under Thatcher industries such as my father’s were put into what is so callously called ‘managed decline’. It meant factories shutting their doors, firms moving abroad or simply closing down, lower wages for those who could still find work, and cuts to benefits for those who couldn’t.
The debate on the rule changes is over. Delegates will vote just before lunch.
Jim Kennedy from the national executive committee is now responding to the debates. He says proposed rule changes used to be seen as the most boring item on the conference agenda. He says the fact that the debate has been so lively shows how lively internal democracy in the party now is under Jeremy Corbyn.
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a delegate from Chingford and Woodford Green, says the Jewish Labour Movement would have more credibility if it did not keep “running to the Daily Mail and the Telegraph with stories”.
She says there was a proposal for the new rule to talk about incidents “motivated” by hostility or prejudice etc. But this was rejected, and the proposed NEC rule (see 11.12am) talks about incidents “that might reasonably be seen to demonstrate” hostility etc. There is an important difference.
She also objects to the reference to “holding” beliefs. Expressing beliefs is one thing, she says.
But holding them? That’s thought crime, comrades, and we can’t be having it.
Sara Callaway, a delegate from Hampstead and Kilburn, says Labour delegates must be free to speak up for the Palestinian people.
And Labour cannot be a party that includes “groups that support an apartheid state, wherever that apartheid state is”.
She also complains that BAME members were not consulted about the proposed rule change.
Zach Murrell-Dowson, from Bristol North West, says antisemitism is the only form of bigotry where a common response, when complaints are made, is not to accept them, but to question the motives of the complainant.
He says the NEC proposal does not go far enough. He urges delegates to abstain, and calls for a card vote so that the abstentions can be counted.
James Cleverley, a delegate from Wrexham, says he is opposed to lowering the proportion of MPs and MEPs needed for an endorsement to stand for the leadership. At 15%, Labour already has a low threshold, he says. He also says the 15% rules has generally not stopped leftwing candidates standing in the past.
His speech provokes a smattering of jeering, and he only gets limited applause at the end.
Philip Cohen, a councillor from Finchley and Golders Green, backs the proposed rule change covering antisemitism. He says too many Labour voters in Barnet turned away from Labour because it thought the party was not taking antisemitism seriously.
He says Labour members support the two state solution. And many Labour people in Barnet supporters do not support the actions of the state of Israel, he says.
Joy Bratherton, a delegate from Crewe and Nantwich, is speaking now about a proposal from her CLP, and four others, for potential leadership candidates to require the support of just 5% of MPs or MEPs, not 15% (as now) or 10% (as the official NEC motion proposes). She says she will “remit” her motion (not put it to a vote) to avoid creating a split. But she is doing so reluctantly, she says. She says Jeremy Corbyn has been campaigning for more Labour democracy for 40 years, and cutting the threshold to 5% is in line with what he has been calling for.
What Labour's proposed rule change covering antisemitism says
The current Labour party rules say, in clause 1, section 8:
No member of the party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the party ... The NCC [national constitutional committee] shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions.
The NEC proposal, backed by the Jewish Labour Movement, would replace that with a new section 8 saying:
No member of the party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the party. The NEC shall take account of any codes of conduct currently in force and shall regard any incident which in their view might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment or identity; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation as prejudicial to the party; these shall include but not be limited to incidents involving racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia or otherwise racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions, sexual harrassment, bullying or any form of intimidation towards another person on the basis of a protected characteristic as determined by the NEC, wherever it occurs, as conduct prejudicial to the party ...
The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions except in any instance inconsistent with the party’s aims and values, agreed codes of conduct, or involving prejudice towards any protected characteristic.
Updated
A delegate is now attacking the way Labour MPs mobilised against Jeremy Corbyn last year. There were accepted ways of challenging a leader, and those should have been used instead, he said.
Mike Katz from the Jewish Labour Movement says the antisemitism rule change should have been adopted last year. But he is pleased it has now been backed unanimously by the NEC and is backed by Jeremy Corbyn.
We need to win seats like Hendon, Finchley and Golders Green, Chipping Barnet, Harrow East and seats across north London and around the country if we’re to rid this country of the awful Tory government.
So repairing the once-strong relationship between our party and the Jewish community, where we share so many shared values, is a political imperative as well as a moral one.
This rule change is about so much more than just antisemitism. It’ll give us the power to put a stop to the misogyny, the homophobia, the racism that can creep into our party.
Speaking up against bullying and bigotry - that is our tradition, those are our values, and I want to be able to show the country that those values endure and they’re important today as they ever were. That is why Jeremy Corbyn supports it.
Katz says under the current system, members are expelled for backing another party. But it is not so clear what happens if they engage in hate speech.
He says the rule change will close a loophole that allowed people to engage in hate speech if they were expressing sincerely held beliefs.
He says there is nothing wrong with criticising illegal settlements.
There is nothing wrong about legitimate criticism of the Israeli government or illegal settlements. JLM members do it all the time, often in strident debate - because as we say, when you have Jews you have at least three opinions.
But you don’t need to use anti-Semitic language and stereotypes to engage in that debate and that’s what we need to deal with.
Updated
Leah Levane, a delegate from Hastings and Rye, says her constituency Labour party (CLP) proposed an alternative rule change covering antisemitism and other prejudicial conduct. But the party refused to discuss it with them, she says. Now the NEC is saying their proposal should be voted down.
She says the Jewish Labour Movement (which backs the official rule change) does not speak for her, or everyone in the party.
The Jewish Labour Movement has every right to organise in this Labour Party. The right they do not have is to speak for me, the other Jewish members of Hastings and Rye and many other Jewish Labour members in this place.
They do not speak for me and part of what we were proposing was to make sure not only on the issue of anti-Semitism... on any issue, that you take a sounding on a wide range of views.
And we have proof from the response to Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi’s fabulous speech yesterday, and from the phenomenal launch of our organisation last night with standing room only, with Ken Loach, trade union leaders like Len McCluskey and Tosh McDonald promising support, that we know those other Jewish voices exist.
She says people should be free to criticise “the despicable behaviour of the state of Israel towards the Palestinian people.”
But she says she will “remit” her motion - ie, withdraw it, rather than push it to a vote. Hastings and Rye don’t want to be seen as “splitters”, she says.
Updated
Labour debates party rule changes
Jim Kennedy, a member of Labour’s national executive committee, is opening the debate.
He says the NEC is proposing three rule changes: one would add four new seats to the NEC (three for constituencies, one for the unions; the second would reduce the proportion of supporting MPs and MEPs needed for someone to stand as leader, from 15% to 10%; and the third would tighten disciplinary rules.
There are another 10 proposed rule changes from constituency parties that the NEC wants delegates to vote down.
The actress Frances Barber posted a message on Twitter yesterday says she was leaving the Labour party.
Long time coming. Cancelled my LP membership tonight. I can't belong to a party full of misogyny, anti semitism & thuggery. Deeply sad.
— frances Barber (@francesbarber13) September 25, 2017
Earlier she retweeted this Daily Mirror story about Labour and antisemitism.
Labour faces new anti-Semitism row after conference fringe speaker calls for free speech to cover Holocaust denialhttps://t.co/dB2qH7FJIb pic.twitter.com/1Zgjzr5eUX
— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) September 25, 2017
And she added this comment.
Ugh. Had enough. https://t.co/uDv01i1XbF
— frances Barber (@francesbarber13) September 25, 2017
At the conference Labour delegates are just starting their debate on party rule changes, including on measures to tighten Labour rules on anti-semitism.
According to Paul Waugh’s HuffPost UK Waugh Room briefing, Jeremy Corbyn may end up getting through the entire conference without giving an interview to the Today programme. Waugh says:
I’m told that Jeremy Corbyn was expected on the Today programme for a live interview this morning but his team made clear last night he wasn’t doing it. If the impasse remains, it means for the first time ever, there will be no Labour conference leader interview on the Radio 4 flagship show. Team JC tell me no interview was ever “agreed or arranged … no pull out, that’s simply not true”. But another source suggested senior Labour figures were unhappy because Today had yesterday failed to ask McDonnell about his overnight trail of the credit card cap policy.
Diana Holland, the Labour party treasurer, is presenting her report to the conference now. She says 10 years ago the Labour party was in debt to the tune of almost £25m. But last year, for the first time since the 1960s, the party was debt free, she says.
She says the party’s finances are “strong and stable”. And every penny donated for campaigning is spent on campaigning.
She said Labour had more than £2m set aside for the local and mayoral elections in May. And, when the snap election was called, it was able to start immediately with a budget of £3.5m.
She says Labour’s donations during the election came from “the many, not the few”. On one day £470,000 was donated.
A woman delegate at the conference speaking from the platform has just collapsed. A stretcher is being called to help her, the conference has been told.
Labour floats prospect of Northern Ireland staying in EU and UK after Brexit
Owen Smith, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, has suggested that Northern Ireland should be allowed to remain as part of the EU after Brexit. As the Times (paywall) reports, Smith floated the idea at a fringe meeting as a means of resolving the dilemma about how to implement Brexit without resulting in the introduction of some form of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Smith said:
What I am increasingly convinced of myself is we will need . . . to be much more imaginative and much more concrete in what we offer.
Does it mean Northern Ireland needs to remain within the EU and as part of Britain, and with people being able to identify within Northern Ireland as Irish? I think that is the space we need to be in. I do not see another solution that allows for a different outcome.
However, according to the Times, Smith also conceded that he was “not entirely sure” how this would work in practice.
Ashworth downplays suggestions most PFI contracts would be wound up by Labour
In his morning interviews Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, also spoke about the plan to wind up PFI contracts announced by John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, yesterday and about the NHS.
- Ashworth played down suggestions that the Labour policy would result in most PFI contracts being wound up. He said only a “handful” of contracts were causing significant problems for the NHS. When he was asked if this meant only a handful would be returned to the public sector, he replied:
I’m not going to make a sort of hypothetical guess of how many contracts will be [brought back in-house]. There are a handful of hospital trusts who have got a problem with their deficits and their financing which is because of the PFI contract they are in.
Here is the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Ashworth’s comments.
Ashworth taking v different tone to McDonnell on PFI - says a 'handful' of hospitals have problem + might need to renegotiate
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) September 26, 2017
A long way from McDonnell's 'we're bringing them back, we're bringing the back'
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) September 26, 2017
- Ashworth also accepted that winding up PFI contracts could take years. When it was put to him that the policy might take years to implement, he replied:
Yes, this could take some time, this is not a thing that happens overnight.
- He said ideally he would like NHS spending to increase by 4% every year. But he said he could not commit to this at that stage.
I strongly believe as the health secretary, we should be giving the NHS 4% a year and I want us to work towards getting back to that. But I cannot say on day one of a Labour government that it will definitely be 4%, because we have to manage the public finances prudently.
- He would not back calls for a cross-party dialogue about reforming social care. He was happy to talk to other parties about this issue, he said. But, when asked why he was not actively promoting the idea, which is being pushed in particular by the Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb, he replied:
Tell me a formal cross-party process that has ever succeeded.
The BBC’s Norman Smith points out that social care has become less of a priority for Westminster anyway in recent months.
Sad truth is social care has dropped off political agenda since dementia tax debacle and Brexit
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) September 26, 2017
UPDATE: The Manchester Evening News’ Jennifer Williams points out that Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has also proposed cross-party talks on social care.
Andy Burnham explicitly called for cross-party solution to social care yesterday, but it seems Jon Ashworth doesn't agree pic.twitter.com/8JmbPZZDIl
— Jennifer Williams (@JenWilliamsMEN) September 26, 2017
Shadow health secretary @JonAshworth prepares for his @BBCBreakfast interview pic.twitter.com/NQHFLUCmHO
— iain watson (@iainjwatson) September 26, 2017
Updated
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, was planning to talk about the NHS in his morning interview round, but he has found himself fielding a lot of questions about the Daily Mail splash.
Tuesday's DAILY MAIL: Labour is the real nasty party #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/TYDw0jegwr
— Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) September 25, 2017
Today one of the proposed rule changes being debated by the party will tighten the party’s rules on anti-semitism. Proposed by the Jewish Labour Movement, it will remove a defence that “the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions” cannot be a disciplinary matter, which JLM members have argued has led to a more lenient approach to members accused of being anti-semitic.
The Mail story is based on what was said by some people attending a conference fringe meeting on the theme: “Free speech on Israel: why we oppose the witch hunt”. The Mail claims that “activists applauded panellists at a fringe meeting who likened supporters of Israel to Nazis”, that some said the JLM should be expelled from Labour and that “one speaker even suggested Labour should be free to debate whether the Holocaust had happened.”.
Asked if the remarks had given concern to those at the top of the party concern, Ashworth told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “Yes, yes it has.” He went on:
And I think party members who make anti-Semitic remarks, who make some of these disgusting Holocaust denial statements, they shouldn’t be in the party, they should be expelled. ... If any of those people who are named, are making these statements, they shouldn’t be in the Labour party.
The Jewish Labour Movement has long been involved in the party for donkey’s years and they should remain in the party for years to come as well.
Labour sources said the party was not responsible for the content of fringe events staged by groups that had no affiliation to the party. A party spokesman said:
Labour condemns anti-Semitism in the strongest possible terms and our national executive committee unanimously passed tough new rule changes last week. All groupings in the party should treat one another with respect. We will not tolerate anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial.
Former Scottish Labour leader says Corbyn partly to blame for Brexit
The 2015 and 2016 Labour party conferences both took place after divisive leadership contests. This year, in public at least, the party is remarkably united, and you might think that there is no sign of a leadership contest at all. But there is a contest underway, for someone to replace Kezia Dugdale as Scottish Labour leader, and today Dugdale has today used an article in the Daily Record to challenge the party position on Europe and to revive recriminations about the EU referendum.
Here are her main points.
- Dugdale, the former Scottish Labour leader, said Jeremy Corbyn was partly to blame for Britain voting to leave the EU.
I blame David Cameron for calling a referendum no one wanted in the first place but I also blame my party, the Labour Party, for a totally lazy and lacklustre Remain campaign that got us here.
And yes, I blame Jeremy Corbyn too for failing to use the power of his popular appeal to convince traditional Labour voters to see that Europe creates more good than harm.
- She criticised the party for not committing itself to keeping the UK in the single market.
Not only that, now the country has spoken, I’m embarrassed by the complete paucity of my party to say and do the right thing no matter how hard or unpopular that might be at first.
Seriously, Labour have just denied their own members a meaningful vote on the issue of Brexit at party conference – whatever happened to straight-talking, honest politics ...
I have long believed that Labour should be making a full-hearted, passionate case to retain full tariff-free access to the single market – the equivalent of membership. And we should accept all the conditions that come with that, including the free movement of labour.
(Dugdale’s point about members being denied a meaningful vote is not really fair; delegates did not get a meaningful vote at conference because those delegates themselves voted not to have one - albeit with implicit leadership approval.)
- She said Labour should back a second referendum on leaving the EU if the alternative is leaving the single market.
And should we fail [to get the government to keep the UK in the single market], the biggest test for Labour has yet to come because leaving the EU without access to the single market is not what I believe the country voted for.
If that happens then Labour must insist that the final Brexit deal goes to another public vote to be ratified or rejected. Ireland wouldn’t think twice about doing this.
If the UK Parliament and the other 27 nations of Europe get a final say on the deal, why shouldn’t we?
This morning Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has been doing a round of media interviews. As Jessica Elgot reports, he is urging the government to commit a £500m “winter bailout fund” for the NHS over the coming months, citing party analysis suggesting 10,000 people a day will wait at least four hours for A&E treatment this winter. I will post more from what he has been saying shortly.
Here is the conference agenda for the day.
9.30am: Conference opens, and delegates debate a series of changes to party rules, including those relating to leadership elections, the composition of the national executive committee and anti-semitism
10.45am: Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, opens a debate on investing in the future.
12.30pm: Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, speaks.
2.15pm: Naomi Klein, the writer and activist, delivers a speech as the international guest speaker.
2.30pm: Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, speaks.
5pm: Tom Watson, the deputy leader, speaks.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
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