Debate over whether or not to back a £15 minimum wage has dominated proceedings today at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton.
Shadow Cabinet member Andy McDonald quit his post last night in a row over the National Minimum wage.
Mr McDonald said he was quitting as he had been told to argue against a £15 minimum wage By Sir Keir Starmer’s office.
READ MORE: HGV driver claims DVLA ‘wall of silence’ cost him £17,000 amid national crisis
In a statement on Twitter, the former Shadow Employment Rights Secretary, who had also been a members of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinets, said: “(Dear Keir) yesterday, your office instructed me to go into a meeting to argue against a National Minimum Wage of £15 an hour and against Statutory Sick Pay at the living wage. This is something I could not do.
“After eighteen months of your leadership, our movement is more divided than ever and the pledges that you made to the membership are not being honoured.
“This is just the latest of many.”
The Unite union will hold a vote on a motion to raise the minimum wage, whilst also looking to make it party policy to ban zero-hour contracts.
Current Labour policy commits to a minimum wage of “at least” £10 per hour, should they come into power.
Along with the minimum wage debate, here are two other key talking points from today at the Labour Conference.
Crime speech
Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds attacked the Tories during his speech today, accusing the party of “defunding the police.”
Talking to the conference, Mr Thomas-Symonds said: “Some call for defunding the police. No Labour home secretary will ever defund the police. That’s not our party, that’s the Tory party and they have spent 10 years defunding our police.”
Co-opting a second slogan, this time from the Blair days of Labour, Mr Thomas-Symonds continued his attack on the Tories dealing with crime, stating: “They are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime.
“We can never again allow the Tories to call themselves the party of law and order. We have the shame of rape convictions at record low levels. In Tory Britain, less than seven in every 100 violent crimes even ends up with a charge.”
The shadow Home Secretary also pledged a return to Community Policing, which would include a roll-out of police hubs in communities and a recruitment drive for special constables.
Union cuts ties with the party
In yet another show of the growing rift between Keir Starmer and the Left of the Labour party, Members of the Bakers, Food & Allied Workers union (BFAWU) voted to disaffiliate the union from the party.
The union accused Labour of a “factional internal war led by the leadership”
In a statement, the union said: “The decision taken by delegates who predominantly live in what’s regarded as Labour red wall seats shows how far the Labour party has travelled away from the aims and hopes of working-class organisations like ours.”
“We need footballers to campaign to ensure our schoolchildren get a hot meal. Workers in our sector, who keep the nation fed, are relying on charity and goodwill from family and friends to put food on their tables. They rely on help to feed their families, with 7.5% relying on food banks, according to our recent survey.
“We don’t see that as a political party with any expectations of winning an election. It’s just the leader trying to secure the right-wing faction’s chosen successor.”
BFAWU was among the trade unions to found the Labour Party back in 1900.
