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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Labour conference: Keir Starmer says winning a general election more important to him than party unity – as it happened

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer walks along Brighton seafront.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer walks along Brighton seafront. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Early evening summary

  • Sir Keir Starmer has said that winning a general election is more important to him than party unity. In an interview with the BBC, he also claimed that common ownership and nationalisation were “worlds apart”. (See 5.36pm.)
  • The leftwing bakers’ union has announced it is going to cut its links with Labour. (See 4.31pm.)
  • Delegates have voted in favour of a £15 per hour minimum wage. (See 6.12pm.)
  • Wes Streeting, the shadow child poverty secretary, has said “private education will be made redundant” under Labour because it would improve the experience on offer in state schools. (See 11.50am.)
  • Jeremy Corbyn has declined to rule out standing as an independent at the next election if by then he has not had the Labour whip restored. (See 11.54am.)

Updated

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, is also launching a new group at this conference called Labour Friends of Policing, the party has announced. Several MPs have already joined, the party says, and its patron is Lady Hilton of Eggardon, a Labour peer and a former Met police commander. The group will encourage Labour MPs to go out with the police to see the challenges they face, and it will work with the shadow home affairs team.

In his speech to the conference earlier David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, said that justice was “intertwined with everything else” - and that the Conservatives were clobbering it. Here’s an extract.

I was just twelve when I was first stopped and searched by the police. They said I matched the description of a mugger. The reality was just like how Gavin Williamson confused Marcus Rashford with Maro Itoje, they could not tell one Black person from another.

Conference, I will never forget where I came from. I understand how justice is intertwined with everything else. Education, economics, class, race, work, welfare, housing, even health.

Prison is only for other people until someone you know ends up there. The courts are only distant until you become a victim of crime. The justice system is only abstract until it is not. We take it for granted at our peril.

But conference, taking justice for granted is exactly what the Conservatives have done. The pandemic has hit the justice system like a baseball bat but the Tories had knocked it onto its knees already.

Since 2010, the Tories closed 295 courts. The Crown Court backlog is now at an all-time high of 60,000 cases. Victims are giving up on the criminal justice system altogether. They are not being given court dates until up to four years later – if they get one at all.

David Lammy
David Lammy Photograph: Anthony Harvey/REX/Shutterstock

Labour leftwingers have been criticising Sir Keir Starmer for opposing a £15 per hour national minimum wage when he backed £15 an hour for McDonald’s workers. This is from Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary.

Starmer was asked about this in his interview with Sky News. He replied:

What I said in November 2019 was in relation to particular industrial disputes at McDonald’s, where that was the aim of the dispute and I backed them in that. I’d back them again today in relation to that. The minimum wage, across the whole of the economy, is a completely different issue.

Conference votes in favour of £15 an hour statutory minimum wage

The conference proceedings have now finished for the day. In a round of voting before they wrapped up the workers’ rights composite, which includes a line saying conference supports a £15 an hour statutory minimum wage, was passed.

Keir Starmer is refusing to commit to putting this in the manifesto – although shadow cabinet ministers are hinting that, by the time the manifesto gets drafted, the official policy may have moved on a bit from where it is now, just promising a minimum wage of £10 an hour. (See 9.06am.)

In the past, when delegates have threatened to vote for policy the leadership does not support, the leadership has mobilised its supporters to try to get the move defeated. But at this conference the leadership has largely settled for a different view – waving it all through, without even putting up a fight, on the grounds that conference decisions can be ignored come election time.

This is similar to the strategy the government adopts towards opposition day motions in the Commons. If it is in danger of losing, it just tells its MPs to abstain, and then briefs the media about how such votes are meaningless.

At conference we have now had votes backing public ownership of energy and a £15 a week minimum wage, and opposing Aukus, none of which Starmer regards as binding.

The danger, of course, is that the Conservative party may still try to capitalise on these votes. Even now there is probably someone at CCHQ trying to work out how many jobs would be lost if the minimum wage were to rise to £15 an hour. We’ll probably hear the answer from Boris Johnson at PMQs before too long – unless their research tells them it’s best not to mention it because voters like the idea.

Updated

Catherine Atkinson, whose husband served in Afghanistan, holding nine-month-old Elena as she addressed the conference earlier this afternoon.
Catherine Atkinson, whose husband served in Afghanistan, holding nine-month-old Elena as she addressed the conference earlier this afternoon. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Starmer claims nationalisation and common ownership 'worlds apart'

Here are some lines from Keir Starmer’s interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

  • Starmer said winning was more important to him than party unity. Asked what mattered to him most, Starmer replied:

Winning. Winning a general election. I didn’t come into politics to vote over and over again in parliament and lose and then tweet about it. I came into politics to go into government to change millions of lives for the better. And so that has to be the absolute central focus, it is for me, and it should be for every single Labour party member and supporter.

I didn’t make a commitment to nationalisation, I made a commitment to common ownership. They were worlds apart.

But Starmer also argued that the situation had changed. He went on:

But the central thing is this: those commitments I made, those pledges I made, are values that I hold dear. The world has changed since they were made but now the question is: how do we apply them in the reflected circumstance we find going into election. But I stand by the principles and the values that are behind the pledges I made to our members.

But the most important pledge I made was that I would turn our Labour Party into a party that would be fit for government, capable of winning a general election.

In fact, although his 10 pledges document used the phrase common ownership, in at least one leadership hustings Starmer committed to “renationalising” energy. If you are interested in how common ownership might be different from nationalisation, the 2017 Labour policy paper Alternative Models of Ownership is worth a read.

  • Starmer said Andy McDonald was wrong to claim when he resigned from the shadow cabinet yesterday that Labour was more divided than ever. “He is wrong about that,” Starmer said.
Sir Keir Starmer looking at his conference speech for tomorrow.
Sir Keir Starmer looking at his conference speech for tomorrow. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Starmer says he has had 'huge disagreements' with Angela Rayner

Keir Starmer has done a series of interviews with broadcasters, all embargoed until 5pm.

Here are the some of the key points.

  • Starmer told Sky News that Boris Johnson should be taking decisive action today to address the fuel shortage crisis. He cited two things that could happen immediately. He said he was in favour of key workers getting priority access to petrol stations. And he said the government should not just be offering visas for foreign lorry drivers for three months. “They need them to be for six months not three months to make them work,” he said.
  • He declined to directly blame Brexit for the UK’s shortage of lorry drivers. Asked about it, he told Channel 5 News:

I wouldn’t say that Brexit is to blame. What I would say is that it was inevitable as we exited the EU that we needed a plan to deal with drivers. That is obvious whether you voted remain or voted leave, and we took that decision years ago.

And here we are with a shortage of drivers which was completely predictable and predicted – and the government hasn’t got a plan.

  • He said he thought the conference would show people Labour had changed. But, in an interview with Sky News, he declined to say the party was moving from the left to the centre. He preferred to say it was moving “from a party that looks inward to a party that looks outward”.
  • He said he and Angela Rayner, his deputy, had “huge agreements and disagreements”. He was responding to a question from Sky News about whether calling Tories “scum”, as Rayner did at the weekend, was a good way to win back people who voted Conservative. He said it was not language he would have used.
  • He refused to say whether he was more like Tony Blair or Jeremy Corbyn. Asked this by ITV News, he replied:

I’ve never indulged in these similarities.

On Friday, we set out very strong propositions in relation to housing, Saturday on employment, Sunday on education, yesterday the economy.

If people stopped comparing me to previous leaders, and actually listen to the proposals we’re putting out there they will have a very, very good sense of where I am.

My job is not to replicate what some past leader has done, my job is to take our labour party and change it.

Keir Starmer walking along Brighton seafront promenade today.
Keir Starmer walking along Brighton seafront promenade today. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Keir Starmer should not use his leader’s speech tomorrow to attack the left, John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, told a The World Transformed event outside the Labour conference. My colleague Randeep Ramesh has the quotes.

Updated

Leftwing bakers' union cuts links with Labour, saying Starmer too focused on 'factional internal war'

The leftwing bakers’ union has announced it is going to cut its links with Labour.

The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union is one of the smallest unions affiliated to the Labour party, and so the move has no significant financial implications for the party, but it will be seen as further evidence that Labour is alienating the left.

In a statement, Sarah Woolley, the union’s general secretary, said that the decision was taken by delegates at the party conference because of their concerns about “how far the Labour party has travelled away from the aims and hopes of working-class organisations like ours”.

She went on:

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.

But instead of concentrating on these issues we have a factional internal war led by the leadership. We have a real crisis in the country and instead of leadership, the party’s leader chooses to divide the trade unions and the membership by proposing changes to the way elections for his successor will take place. 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 rightwing faction’s chosen successor.

Earlier today Woolley said she was “extremely disappointed” not to have been called to speak in the right to food debate. (See 1.32pm.)

The union has been considering cutting its links with Labour at least since the summer when its president, Ian Hodson, was told he risked expulsion because of his links with Labour Against the Witchhunt, one of the four far-left groups banned by the party. (See 10.56am.)

Updated

Labour has condemned what happened to Patricia Hannah-Wood, the delegate who told conference earlier that she was subjected to transphobic abuse in a toilet in the conference hall on Sunday. (See 1.08pm.) A Labour spokesperson said: “We do not tolerate abuse of any kind. Labour is the party of equality, committed to achieving a world free from all forms of bigotry and discrimination.”

Officials have spoken to Hannah-Wood to offer their support.

Updated

These are from the Financial Times’ Peter Foster, reporting on a fringe meeting where Lisa Nandy, the shadow home secretary, Jenny Chapman, shadow Brexit minister, and Hilary Benn, the former chair of the Commons Brexit committee, talked about the prospects for rebuilding relations with the EU.

Labour seeks to outflank Tories on crime, with Thomas-Symonds accusing Patel of 'defunding police'

Sir Keir Starmer wants to convince people that Labour under his leadership has changed, and probably no platform speech at the conference this week has made that clear as much as Nick Thomas-Symonds’. This afternoon we’ve now reached the stage where the head of the Police Federation is a welcome guest in the conference hall (see 2.41pm), but not apparently Jeremy Corbyn. (He has not been banned, but all his speaking engagements have been on the fringe, and most shadow cabinet ministers have not even mentioned him in their speeches.)

Thomas-Symonds’ speech also contained some deft repositioning. Here are the main points:

  • Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary attacked the Tories for “defunding the police”. He 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.

This is clever because it exploits the slogan used by some Black Lives Matter supporters in the US. Tony Blair said in a New Statesman article this could be “the left’s most damaging political slogan since ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’” because it implies all leftwingers want to dismantle policing, and some Tories cited this as a reason why they would not support footballers taking the knee. But Thomas-Symonds is seeking to make it stick to the Conservatives, not Labour.

  • Thomas-Symonds said the Conservatives were “the party of crime and disorder”. He said:

Because, conference, the safety of our communities is at risk from this government. The reality is that the Conservatives have failed on crime. This home secretary likes to talks tough but she never delivers. She says she backs our frontline police officers and staff but then insults them with a pay freeze.

It’s no surprise that she has lost the confidence of 130,000 rank-and-file officers represented by the Police Federation, who are the undisputed voice of policing.

The Conservatives are the party of crime and disorder. They are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime ...

Conference, 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.

  • He praised the Police Federation chair, John Apter, saying he stood up for police officers better than Priti Patel, the home secretary. He said:

Our police are out on the frontline, risking their own safety to maintain ours and, sadly, on too many occasions, running into danger, when most people run the other way.

Yet they have to do this knowing that the boss at the Home Office doesn’t have their backs. They deserve better.

But at least in John Apter, the chair of the Police Federation, they have someone working tirelessly for them. Conference, I am delighted to welcome John here today and to thank him for what he does.

  • Thomas-Symonds sought to differentiate himself from Patel, saying he wanted to be tough “not for the sake of sounding tough”, but because Labour communities are blighted by crime. He said:

Our job is to show people that Labour will do better. We are the party of working people and our first responsibility is to keep you safe. We want to reduce crime not for the sake of sounding tough, but because we know the damage it does to our communities.

  • He urged people directly to “look again” at Labour. He said:

So I say this directly to people who turned away from us in recent elections: look again. Be in no doubt that Labour is committed to keeping you, your family and community safe. It’s what our leader did when he was director of public prosecutions. Your concerns are my priorities.

  • He said he wanted to revive neighbourhood policing. He said:

Let me say this: with me as home secretary, if there is trouble on your street Labour will make sure that someone is there. You will see officers on the beat. In every neighbourhood where people are frightened and afraid there will be a new police hub and neighbourhood prevention teams which bring together police, community support officers, youth workers and local authority staff to tackle antisocial behaviour at source, to stop kids from going on the wrong path. Eyes, ears and boots on the ground, officers rooted in the neighbourhood who you can recognise, connected into a next-generation neighbourhood watch and backed by a tough approach to closing down drug dens.

Conference, a Labour government will bring back neighbourhood policing and, conference, we will go further. We will launch a major recruitment drive for special constables, giving people the chance to contribute to the safety of their neighbourhood. And for those who commit the appalling crime of preying on vulnerable children and drawing them into county lines drug gangs, we will create a new child exploitation register to stop them doing it again.

Nick Thomas-Symonds giving his conference speech.
Nick Thomas-Symonds giving his conference speech. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Updated

In his speech Thomas-Symonds revealed that John Apter, chair of the Police Federation, was in the hall to hear it. Thomas-Symonds said Apter was someone “working tirelessly” for the police and he thanked him for what he did.

That helps to explain the Police Federation statement released last night. (See 2.28pm.) Normally the Police Federation would feel more at home at a Tory conference, and Apter would never have turned up to a Labour event just to listen to a speech by Diane Abbott, Thomas-Symonds’ more leftwing predecessor. To have him here is a clear sign that the party is repositioning itself on law and order.

Yesterday Apter met Sir Keir Starmer on a visit in Worthing.

John Apter (left) with Keir Starmer, Chief Inspector Sarah Leadbeatter and Nick Thomas-Symonds during a visit in Worthing, West Sussex, yesterday.
John Apter (left) with Keir Starmer, Chief Inspector Sarah Leadbeatter and Nick Thomas-Symonds during a visit in Worthing, West Sussex, yesterday.
 Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Police Federation welcomes Labour's plan to boost neighbourbood policing

Back at the conference Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, has just started his conference speech. I’ll post a summary once its over and I’ve seen the full text.

Here is my colleague Rajeev Syal’s preview of the speech, based on what was briefed overnight.

The Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents police officers and which is not normally particularly well disposed towards Labour, released a statement overnight welcoming Thomas-Symonds’ plan to boost neighbourhood policing.

John Apter, the federation’s national chair, said:

It is important that policing is spoken about at party conferences because nothing is more important than the safety and security of the public.

During the years of austerity, policing had to make many tough decisions. One of these was to reduce neighbourhood policing across many parts of the country.

While I welcome Labour’s pledge to bolster neighbourhood policing, we must also remember there are other parts of policing which are every bit as critical. These help to ensure public safety and include response policing, investigations, CID, specialist departments, and back-office functions.

Labour was more divided under Corbyn, says Ashworth

In his resignation letter yesterday Andy McDonald said the Labour party had never been more divided. In his World at One interview, Jonathan Ashworth disagreed. “My word, I’ve seen the Labour party more divided than this,” he said, laughing.

Asked if Labour was more divided under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Ashworth said:

Yeah, of course it was. There were waves of shadow ministerial resignations. You know what? With no disrespect to various colleagues who resigned from the frontbench, I think they thought it would create a political earthquake and it didn’t. Resignations don’t always have the impact which, with respect to our colleagues, they think they’re going to have.

Jonathan Ashworth with Angela Rayner on the conference platform today.
Jonathan Ashworth with Angela Rayner on the conference platform today. Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar

Updated

Ashworth claims patients could die if health workers don't get priority at petrol stations

In an interview with the World at One, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said patients could die unless health workers were given priority for getting petrol.

Asked if he agreed with calls for health workers to get priority at petrol stations, he replied:

Yes, and we are facing a crisis, because if doctors and nurses, midwives, if care assistants cannot get to the bedsides of their patients, then people will be left stranded, people will be left in the most desperate of circumstances. Some people could end up losing their lives, that’s how serious this is.

He said Sajid Javid, the health secretary, should work out an agreement on this now. He went on:

We need urgency and we need grip, we haven’t had that so far, so Sajid Javid, if you are listening to this now, get the workforce representative bodies on a call, and get an agreement because we cannot leave vulnerable, desperate patients stranded without the care they deserve.

Updated

These are from the Economist’s Duncan Weldon, pointing out that £15 an hour would be above median hourly pay last year.

Updated

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is calling for a new levelling up tax, based on property values, Politico’s Alex Wickham reports.

Conference backs motion saying next Labour government should legislate for right to food

The morning conference session has now wrapped up. Delegates voted in favour of eight composite motions, including the LGBT+ rights one. (See 1.08pm.)

There was a particular cheer when the right to food one was passed. This said that the right to food should be enshrined in law, to clarify government obligations on food poverty, and that Labour should include this in its next manifesto.

Delegates also passed a social care composite calling for a national care service that would “ensure care workers are paid at least in line with average wages (now £15 an hour)”.

This is the first motion covering a £15 per hour minimum wage being debated today. This afternoon a second one on workers’ rights, proposing a statutory £15 per hour minimum wage for all workers, is being debated.

Updated

The former MP Dame Louise Ellman, who quit Labour because of antisemitism, has met Sir Keir Starmer after rejoining the party, PA Media reports. Ellman was embraced by Starmer as they met in Brighton, where Labour’s conference backed internal rule changes aimed at stamping out the problem.

They had a coffee at the Hilton hotel this morning. Ellman announced yesterday she was returning to the Labour fold.

Sir Keir Starmer with Louise Ellman at Labour conference this morning.
Sir Keir Starmer with Louise Ellman at Labour conference this morning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Delegate tells conference of transphobic abuse in conference hall toilet

The conference is debating various composites this morning, including one on LGBTQ+ rights, and it was moved by a delegate who said she was the victim of transphobic abuse in the hall at the weekend

Patricia Hannah-Wood, from Pendle CLP, said that on Sunday evening, shortly after a debate that covered antisemitism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination, she was abused.

On Sunday evening, straight after this motion was debated, I was in the loo downstairs with a few of my colleagues from the north-west when I was transphobically abused, in this conference centre, by one of our sisters. It should not happen.

Hannah-Wood said Labour had its own anti-bigotry policy, and it should be enforced.

The LGBT community is one of the few that comes under constant attack, alongside our black, and BAME colleagues. We are under constant attack every single day, and it comes from all walks of life, within our families, without our families, within our workplace, here, as I’ve just said, within our own conference. This is not acceptable.

The motion says transgender people “face substantial barriers and experience high levels of exclusion and violence through persistent transphobia” and says Labour should “assert trans people’s same rights for self-determination as anyone else, and fight for measures to improve protections and services”.

Updated

Corbyn insists Andy McDonald's resignation not part of anti-Starmer plot

At the fringe meeting he attended this morning Jeremy Corbyn said he spoke to Andy McDonald yesterday before McDonald announced his surprise resignation from the shadow cabinet. But he denied being involved in an anti-Starmer plot. He told the meeting:

We had a series of private conversations as very close friends. They were private conversations. I was there to give Andy support in whatever decision he decided to make.

Andy worked very closely with us in the shadow cabinet and he took what was for him a personal and very difficult and very principled decision.

This party has got to include Andy McDonald and his views and his abilities to bring about what are actually very good, very progressive employment policies.

If it had been a deep-laid machiavellian plot to announce a resignation on a particular afternoon in Brighton, it would’ve leaked out weeks ago.

The allegation that there was some sort of plot has been made unattributably by senior Labour officials, and also by Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, this morning. (See 9.24am.)

McDonald had been due to appear at the same Stop Fire-and-Rehire fringe event, but Barry Gardiner, the former shadow international trade secretary, said McDonald had chosen to return to London instead. He said:

If this had been some sort of machiavellian plot, then why do you think Andy would’ve gone back to London? He was actually going to be speaking here about fire-and-rehire, which he’s absolutely passionate about.

He knew that he could get an audience from himself and do that, if that had been something he had wanted to cause disruption by rather than simply a personal decision ... then he would’ve been here, he would’ve been grandstanding.

I really think it is wrong to try and say he was being manipulative, he’s not like that. He’s a really decent, honest, straightforward man.

Updated

In an article (paywall) for the Times’ Red Box, John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, welcomes the plan announced by Rachel Reeves yesterday to spent £28bn a year on green capital investment. But he says the money cannot be spent properly unless the government owns the energy companies. He explains:

If we are to change the way our homes are built, heated and insulated, if we are to change the way we work and travel to work, to change the way we power our economy – while protecting people’s jobs and incomes we need huge transformative investment probably not seen since the rebuild after the second world war.

But one lesson that the postwar Labour government knew is that if you want things done quickly, you have to be in control. And they also believed that when the public invests, the public should get the return too. That’s why the Attlee government brought industry into public ownership. They weren’t ideological, just logical ...

So my message to Rachel is to welcome her investment in decarbonising the economy, but that she will not spend that money efficiently in the timescales we need unless it is through publicly-owned industries run for climate and people, not capital and greed.

John McDonnell (right) at a fringe meeting today with Barry Gardiner (centre) and Jeremy Corbyn.
John McDonnell (right) at a fringe meeting today with Barry Gardiner (centre) and Jeremy Corbyn.
 Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Updated

Ashworth says Tory waiting times creating 'two-tier health system' as people go private

In his speech to the conference Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said that the crisis in the NHS pre-dated Covid and that a two-tier health service was emerging because of the number of people going private to avoid long waits. He explained:

An understaffed NHS has been pushed to the brink. No one is pretending the NHS hasn’t been impacted by 18 months of Covid. But let’s not pretend – pre-Covid – the NHS wasn’t impacted by 10 years of the Tories. We entered the pandemic with the longest financial squeeze in NHS history, 17,000 beds closed, hospitals crumbling, public health services cut, GP numbers down, services privatised, nurse training cut, children’s mental health budgets raided, thousands waiting longer for cancer treatment, the 18-week target not met for five years, the A&E target not met for six years.

So the NHS is in crisis not simply because of Covid. The NHS is in crisis because of the Conservatives. And it has the devastating consequence of forcing more and more people in pain and desperation to take out loans and crowdfunding on the internet to pay for an operation because the wait is too much to bear.

  • £12,000 for a hip replacement.
  • £9,000 for a knee replacement.
  • £3,000 for a hernia.

A two-tier health system, privatisation by the backdoor. That’s the Tory threat to our NHS. That’s why we’re fighting against, to rebuild our NHS.

Ashworth said Labour would cut waiting times and “fix social care with a plan as far-reaching as Nye Bevan’s plan for the NHS”, partly focused on using personalised care to enable people to stay at home for longer.

Jonathan Ashworth.
Jonathan Ashworth. Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar

Updated

More from Peter Walker at the Jeremy Corbyn fringe.

Jeremy Corbyn arriving for his fringe event earlier.
Jeremy Corbyn arriving for his fringe event earlier. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

Corbyn declines to rule out standing as independent if Labour whip not restored by next election

Jeremy Corbyn has declined to rule out standing as an independent at the next election if by then he has not had the Labour whip restored, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Streeting says Labour will make private education 'redundant' by ensuring more on offer in state schools

Shadow cabinet minsters are mostly just getting five-minute speaking slots at conference, which does not allow time for detailed or comprehensive speech, but even in five minutes it is possible to make a clear argument. Wes Streeting, the shadow secretary for child poverty, did so in his speech a few minutes ago. Here are the key points.

  • Streeting said “private education will be made redundant” under Labour because it would improve the experience on offer in state schools. He said:

Some parents make big financial sacrifices to send their kids to private schools because their kids are given the experience, the confidence and the expectation that they will become cabinet ministers, captains of industry and stars of screen and stage.

With Labour, private education will be made redundant. Because we will make sure that every child in our country has those opportunities. Opportunities that give them the security that comes with having a good career, a home of your own and a strong community where you’d want your own children to grow up.

That’s why I’ve launched Labour’s Ten by Ten ambition – to give every child a great childhood with every child enjoying ten great experiences by the age of ten. Playing an instrument, learning to swim, riding a bike, competitive sport, drama, debating, camping, visiting museums and galleries, trips to the seaside and the countryside and great local libraries.

  • He said that under the Conservatives children are doing less music, sport and drama. He said:

Under the Tories, we’re going backwards. Kids’ participation in music is down, competitive sport, in and out of school – down and for theatre and drama, participation is down by almost a half. They wouldn’t accept it for their own kids. We won’t accept it for any kids.

  • He said Labour would put a new child poverty reduction unit in 10 Downing Street.
  • He said that Labour would aim to end child poverty and that this would be good for the economy. He said:

There’s no more important mission and no better expression of the values that we hold and our ambition for Britain than to end child poverty in this country once and for all. And I’ve got some good news for our shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves: as well as being the right thing to do, tackling child poverty saves money, too.

Because it’s not just children’s potential that’s being wasted through childhood poverty, but taxpayers’ money, too. Under the Tories, the cost of child poverty to the economy has risen to a whopping £38bn. Wasted lives and wasted money.

  • He said the government was not levelling up, but “punching down on struggling mums and dads and their kids”.
  • He condemned Boris Johnson as someone “who hasn’t done a single day of hard work in his life”.

Boris Johnson has the audacity to tell parents slogging their guts out on minimum wage to work harder. This coming from a man who hasn’t done a single day of hard work in his life.

(Streeting seemed to be confusing hard work with manual work. Journalism can be hard work, and as a columnist and writer of books, Johnson had a reputation as someone who was no slouch when it came to churning it out.)

Wes Streeting delivering his conference speech.
Wes Streeting delivering his conference speech. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Updated

HuffPost’s Paul Waugh is at the same fringe meeting, where he says John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, has said that Jeremy Corbyn should have the Labour whip restored.

These are from my colleague Peter Walker, who is at the Stop Fire and Rehire fringe meeting where Jeremy Corbyn is speaking.

In her speech to the conference this morning Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, set out details of Labour’s children’s recovery plan. She said:

We’ve already shown Labour’s commitment with our children’s recovery plan. A plan that recognises that children’s learning and wellbeing go hand in hand. A plan that would set children up for life with communication, teamwork, problem solving, social skills.

That’s why our plan would extend the school day for additional activities – breakfast clubs giving children the fuel to learn, art, sport, cooking, coding, book clubs – so that opportunities to develop life skills and enjoy new experiences become the norm for every child. It’s why we would invest in training world-class teachers, and give schools the resources to expand small group tutoring, unlocking all the advantages it brings. Why we would support the early years sector, schools and colleges with an education recovery premium, delivering additional learning support including for children with SEND, and engage with families around the SEND review and it’s why we are prioritising young people’s mental health, with access to a professional mental health counsellor for every school.

She challenged Nadhim Zahawi, the new education secretary, to provide a similar guarantee.

Kate Green on the conference platform.
Kate Green on the conference platform. Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar

Updated

20 delegates banned from conference for disciplinary reasons, Labour says

At the start of the proceedings today Harry Donaldson, the chair of Labour’s constitutional arrangements committee, revealed that 20 delegates have been banned from conference for disciplinary reasons.

Leftwingers have been complaining about this for days. This does not normally happen at a Labour conference, at least on this scale, but the decisions to exclude attendees seems to be related to a decision taken in the summer to ban four far-left groups, partly because of their record on antisemitism. As a result individuals have been expelled from the party.

On Sunday John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said the exclusion of people from conference was Stalinist. Donaldson said this morning he had been asked to give an update on the number of delegates whose accreditation had been withdrawn “due to disciplinary matters”, and he said the total was 20.

But he said this did not mean that constituency Labour parties (CLPs) were losing voting rights. Where organisations have more than one delegate, the vote of the person excluded gets redistributed amongst the remaining delegates, he said. And in the case of a CLP where its sole delegate was excluded, a replacement delegate was agreed. “Therefore no CLP has been disenfranchised as a result of any disciplinary action,” he said.

On Sunday Left Foot Forward reported that several members of the Marxist group Socialist Appeal were among those excluded.

The conference proceedings have now started, and one of the first items was Samantha Dixon, the chief scrutineer, reading out the results of the election to fill four places on the party’s national constitution committee for CLP representatives.

As Sienna Rodgers reports at LabourList, two of the seats were won by candidates backed by Momentum and two were won by candidates backed by Labour to Win, an organisation backing non-left, or “centrist”, candidates.

The results could be read as confirmation that Labour’s activist base is still broadly split, roughly half and half, between Corbynites and non-Corbynites - although factional allegiances are not the only considerations that matter in elections such as this.

Luke Akehurst, a member of Labour’s national executive committee and a supporter of Labour to Win, says the results were a setback for Momentum.

Updated

In his article for the i Jeremy Corbyn floats some policy proposals being championed by the left. I quote one at 8.48pm. Here is another excerpt from the article.

Over the past few years, our movement has developed policies that are not only popular but up to the challenges we face. From spending a few days at conference, fringe events and the World Transformed, I know there’s much more to come.

I’ve heard people discuss a wealth tax to fund a national care service like the NHS, and an end to outsourcing and privatisation in public services.

Others have proposed taking democratic control over the Bank of England, so it uses its power to support the environmental transition and public wealth, not inflate the soaring bank balances of the super-rich.

I’ve also heard imaginative ideas about how we could claw back some of that obscene wealth that billionaires accrued in the pandemic, such as a windfall tax on pandemic asset price increases.

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a rally outside the Labour conference on Sunday.
Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a rally outside the Labour conference on Sunday. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Updated

This is from Daniel Finkelstein, the Times columnist and Conservative peer, on the significance of Andy McDonald’s resignation.

And here are more lines from Nick Thomas-Symonds’ morning interviews.

  • Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, described Andy McDonald as a friend and paid tribute to the work he did as shadow employment rights secretary before his resignation yesterday. He said:

People have resigned on points of principle before and I always respect people who take that decision and he [McDonald) is a friend of mine and will continue to be a friend of mine, and I have great respect for the work he’s done on the employment rights paper where we will end appalling practices like fire and rehire, we will give people employment rights from day one.

  • Thomas-Symonds accused the government of a “catastrophic failure of leadership” in relation to the petrol shortage crisis. He said:

We find ourselves in this position because of a complete failure of the government to lead and to plan ahead.

I and other shadow cabinet colleagues wrote to Grant Shapps back in July highlighting these issues. We got very short shrift from Grant Shapps, who wrote back to us in the first week of August saying, in his words, that he wouldn’t be using foreign labour to solve this issue.

Now, the government says it wants to train up ... and I’m absolutely in favour of training up HGV drivers, but it hasn’t done that to a sufficient extent, nor has it until recently made a very small concession on being able to bring drivers in from abroad.

So this is a catastrophic failure of leadership, it looks like we’ve ended up with petrol running out, the prime minister talking about bringing the army in, this is a crisis of the government’s own making.

  • He said Labour would decide nearer the election whether to commit to increasing the 20,000 extra police officers already promised by the Conservatives. He said he needed to make the assessment of what was needed nearer the time.
  • He confirmed he was reviving Tony Blair’s slogan, saying: “We are being both tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.”
  • He explained why he wanted to see more police on the streets. He said:

I am also responding and listening to the conversations that I have had up and down the country in recent months. Because people say that we no longer see police on the beat, and that is not the fault of our hard-pressed police officers, that is the result of a government that has decimated community policing over the past 11 years.

What I am saying very clearly to people today is that, as home secretary, if there is trouble on your street, I will make sure that somebody is there.

Nick Thomas-Symonds giving giving an interview this morning at the Brighton Centre.
Nick Thomas-Symonds giving giving an interview this morning at the Brighton Centre. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Updated

Angela Rayner angered by Andy McDonald’s resignation

The Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has privately expressed anger at the departure of Andy McDonald after he launched a major policy on workers’ rights with her, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.

Greens and Lib Dems criticise Labour after unions block move to commit party to PR

Labour has been accused by opposition parties of showing a lack of political vision after a conference motion committing the party to proportional representation was defeated because of the votes of trade unions.

The motion, calling for the next Labour government to replace first-past-the-post with a form of PR, was submitted by more than 150 constituency Labour parties. A vote on Monday evening saw just under 80% of CLPs back the plan.

But the votes from affiliates – almost entirely comprising unions – were 95% opposed, meaning the final result was nearly 58% of votes against.

During the debate on the issue, a series of CLP delegates spoke in favour, with only one speaker, from the GMB union, opposing it.

The Greens said the decision showed “a real lack of leadership and vision” from the top of Labour.

Zack Polanski, the Greens’ spokesperson on voting issues, said:

Labour members overwhelmingly support electoral reform, yet Keir Starmer has done next to nothing to ensure that his party’s delegates voted through a motion which could have revolutionised British politics and put an end to the Tory stranglehold on our failed democratic system.

Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, called the result “deeply disappointing”. He said:

We can only build a better politics and a fairer country with a fairer electoral system. We will keep working with the many in the Labour party and across all parties who want to see a fairer electoral system.

There was also anger expressed on social media, with one Twitter user saying she had been a GMB member for decades, but had cancelled her membership on Tuesday morning in protest.

Updated

Andy Macdonald speaking at at Tribune rally at the Labour conference last night.
Andy McDonald speaking at a Tribune rally at the Labour conference last night. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

McDonald's resignation looks like 'planned sabotage', says shadow cabinet minister

Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, has described Andy McDonald’s resignation yesterday as looking like “planned sabotage”. He told BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland:

We’re not quite sure why [McDonald] resigned yesterday, he seems to have said one thing and written another. That looks as if it might be a planned sabotage of conference, rather than it being about any principle.

This was a policy, don’t forget, that Andy McDonald and the shadow cabinet wrote, he put through shadow cabinet and he launched with much acclaim in the conference hall 48 hours before he resigned.

We’re not quite sure why he resigned, but these things happen in politics and we’re all very angry and frustrated that the headlines are being dominated by one person when we should be talking about the big issues of the future.

Murray was referring to Labour’s employment rights green paper (pdf) published at the weekend. As shadow secretary of state for employment rights, McDonald helped to write it.

This is what it says about the minimum wage:

Labour is demanding that the minimum wage is immediately raised to at least £10 per hour for all workers and will continue to evaluate what a real living wage should be.

Labour will continue to assess how to deliver its commitment to raising the national living wage to ensure that it is adequate and addresses the rise in the cost of living and inflation since 2019.

The role of the Low Pay Commission will be reformed so that wage floor policy continues to be evidenced-based but is as active as it can be in driving up wages.

The national living wage is currently £8.91 for people age 23 and over. It used to be for people age 25 and over, but at their 2019 party conference the Tories announced that over time they would bring down the age at which it applies to 21. Currently the minimum wage is £6.56 for people age 18 to 20, and £8.36 for people age 21 to 22.

Ian Murray.
Ian Murray. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Updated

Keir Starmer yesterday on the beach at Worthing preparing to record a piece to camera.
Keir Starmer yesterday on the beach at Worthing preparing to record a piece to camera. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

In his Today interview Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said the Labour leadership would be “perfectly happy” for delegates to vote today for the workers’ rights motion saying the conference supports a £15 per hour statutory minimum wage.

He said the party was committed to a national minimum wage of at least £10. He went on:

We will then make that assessment; we look at inflation levels, we look at wage levels, we look at the general economic circumstances for the next election, whenever that comes.

Corbyn wrong about Starmer not wanting to challenge wealth and power, says Thomas-Symonds

This is what Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, told the Today programme this morning when asked about Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that the current Labour leadership just wants to “prop up, not challenge ... wealth and power”. (See 8.48am.) He said:

I don’t accept any of that analysis at all. Only in recent days we’ve seen the ending of the charitable status of private schools, for example, and redirecting that money to actually making sure that educational standards across the board are raised.

Keir has a passionate sense of social justice.

Updated

Corbyn says Starmer ‘wants to prop up, not challenge, wealth and power’

Good morning. This is Sir Keir Starmer’s first proper conference as Labour leader and, like many of his predecessors over the years, he is finding that, while he might want to focus on setting out a policy offer to the nation, he is instead spending much of the week engaging in non-fraternal feuding with the left.

Sometimes these battles can be leveraged by a leader to convince voters that he’s tough, decisive, not beholden to unrepresentative activists etc etc. (With Labour, it has always been a he.) But often the rows just leave the party looking divided, and irrelevant to the big issue facing the nation at the time.

It is not obvious yet which of these takes will be the more plausible verdict on Labour’s 2021 conference, but last night left oppositionism escalated a notch or two when Andy McDonald quit the shadow cabinet, and today there will be a vote on a £15 per hour minimum wage (the cause that prompted McDonald’s resignation). Starmer is not endorsing this policy, but he is not asking delegates to vote it down either (which would be a lost cause).

McDonald’s resignation coincided with Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader, publishing an article with a particular wounding critique of his successor. He says Starmer and his team “want to prop up ... wealth and power”. Writing in the i, he says:

Elsewhere, our movement has begun to develop ideas for how we all benefit from the unprecedented support big business received during the pandemic.

We could, for example, take a public stake in the large companies that received public support in the pandemic and use that to create a People’s Asset Manager that pays out an annual People’s Pay Out to every citizen.

These ideas are why the Labour membership and trade unions are under attack – because they want to challenge the wealth and power of the few.

It also explains the lamentable decision to close down the community organising unit, when we need to be a social movement of vibrant activism at all times.

So far this week, Labour’s leaders have shown they want to prop up, not challenge, that wealth and power.

There is another way forward, that is based on social justice, and in the policies the majority of people actually want, not what the establishment and its media mouthpieces insist they should want.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary who has been giving interviews this morning, has firmly rejected Corbyn’s claim. He says policies like the plan to end the charitable status of private schools show Corbyn is wrong. I will post excerpts from his interview shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.10am: Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, opens a debate on education. Wes Streeting, the shadow secretary of state for child poverty, winds it up at 11am.

11.15am: Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, opens a debate on health and social care.

2.15pm: Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, opens a debate on justice and home affairs. That will be followed by a resumption of the economy debate, which covers a motion saying the minimum wage should be £15 per hour. David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, will wrap up proceedings with a speech at 5.10pm.

I expect to be focusing exclusively on Labour today. For the latest in the fuel shortage crisis, do follow my colleague Graeme Wearden’s business live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com

Updated

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