Labour must "get rid of bloody Universal Credit", John McDonnell declared tonight.
The Shadow Chancellor appeared to back up sources who claimed last week that Labour was planning to scrap and replace the flagship Tory welfare reform in its entirety.
Labour's previous position was to "reform" UC, which is accused of driving families to food banks, rent debt and even sex work since it launched in 2013.
But multiple party sources said scrapping it, and replacing it with a fairer system, is now seen within Labour as the "direction of travel".
No public announcement has yet been made at Labour's conference in Brighton, but MPs had thought one could come from Jeremy Corbyn in the coming days.
And tonight Mr McDonnell told a fringe event: "For some there will always be that provision, that safety net, the social security safety net.
“Stop calling it welfare benefits, it’s social security. We’ve got to give people security in life. So that has to be a proper safety net.
“And that has to be on the basis of enabling people to have a decent quality of life with an adequate income.
“And that has to mean getting rid of the bloody Universal Credit ."
It appeared he then added the words "once and for all", but his comments were drowned out by applause.
Mr McDonnell said Labour would "rehabilitate the whole concept of public ownership and nationalisation.”
He added: “We’ll ensure that public ownership is sown deep into the roots of our economy so the Tories can never rip it up again.”
Mr McDonnell spoke at a Unite rally alongside Corbyn loyalists Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon after the party was rocked by a failed bid to oust deputy leader Tom Watson, and the resignation of key aide Andrew Fisher.
Ms Abbott and Mr Burgon hit back at media coverage of the rows claiming it was disproportionate.
Shadow Justice Secretary Mr Burgon said: “I’ve just been doing BBC [boos from crowd] and some of the other outlets.
“I think the presenter actually believed that the next time I go out door knocking in my constituency or the next time I do a constituency advice surgery, the people are going to be saying ‘what about Andrew Fisher?’
“Andrew Fisher’s brilliant by the way, and I’m really sorry that in a few months he’ll be going…. to spend more time with his wife and more time with his child after putting so many years of hard work into this project.
“But much of this is distorted tittle tattle from the media that doesn’t understand that the population and people are more interested in policies like our pledge to abolish prescription charges than they are in these soap operas.”
Ms Abbott added: "When you see commentators say how poor Jeremy Corbyn’s polling is, how could it be anything but poor at this point because of the relentless attacks on him day after day in the mainstream media?”
There were shouts of "shame" as Ms Abbott said ex-Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls told her to back austerity.
Now, she said, ”even the Tories are talking about ending austerity. That is a triumph of all of you in this room.”
She added: “We’ve seen children scavenging in bins for food because they didn’t have a free school meal.
“What has it come to when what is still one of the richest countries in Europe has children scavenging for food in bins?”
