Jeremy Corbyn launches Labour’s election manifesto

Jeremy Corbyn unveiled the Labour Party’s manifesto in Birmingham today, and you can catch up on all the key policies below.

We’re closing our election live blog for the day, but we’ll be back tomorrow to follow more developments as Britain’s general election edges closer.

Labour have unsurprisingly seized up on the newly released election donation data, which showed the Conservatives receiving the vast majority of big-money donations in the first week of the campaign.

“While the Conservative party is in the pockets of vested interests and the super rich, we are proud that that the Labour Party is funded by hundreds of thousands of people donating what they can afford to build a fairer society,” the party’s chairman Ian Lavery said in a press release.

“Labour is on the side of the people and the Tories are on the side of the billionaires,” he added.

In total, the Conservatives received £5.67 million in large donations (those over £7,500). The Labour Party, by contrast, received £218,500.

Boris Johnson has responded to Labour’s manifesto launch, saying the party lacks “economic credibility” due to its Brexit policy.

“The hole at the heart of Labour’s manifesto – this was the moment, it was lights, camera, action, Corbyn comes centre stage, drum roll, and he completely misses his cue,” Johnson told the Press Association during a campaign stop.

“Because what we want to know is what is his plan to deliver Brexit and what’s the deal he wants to do – and which side would he vote on that deal and we still don’t know,” he added.

“Until we have answers to those questions, until we get Brexit done, none of this carries any economic credibility whatever.”

Corbyn has promised a Brexit deal that includes customs union membership and alignment with the EU’s single market, which he says he would put to a confirmatory referendum within six months.

Johnson said his own Brexit deal was “ready to go,” adding: “We’ve got a deal, we’ve got a plan - I don’t hear it from Labour.”

15 of the 16 highest financial donations made to political parties last week have gone to the Conservative Party, according to data just released by the Electoral Commission.

The biggest single donation appears to have been made by theatre producer John Gore, a regular contributor to the party, who sent £1 million ($1.3 million) to the group.

The other donations in the top 16 all amounted to £100,000 or more, with one £250,000 donation going to the Brexit Party.

This was the first weekly pre-election release of donation data by the Commission, and covers the period between November 6 and November 12. Only donations of more than £7,500 are included.

Jeremy Corbyn has sought to make the funding disparity between the Labour and Conservative parties a central plank of his campaign.

During his manifesto speech earlier, Corbyn said billionaires and the super-rich “own the Conservative Party.”

“I accept the opposition of the billionaires because we will make those at the top pay their fair share of tax to help fund world class public services for you,” Corbyn said at the event.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit policy has dominated much of the election campaign so far. As well as promising a second referendum on the issue, here’s the main pledges in Labour’s plan.

If you’re looking for a spot of light reading to do today, Labour’s 107-page manifesto is available in full online. It features a number of funding pledges and proposed policies; we’ve pulled out a selected few below.

Few set-piece events fall more squarely on a politician’s home turf than a manifesto launch, so standing ovations and hearty cheers from the audience are par for the course.

But this was still a confident launch from Corbyn, buoyed by a raucous crowd in perhaps one of his strongest performances of the campaign to date. 

“This is a manifesto of hope. A manifesto that will bring real change,” Corbyn said at the outset of a speech that included broadside and confrontational attacks against Britain’s rich and powerful — groups from which he said he welcomed hostility.

Corbyn’s praise of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the US President whose New Deal programs brought the US out of the Great Depression, sought to elevate his plans from charges that they hark back to failed projects of the 1970s.

His domestic agenda, unveiled in full over the 107-page document, is one of the most radical manifestos unveiled by a major party at an election in recent memory. And the Labour leader was on surer footing than is often the case when discussion turned to Brexit, taking direct aim at Johnson’s promises to “get Brexit done.” 

Corbyn achieved his short-term goal, giving news programs plenty of soundbites and clips that show him passionately announcing Labour’s plans to an adoring group of supporters. 

But he will need his manifesto to do far more than that. In 2017, his pledges helped turn around a fledgling campaign and saw him skyrocket up opinion polls in the last two weeks of campaigning. If he is to repeat the surge, Corbyn will need a similar uptick this time, too, with Johnson enjoying a healthy polling lead and his Conservative Party promising increases in spending that go further than Theresa May and David Cameron’s campaigns ever did.

“You really can have this plan for real change because you don’t need money to buy it,” Corbyn told the audience. “You just need a vote – and your vote can be more powerful than all their wealth.”

Whether he will get enough to prevent a majority Conservative government is the crucial question of this election, and it won’t be answered yet. But the hope from Labour is that this week is the start of a turnaround. 

Jeremy Corbyn is taking questions – the first of which comes from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, who is met by a smattering of boos from some supporters in the crowd.

“No, no, no, we don’t do that,” Corbyn quickly says, seeking to diffuse the outburst.

He’s asked how a radical manifesto will win over enough of the electorate. “When you travel around the country,” Corbyn says, you realize that “radical answers are necessary.”

“Yes, this radical manifesto is about unleashing all that potential for the future … that’s why I”m so proud of the whole investment strategy we’ve put forward,” Corbyn says.

Turning to Brexit, he tells reporters that he will negotiate a deal with the EU in three months and hold a referendum on it soon after. “My government would accept and carry out the result of that.”

The only cheer Corbyn ever got at a shadow Cabinet meeting was when he said Brexit wasn’t on the agenda that day, he jokes. Splits within the Labour front bench over the party’s approach to the issue have plagued Corbyn for years.

“Let’s get together on this,” he says, suggesting his Brexit plan would help heal divides in the country.

Jeremy Corbyn is asked to comment about the controversy surrounding Prince Andrew and the BBC interview about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Labour leader says: “We should start from the principle that there are victims here.”

He adds that “nobody is above the law,” and anybody associated with questions of alleged wrongdoing should volunteer to help investigations.

In the interview, which was recorded last Thursday, the Duke of York also answered questions about allegations made by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, who claims that she was forced to perform sex acts on several men, including Prince Andrew. All the men deny the allegations.

“This will be investment on a scale you’ve never known before,” Jeremy Corbyn promises, as he switches gear to focus on his domestic agenda.

“We can no longer deny” the climate emergency, he says, adding that events like the floods in Yorkshire this month show the need for quick action.

“If you’re a student, Labour is on your side,” Corbyn says, to predictable cheers from the university venue. He touts his plan to scrap university tuition fees, causing some in the audience to rise to their feet. The fees were raised by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition and currently are capped at £9,250 ($12,000) a year.

“If you are reaching old age, Labour is on your side,” he adds, joking: “you see, we’re inclusive.”

Another big cheer erupts for Corbyn’s promise to scrap Universal Credit.

While he continues his speech, Labour’s 107-page manifesto has just dropped online.

Corbyn turns to Brexit, saying Boris Johnson is trying to “hijack” the project to sell out the NHS.

“The Conservatives want to use Brexit to unleash Thatcherism on steroids,” Corbyn says.

It’s one of the first times he has linked his populist program directly to Brexit, a topic he generally appears reluctant to discuss.

The crowd breaks out in a “Not for sale!” chant, which Corbyn briefly joins in with. “Let’s be clear about it: our NHS is not for sale,” he tells the crowd.

If you watched the debate, Corbyn adds, you’ll have seen Boris Johnson claim to get Brexit done – “over and over and over and over again … he might still be saying it,” Corbyn jokes. Johnson’s repeated Brexit mantra appeared to wear on the audience in that event, eliciting groans from some.

But Johnson’s promise to get Brexit done is misleading, he adds, because trade deals will take years to secure.

Labour, by contrasting, are promising a confirmatory referendum on a softer Brexit deal, which Corbyn says can be achieved in a few months.

Corbyn says he “accepts the hostility” of a whole group of people, including billionaires, bad bosses, dodgy landlords and big polluters.

“I accept the fierce opposition of the giant healthcare corporations because we will stop them sucking out profits from our NHS. That’s real change,” he says.

“And here’s a brand new one: I accept the implacable opposition of the private internet providers because we’re going to give you the very fastest full fibre broadband for free. That’s real change.”

Corbyn adds that the policies in the plan are fully costed, and do not include any tax increases for 95% of British taxpayers.

He makes a pitch to people to register to vote, and urges people to encourage their friends to do the same. A high turnout, particularly from young people, was generally seen to help Labour in 2017, but there are concerns a winter election could diminish people’s enthusiasm to go to the polls.

“This party, this movement, this manifesto is different,” Corbyn says, taking aim at the Conservative Party.

“Labour is on your side. And there could scarcely be a clearer demonstration of that than the furious reaction of the rich and powerful,” he adds, promising he will go after “tax dodgers, the bad bosses and the big polluters.”

“A third of Britain’s billionaires have donated to the Conservative Party. The billionaires and the super rich, the tax dodgers, the bad bosses and the big polluters – they own the Conservative Party,” says Corbyn

“But they don’t own us. They don’t own the Labour Party. The people own the Labour Party. That’s why the billionaires attack us. That’s why the billionaire-owned media makes things up about us.”

Corbyn is yet to mention the elephant in British politics, though. There’s been no reference to Brexit so far, and the word was missing from the extracts of the speech sent to the media beforehand.

Expect that to change when Corbyn faces questions from the press.

Jeremy Corbyn has started his speech, unveiling what he describes as a radical manifesto.

He thanks the students at Birmingham City University for coming out to support the launch – and Labour will need students across the country to do the same on polling day.

“This is a manifesto of hope. A manifesto that will bring real change. A manifesto that’s full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation,” Corbyn says.

“But you can’t have it,” he says – or at least, that’s what the rich and powerful in Britain would have you believe.

“Over the next three weeks, they’re going to tell you that everything in this manifesto is impossible. That it’s too much for you,” he says.
“Because they do not want real change in this country. Why would they? The system is working just fine for them. It’s rigged in their favor.”

“But it’s not working for you,” Corbyn goes on. “If your wages never seem to go up and your bills never seem to go down, if your public services only seem to get worse, despite the heroic efforts of those who work in them, then it’s not working for you.”

Corbyn also nods towards a political apathy he describes in Britain. “That’s why so many people in Britain have given up on politics. That’s why you hear people say about politicians: ‘they’re all the same,’” he says.

Each big line is being loudly cheered by his supporters in the room, and it’s an enthusiastic start to the speech from Corbyn, who appears to be boosted by a decent showing in Tuesday’s debate.

Jeremy Corbyn has started speaking in Birmingham, flanked on stage by members of Labour’s shadow Cabinet as he unveils the party’s manifesto.

Introducing him, shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said Brits can “really trust” Corbyn to “make real change happen.”

We’ll be digesting the document and bringing you all the latest updates here.

Jeremy Corbyn has gone to great lengths throughout this campaign to remind voters of Clement Attlee’s post-Labour government, which brought in a wave of social reforms and established the NHS.

But even Attlee’s bold administration struggled to meet its ambitions when it came to one perennial issue in British politics – the seemingly unending housing crisis that has been so central to political discourse for decades.

Ever since, prime ministers have come and gone with promises to build more homes than the last.

This election has featured the latest pledges. Seeking to undercut Labour’s plans, Boris Johnson’s Conservatives announced on Wednesday that they would build 1 million more homes in the next five years, as well as changing the law to end “no fault evictions.”

The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, said in the party’s manifesto yesterday it would build 300,000 houses a year.

Around one in 200 people in Britain are now homeless or in temporary accommodation in Britain. The figure is on the rise – and the visibility of rough sleepers has increased in recent years, particularly in the capital.

A report in 2017 by the UK’s National Audit Office blamed, among other factors, rises in rental costs and the capping and freezing of housing benefits, which began in 2011, for the rapid increase in homelessness across the country.

“There’s been a long-term trend since 2010 of more people going into temporary accommodation,” Patrick Mulrenan, a senior lecturer in community development and leadership at London Metropolitan University, told CNN last year. “We haven’t been building enough affordable, long-term housing for people, particularly in London.

“There’s also been some benefit changes which are making it very difficult for people to maintain their homes,” he added. “Back in the 1970s, you’d be shocked at someone sleeping on the street, and now people become immune to it.”

Housing has taken a back seat to Brexit in recent years, but the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 – partially caused by flammable cladding on the building’s exterior and an ineffective sprinkler system which residents had raised concerns about – served as a reminder of the availability, condition and security of much of the UK’s council housing.

The timing of this Christmas election coincides with the season in which homelessness and rough sleeping usually comes to the forefront. A report last year found that one in every 103 children will be in insecure accommodation on Christmas Day.

If any party can pave a way out of Britain’s housing crisis, it will achieve where several before have struggled.

Jeremy Corbyn will pitch himself as Britain’s answer to Franklin D. Roosevelt in his manifesto launch speech later, asking people to judge his policies by how much the rich dislike them.

Seeking to liken his party’s policies to Roosevelt’s New Deal program of social reforms during the Great Depression, Corbyn will tell a crowd in Birmingham: “This is a manifesto of hope. A manifesto that will bring real change. A manifesto full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation.”

“The US president who led his country out of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt, had to take on the rich and powerful in America to do it. That’s why he said: ‘They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred,’” Corbyn will add, according to excerpts of his speech already released to the media.

“He knew that when you’re serious about real change, those who profit from a rigged system, who squirrel away the wealth created by millions of people, won’t give up without a fight. So I accept the implacable opposition and hostility of the rich and powerful is inevitable,” Corbyn will add.

The Labour leader’s confrontational tone against Britain’s wealthiest has already become a hallmark of his campaign, and the wartime US President is a natural role model for Corbyn to seek to compare himself; FDR’s ambitious reforms included a swathe of tougher banking regulations alongside spending boosts and public work projects.

Here’s a few more key lines from Corbyn’s speech, expected in around an hour:

“If the bankers, billionaires and the establishment thought we represented politics as usual, that we could be bought off, that nothing was really going to change, they wouldn’t attack us so ferociously. Why bother?
“But they know we mean what we say. They know we will deliver our plans, which is why they want to stop us being elected.”

A focal point of the party’s manifesto is a plan to build more than 100,000 new homes. The £75 billion ($97bn) plan will take up half of the party’s so-called Social Transformation Fund.

Here’s what the part is promising:

Britain’s housing crisis has been tackled by countless leaders and prime ministerial hopefuls since World War II, but an analysis by the National Housing Federation in September found that it still affects more than 8 million people in the UK.

“Housing should be for the many, not a speculation opportunity for dodgy landlords and the wealthy few,” Jeremy Corbyn said in a press release.

“I am determined to create a society where working class communities and young people have access to affordable, good quality council and social homes. Everyone knows someone affected by the housing crisis. Labour is offering real change to fix it.”

Good morning from London – there are exactly three weeks until Britain’s monumental general election takes place.

Today, the spotlight is on Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. It’ll be unveiling its manifesto from 10 a.m. (5 a.m. ET), which the party is calling “the most radical, hopeful, people-focused plan in modern times.”

Expect a swathe of climate pledges, an already-announced council house building program and a number of other domestic programs.

In 2017, Labour’s bold manifesto launch marked the turning point in the campaign, helping Corbyn close a monumental gap in opinion polls to a whisker by polling day.

He’ll need a similar result this time – his party are trailing Boris Johnson’s Conservatives with 21 days to go.