Labour Leaks an actual Reddish Manifesto

The Labour Party Manifesto has been leaked online and low and behold the Tories in the party have turned their back on what looks to be a more traditional Labour Manifesto, who would have thunk it.

Labour are promising:

The NHS will be “properly funded” with an extra £6billion-a-year raised from new taxes on the nation’s highest earners.

£8billion over the five-year Parliament will be spent on social care with the aim of creating a National Care Service “rooted in the traditions of the NHS”.

£250million-a-year fund will focus on improving children’s health.

Corporation tax will be hiked to 26% for the biggest firms to help fund Labour’s massive investment programme.

The draft manifesto also promises a new levy on companies “with high numbers of staff on very high pay” and a VAT hike for private health firms.

Income tax will be raised – by an as-yet undisclosed-amount- for anyone earning £80,000-a-year or more.

A powerful new Ministry of Labour will be created in Whitehall to empower workers and clamp down on exploitation.

The Tory Trade Union Act 2016 will be scrapped, with all workers given right to union representation, and trade unions guaranteed access workplaces.

Redundancy laws would be toughened to bring them “more into line” with parts of Europe.

The rip-off energy industry would be tackled head-on, with new publicly-owned firms set up in every region focused purely on cutting prices.

Government would take “control of the natural monopolies of the transmission and distribution grids” currently run by the National Grid.

Railways would also be brought back into public ownership as each private franchise ends. The Railways Act 1993 which privatised the network would be repealed.

The Government would also look for municipally-owned bus companies to be set up across the country.

And the Royal Mail would be re-nationalised to end the “historic mistake” of selling it off under the last Government.

There is no mention of Kezia Dugdale’s New Act of Union, oh dear it would appear that the autonomous Scottish Labour Party are not so autonomous after all, as we all know.

Now this is a pretty left of centre manifesto by anyone’s standards, and there is a lot to like about it to be honest, on first glance it is a ‘ We are all in it together manifesto ‘ so it is no wonder the Tories in the Labour Party who leaked it and are now coming out against it, are worried.

I still think the Labour Party should have had a de-selection cull of the Blairites. I have no love for Labour at all but the party will not win by being Tory light in some areas and Tory right in others. However these MPS briefing against the manifesto are still the problem.

The likely defeat in June to the Tories will probably see the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s Leadership and another attempt to get a Blairite in place for the election in 2022. Yvette Cooper being the front runner if you believe some in the media. For me this will spell the end of Labour as we know it, I just can’t see Momentum putting up with that situation should it occur?

As I said I agree with a lot of this manifesto, it will be interesting to see what Scottish Labour say about it or will they just adopt the Tory manifesto as their own. I didn’t see anything about Scotland and to be honest I didn’t expect to, we are on a journey that ends in sovereignty being returned and I think for many in the Westminster bubble they know that is the case no matter how much they try to stop it.