Open Labour Position Paper 2022
We are putting forward Britain-boosting ideas which will enable people to live freer, happier and healthier lives. We clearly set out how we will make lives better, a message of hope amid increasing despair at what is happening to our country.
We want to create a country where poverty is a thing of the past, where racism is challenged rather than met with a government seal of approval. Revitalising our democracy where your vote counts no matter where you live and where we elect all who govern us.
We need better work-life balance for all workers, introducing a right to flexible working as outlined by the TUC. Radical reforms to the housing market are required, boosting supply, reigning in rogue landlords, capping rents, and ensuring every community has affordable homes.
Childcare and parental support provision must be levelled up as a matter of urgency, restoring Sure Start provision to pre-2010 levels. A sustained recruitment programme is needed to train up more NHS and social care workers, teachers, nursery staff, construction workers, and other vital areas.
We also have to retain those workers in the jobs for which they are trained. That has to be on the basis of the promise of a satisfying, fairly-paid and secure career.
We can boost Britain’s international standing and strengthen our relationship with our European neighbours and allies around the world while treating refugees with dignity and helping them to rebuild their lives.
It means developing world-leading Human Security services – working with our military and others – that can address emergency situations, such as pandemics, genocide and ethnic cleansing, flooding or famine.
Labour’s next phase of attack
Labour’s next phase of attack requires much greater confidence in our party’s values. We must resist taking sides between groups of voters, playing into the identity tests used to sow division and culture war. We must offer unity based on hope, counteracting Tory division based on hate.
Any bold alternative must start with a clear rejection of the Tories’ broken economic settlement – fiscal austerity, privatisation and devastating cuts – in real terms – to welfare, services and public sector pay.
Backing this up with a triple-pronged approach to personal and financial security for all – supporting those who can work to get work, a strong welfare safety net and pension system, and universal basic service provision across the UK.
Labour could do more to pitch its vibrant local and regional voices against the tired old ham actors of Whitehall spouting their meaningless and insincere three word phrases.
Voices rooted in the communities they represent carry more weight, more trust and more believability than Westminster Tories with their top-down politics.
By emphasising the country’s common ground and – crucially – setting out its brighter alternative to the Tory status quo, Labour can unite its different traditions of voter support as well as nurturing the red shoots seen in coastal and rural areas.
Read all about it
Tessa Milligan in the Mirror
Lauren Davison in LabourList
Read the full position paper here: OPEN_LABOUR_POSITION_PAPER_2021_2022-compressed
A screen reader and braille support -enabled google document can be read here: https://docs.google.com/