It's Time For Real Change - Jeremy Corbyn
It’s Time For Real Change
Labour Party Manifesto 2019 launched now
Foreword by Jeremy Corbyn
This election will shape our country for a generation. It is your opportunity to transform our country, so that it works not just for a few, but for all of us.It is a chance to deliver the real change Britain needs. This manifesto sets out how a Labour government will do that.
Some people say this is the Brexit election. But it’s also the climate election, the investment election, the NHS election, the living standards election, the education election, the poverty election, the fair taxes election. Above all, it’s the change election.
It’s time to take on the vested interests holding people back. The last decade has seen a wealth grab by a privileged few, supported by the Conservatives, at the expense of the majority. The big polluters, financial speculators and corporate tax-dodgers have had a free ride for too long.
Labour will build a fairer Britain that cares for all, where wealth and power are shared.
I am not prepared to continue to see more families without a proper home and more people queuing at food banks or sleeping rough on the streets.
I am not prepared to put up with communities blighted by lack of investment, endless cuts to vital services and millions struggling to make ends meet, while tax cuts are handed to the richest.
We can do better than this. How can it be right that in the fifth richest country in the world, people’s living standards are going backwards and life expectancy is stalling?
The Conservative Government is failing. It has failed on the economy, on the climate crisis, on investment for the future, on public services and on Brexit. It is simply not working for most people.
A Labour government will unlock the potential of all those held back for too long. Labour will be on your side.
Labour will rewrite the rules of the economy, so that it works for everyone. We will rebuild our public services, by taxing those at the top to properly fund the services we all rely on.
We will launch the largest-scale investment programme in modern times to fund the jobs and industries of the future, so that no one is held back and no community left behind. This is a fully costed programme to upgrade our economy and transform our country.
We will kick-start a Green Industrial Revolution to tackle the climate emergency by shifting to renewable energy, investing in rail and electric cars, and making housing energy- efficient, to reduce fuel poverty and excess winter deaths.
We will create a million climate jobs in every region and nation of the UK – good, skilled jobs that will bring prosperity back to parts of our country neglected for too long.
We will bring rail, mail, water and energy into public ownership to end the great privatisation rip-off and save you money on your fares and bills.
We will deliver full-fibre broadband free to everybody in every home in our country by creating a new public service, boosting the economy, connecting communities and putting money back in your pocket.
We will end food bank Britain, and lift children and pensioners out of poverty.
We will bring in a Real Living Wage of at least £10 per hour for all workers – with equal rights at work from day one on the job. We will end insecurity and exploitation by ending zero-hours contracts and strengthening trade union rights.
Labour will create a National Education Service to provide support and opportunity throughout your life: from Sure Start centres to top-quality early years education; well-funded schools with lower class sizes to free university tuition with no fees; and free lifelong learning, giving you the chance to reskill throughout your life.
Labour will give the NHS the funding it needs, end privatisation, and never let our health service be up for grabs in any trade negotiation. We’ll expand our NHS to offer free prescriptions for all and free basic dentistry, building on its founding principles.
We will end the social care crisis that has left 1.5 million elderly people without the care they need. Labour will fund free personal care for older people and extra care packages.
I’m really worried by the rise in crime – and the fact that the most serious violent crime has risen even further. We will reverse a decade of cuts to police and vital public services that have shown you simply can’t keep people safe on the cheap.
Labour will protect our security at home and abroad. After years of failed foreign interventions and wars, we will end the ‘bomb first, talk later’ approach and instead have a foreign policy based on peace, justice and human rights.
And we will get Brexit sorted in six months by giving people the final say – with a choice between a sensible leave deal or remain. We will implement whatever the British people decide.
The choice could not be clearer at this election. Labour will put wealth and power in the hands of the many. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives will look after the privileged few.
This manifesto offers the chance of real change for every generation and every community. When Labour wins, the nurse wins, the pensioner wins, the student wins, the office worker wins, the engineer wins. We all win.
We can and we must do better as a country. This is our last chance to tackle the climate emergency.
The future is ours to make. It’s time for real change – for the many, not the few. Together, we can deliver it.”
– Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party
