Jeremy Corbyn admitted his plans will be dismissed as ‘impossible’ today as he prepares to unveil a manifesto to splurge hundreds of billions of pounds on nationalisation and new council houses.
The Labour leader is trying to kick-start his stuttering campaign by launching the ‘radical and ambitious’ hard-Left programme in Birmingham.
He will vow to spend £75billion on new council houses, as well as a huge scheme to bring sections of the economy back into state ownership. Huge chunks of BT will be nationalised to provide free broadband for everyone, a move experts says would cost £100billion by itself.
Labour will insist it wants to introduce a four-day working week, as well as bolstering the powers of unions.
But Mr Corbyn will insist that his massive agenda can be financed by hiking taxes solely for the top 5 per cent of earners and big companies.
The announcements come as polls suggest Labour is still trailing a long way behind the Tories with just three weeks to go until the election.
Shadow frontbenchers told MailOnline it has been ‘hard pounding’ canvassing on the doorstep in Leave-leaning Northern constituencies – where Boris Johnson is hoping to make inroads.
A YouGov survey has suggested there is also significant scepticism about the party’s ability to deliver on its bold promises, with just 13 per cent saying they believe the four-day working week will happen.
Jeremy Corbyn pictured arriving for the Lavour manifesto launch in Birmingham today
Labour is trying to kick-start its stuttering campaign by unveiling the ‘radical and ambitious’ hard-Left programme
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell (left) has been masterminding the radical nationalisation programme. Boris Johnson (right) has dismissed many of the policies as ‘crackpot’
Revealing his manifesto later, the Labour leader will compare himself to post-war US president Franklin Roosevelt – saying he is ready for it to be attacked by the rich and powerful.
The centrepiece of his ‘class-war’ election blueprint will be the largest council housebuilding programme since the days of Clement Attlee just after the Second World War.
The ‘housing revolution’ will fund the construction of 100,000 council houses a year within five years, together with another 50,000 affordable homes for rent.
But the proposals have raised alarm about concreting over acres of green belt, while the respected IFS think-tank warned that it would merely prevent new homes being built in the private sector.
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner conceded this morning that there are not currently enough skilled workers to build the homes – but she dismissed the idea that it could not happen in the next Parliament.
She also insisted it ‘doesn’t matter’ that Mr Corbyn is refusing to say whether he wants the UK to leave the EU or not.
Labour is also expected to announce it will axe the right-to-buy policy that helps tenants buy their council houses at a discount, according to The Daily Telegraph.
A source said: ‘We’ve got to halt it, otherwise it’s going to be like filling a bucket with a hole in it. That’s part of the proposition.’
The housing announcement is a key plank of the most Left-wing Labour manifesto since Michael Foot’s ‘suicide note’ of 1983.
Mr Corbyn’s policy plans will include:
- Nationalising huge chunks of BT – and potentially Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Sky – to provide free broadband in a move experts believe will cost over £100billion. Rail companies, the Royal Mail, water firms, and the power grid would also be brought into public ownership.
- A massive increase in trade union power, including a return to collective bargaining, Workers will have to make up at least a third of the board on companies;
- Plans to snatch shares from big firms and crack down on excessive executive pay, with a £350,000 cap on salaries for top executives at firms with public sector contracts
- Higher taxes for almost two million people earning more than £80,000 a year, and a windfall tax on oil firms;
- A renegotiation of the Brexit deal, which would be put to a second referendum within six months – against the option of Remain. But Mr Corbyn has dodged saying whether he would back his own deal in that national ballot.
Launching his manifesto in Birmingham, Mr Corbyn will say that he accepts ‘the hostility of the rich and powerful is inevitable’ because Labour is ‘on your side’.
‘They know we will deliver our plans, which is why they want to stop us being elected,’ he will say. ‘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. So I accept the implacable opposition and hostility of the rich and powerful is inevitable.
‘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. That’s real change.’
He will add: ‘You can trust us to do all this because we’re opposed by the vested interests for standing up for a different kind of society. We’ll deliver real change for the many, and not the few.’
Labour’s housebuilding programme will be paid for with funding from a new ‘social transformation fund’. Labour says the new homes will be built to the highest design and environmental standards.
Housing spokesman John Healey said: ‘The next Labour government will kick-start a housing revolution, with the biggest investment in new council and social homes this country has seen for decades.
‘Labour’s transformational housing plans will mean thousands more genuinely affordable homes for people on ordinary incomes in every area of the country.’
The Tories said the last Labour government had ‘decimated’ social housing.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said: ‘Under the Conservatives we’ve delivered 450,000 affordable homes, increased housing supply to its highest level for almost 30 years and increased housebuilding by 93 per cent in the last six years.
‘We’ve committed £9billion to deliver a further quarter of a million more affordable new homes whilst continuing to build more homes.’
Ms Rayner said it ‘doesn’t matter’ whether Mr Corbyn would support Leave or Remain in another referendum.
Pushed on which side Mr Corbyn would support, she said: ‘Well, I can’t tell you what’s in the manifesto.’
Ms Rayner added: ‘Jeremy stands on the side of the people.’ She continued: ‘That’s the important thing, it’s that people understand that we’re respecting that they have the final say.
‘It doesn’t matter what Jeremy Corbyn votes or not, it matters what he’s going to do for the country, and he’s going to make sure that he delivers for the people of this country and they get the say.’
Dr Kristian Niemietz, of the right-leaning Institute of Economic Affairs, said: ‘There is no specific shortage of social housing in the UK, rather a shortage of inexpensive housing in all forms.
‘Parties should reform our planning system and make sensible tax changes, which would strengthen incentives for local authorities to permit development.’
Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said: ‘Labour’s plan would be transformational for housing.
‘A pledge to build social homes at this scale would, if implemented, do more than any other single measure to end the housing emergency.’