Experts weigh in on key policies from the 2024 General Election Manifestos

We’re almost there. After six long weeks, vot­ers will final­ly go to the polls in an elec­tion that, if polls are to be believed, is some­thing of a fore­gone con­clu­sion. That being said, your vote mat­ters. Indeed in many con­stituen­cies, where the results are on a knife edge it could be the decid­ing vote as to who rep­re­sents you and your inter­ests in Par­lia­ment for the next five years.

For the elec­tion peri­od we’ve been plat­form­ing the sto­ries of those who have been miss­ing from the con­ver­sa­tion in our series ​‘Miss­ing Voic­es’ as well as those who have been organ­is­ing to cre­ate a bet­ter world in our series ​‘Cut Out’. Now, we bring you the key poli­cies on some of the biggest issues fac­ing the coun­try from Green, Labour, Lib­er­al Demo­c­rat and Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty man­i­festos, along with the opin­ions of experts in each field. They’ll set out the good, the bad and the ugly and then will speak on what the poli­cies that they think are need­ed, so who­ev­er your rep­re­sen­ta­tive is come Fri­day, you can bet­ter hold them to account and push them to fight for the change real­ly needed.

The elec­tion of Boris John­son as Prime Min­is­ter in 2019 on a man­date to deliv­er Brex­it, saw an empow­ered anti-immi­gra­tion, pro-Brex­it fac­tion take key posi­tions in the late-stage Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment (par­tic­u­lar­ly Pri­ti Patel as Home Sec­re­tary). With that has come an increas­ing­ly hos­tile envi­ron­ment towards immi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly asy­lum seek­ers, as boat cross­ings across the Eng­lish Chan­nel spiked. The Ille­gal Immi­gra­tion Act 2023, set out pro­vi­sions for the deten­tion and removal of undoc­u­ment­ed migrants liv­ing in the UK who arrived by boat, either to their home coun­try or a ​“safe third coun­try” – Rwan­da. While no one has yet been removed from the UK as a result of it, scan­dals around deten­tion cen­tres includ­ing the Bib­by Stock­holm, Manston and Brook House have seen reports of abuse, unsafe con­di­tions and alleged breach­es of human rights. And it’s not only undoc­u­ment­ed migrants fac­ing the hos­tile envi­ron­ment over the past 14 years – the 2018 Win­drush Scan­dal saw hun­dreds of Black Britons, who had lived in the UK for decades wrong­ly detained and deported.

Much of the Labour man­i­festo focus­es on keep­ing peo­ple out of the UK by increas­ing visa restric­tions, increas­ing bor­der polic­ing, send­ing back ​“failed” asy­lum seek­ers and reduc­ing reliance on for­eign work­ers in sec­tors where they are impor­tant. They are scrap­ping Rwan­da though.

The Tory focus is to cut migra­tion num­bers as much as pos­si­ble, mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to get legit­i­mate visas, and ​“deter” asy­lum seek­ers from attempt­ing to come to the UK by dou­bling down on their Rwan­da pol­i­cy. They will intro­duce a phys­i­cal cap on legal migra­tion, while sign­ing more return deals with oth­er countries.

The Lib Dems are propos­ing a more under­stand­ing approach to asy­lum seek­ing and migra­tion, allow­ing them to work and penal­is­ing traf­fick­ing gangs rather than asy­lum seek­ers them­selves, while uphold­ing the Human Rights Act and scrap­ping Rwan­da plan.

The Greens want to end the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of migra­tion and asy­lum seek­ing, and will break up the Home Office to cre­ate a new Depart­ment for Migra­tion and Depart­ment for Jus­tice. They also plan to make visa and asy­lum appli­ca­tions sim­pler and fair­er, and remove costs that prof­it off of peo­ple mak­ing them.

Migrant rights activist and expert Zoe Gard­ner has giv­en her take on each of the party’s man­i­festo offer­ing over on her Tik­Tok.

“We have seen politi­cians from all par­ties call for change, that’s one thing they agree on. But it’s the sub­stance of that change that mat­ters. We must wel­come peo­ple who seek sanc­tu­ary in the UK, not throw them onto barges or put them in deten­tion cen­tres indef­i­nite­ly. Instead, we should pro­vide hous­ing in our com­mu­ni­ties and the right to work for peo­ple wait­ing for their asy­lum deci­sions. Peo­ple who come to our coun­try should have the right to pub­lic ser­vices so they can feel safe and live with dig­ni­ty. Legal aid has been dec­i­mat­ed, mean­ing those in great­est need have no access to jus­tice. We must restore equal access to jus­tice for all. The next gov­ern­ment must invest in and expand legal aid, so peo­ple have access to free and high-qual­i­ty legal advice. And final­ly, the next gov­ern­ment must re-cen­tre com­mu­ni­ty. There should be an imme­di­ate end to immi­gra­tion raids that rip our com­mu­ni­ties apart. If we start with these basic pol­i­cy changes, we will begin to build a coun­try that treats peo­ple with decen­cy and reaps the ben­e­fits of migration.”

In recent years, police forces – par­tic­u­lar­ly London’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police – have been embroiled in repeat­ed scan­dals. From a serv­ing police offi­cer kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing Sarah Ever­ard, the strip search­ing of a Black 15 year old girl Child Q at school, to an offi­cial report find­ing per­va­sive racism and a ​“cul­ture of misog­y­ny” in Char­ing Cross police sta­tion in 2022. It’s been so bad that in Sep­tem­ber 2023, 1,000 Met Police offi­cers had been sus­pend­ed or put on restrict­ed duties. Mean­while, a glob­al move­ment call­ing for the end of police bru­tal­i­ty against Black peo­ple broke out in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, and put into focus the insti­tu­tion­al racism of polic­ing in the UK. Yet despite the system’s vis­i­ble flaws, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Gov­ern­ment has increas­ing­ly giv­en the police hard­ened pow­ers, with increas­ing use of facial recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy and the abil­i­ty to curb protests with the 2022 Police, Crime and Sen­tenc­ing Act and 2023 Pub­lic Order Act. And those pow­ers have been used – ban­ning Extinc­tion Rebel­lion from protest­ing in 2019, increas­ing­ly aggres­sive action against pro-Pales­tine pro­tes­tors, and arrest­ing 27 Just Stop Oil pro­tes­tors ​“on sus­pi­cion of plan­ning to dis­rupt air­ports this sum­mer” last week.

Labour will increase neigh­bour­hood polic­ing, while focus­ing on tar­get­ing seri­ous youth vio­lence with pre­ven­tion plans for young peo­ple caught with knives and ban­ning sale of machetes, swords and big blades. They will also cre­ate spe­cial­ist rape and sex­u­al offence teams in police forces, and intro­duce ​“Respect Orders” to tack­le pub­lic drink­ing and drug use – sound like ASBOs?

Tories will focus on heavy-hand­ed polic­ing, increas­ing num­bers and giv­ing them more pow­ers and more resource to incar­cer­ate peo­ple with more pris­ons. They will also dou­ble down on their attacks on the right to protest, giv­ing police more pow­er to pre­vent them in the first place, while ban­ning acts of protest (pyrotech­nics, climb­ing on war memorials).

The Lib­er­al Democ­rats focus on invest­ing in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, from com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and the courts, while focus­ing on reha­bil­i­ta­tion in and after time spent in prison. They will also scrap Con­ser­v­a­tive anti-protest laws and facial recognition.

The Greens aim to end oppres­sive polic­ing struc­tures – ban­ning facial recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy and stop & search – while focus­ing on pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures for crimes with greater youth fund­ing and diver­sion pro­grammes rather than imprisonment.

“The par­ties’ man­i­festos seek to address the crises with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and more broad­ly some of the social jus­tice issues that feed into and off it, in very dif­fer­ent ways. The Con­ser­v­a­tives’ approach of increas­ing polic­ing pow­ers and crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of protest is no dif­fer­ent to what has been enrolled over the past few years. Rather than alle­vi­ate the crises, it’s like­ly wors­en it, by deep­en­ing the already exis­tent divi­sions in soci­ety and encour­age more overt form of protest. Their sup­port for facial recog­ni­tion is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern, giv­en the mul­ti­ple stud­ies demon­strat­ing the racial bias that under­pins it. More promis­ing is the pro­posed invest­ing in reha­bil­i­ta­tive ser­vices, echoed by the Lib Dems and Greens man­i­festos, but sur­pris­ing­ly not Labour. In terms of pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures, the lat­ter touch­es on the need for youth work­ers and men­tors placed in the com­mu­ni­ty but fails to go fur­ther than this. Instead, Labour backs, inter alia, the intro­duc­tion of fur­ther offences and sen­tenc­ing review, and reform­ing how domes­tic abuse and rape cas­es are dealt with, yet falling short of any much need­ed fund­ing pledge. In stark oppo­si­tion to the main two par­ties, the Greens and Lib Dems agree on scrap­ping anti-protest laws and facial recog­ni­tion soft­ware. The Lib Dems are the only par­ty to explic­it­ly acknowl­edge the back­log of court cas­es and pledg­ing much need­ed invest­ment into the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem, where­as the Greens are the only ones to pro­pose the decrim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of drugs and diver­sion pro­grammes over incar­cer­a­tion. The last two poli­cies com­bines no doubt would have a huge impact on the pres­sures faced by the CJS, includ­ing the prison crises.

The Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem is fac­ing enor­mous pres­sure from all angles. There is a des­per­ate need for invest­ment into legal aid to stop legal aid lawyers leav­ing the pro­fes­sion and improve access to jus­tice. The Court build­ings are crum­bling, and with­out more funds reserved for the Courts and their staff there is no hope to resolve the long stand­ing back­logs which affect defen­dants and vic­tims alike. The usu­al approach around increased crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and polic­ing pow­ers, includ­ing con­tro­ver­sial tech­nol­o­gy is part of the prob­lem, not the solu­tion. It’s time that those in pow­er change their approach around deal­ing with offend­ers and pub­lic order by focus­ing on invest­ments that will pre­vent peo­ple from offend­ing, not pun­ish­ment. With regards to protest, the intro­duc­tion of increas­ing­ly dra­con­ian leg­isla­tive pow­ers has done noth­ing to reduce it. Instead they have shown how eas­i­ly democ­ra­cy can be inter­fered with for the sake of pro­tect­ing the inter­ests of the few who hold power.”

As each day goes by, the cli­mate cri­sis iswors­en­ing. In 2022, Pak­istan was hit by dead­ly unprece­dent­ed flood­ing, Aus­tralia saw 24 mil­lion hectares (the size of the UK) of wildlife burnt through in 2019/2020, and in the Philip­pines, super typhoons have become sev­en times more like­ly than in the six years before 2022. Clos­er to home, com­mu­ni­ties in Nor­folk are watch­ing their homes crum­ble into the sea. With war in Ukraine and a rise in demand for ener­gy as the world began to recov­er from the COVID-19 lock­downs, glob­al ener­gy prices soared. It caused a cost of liv­ing cri­sis in the UK and pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment to make reach­ing net zero a cul­ture war issue, as Rishi Sunak scaled back on the government’s tar­gets in 2023 – vow­ing to ​“max out” oil reserves in the North Sea and announc­ing a plan to issue over 100 new licences.

With­out nation­al­is­ing the whole ener­gy indus­try, Labour will set up a pub­licly owned com­pa­ny Great British Ener­gy, which will aim to dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase renew­able ener­gy by 2030, reduce car­bon, increase jobs and estab­lish ​“ener­gy inde­pen­dence”. They will also force water com­pa­nies to clean up the rivers.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives will issue North Sea licences and increase nuclear out­put, while hop­ing car­bon cap­ture tech­nol­o­gy can help curb the cli­mate cri­sis. There will be green ener­gy invest­ment, but most­ly only in off­shore wind, while mak­ing onshore wind and solar more dif­fi­cult to build/​implement.

The Lib Dem focus is on reduc­ing pol­lu­tion through sewage in rivers, while pro­tect­ing and increas­ing nature through plant­i­ng mil­lions of trees as a means of reach­ing net zero. Lack­ing on renew­able ener­gy solu­tions though.

The Greens want to accel­er­ate move to net zero by increas­ing tax­es on fos­sil fuels and increas­ing invest­ment in renew­ables. Ener­gy secu­ri­ty would be gained by increas­ing ener­gy stor­age capac­i­ty, and they will also nation­alise water companies

“The par­ties are sur­pris­ing­ly qui­et on tack­ling pover­ty and the cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis and par­tic­u­lar­ly on its main dri­ver, ener­gy bills. Bills will rise again this win­ter but none of the par­ties have put any mon­ey, or oth­er short-term solu­tions, on the table. To tack­le ener­gy pover­ty and build sup­port for the green tran­si­tion we need urgent reform so that all house­holds can feel the ​‘green div­i­dend’ pro­vid­ed by cheap renew­able ener­gy direct­ly in their pock­ets. At NEF we’re call­ing for a Nation­al Ener­gy Guar­an­tee which would pro­vide every house­hold with a free, or very cheap, block of ener­gy cov­er­ing their essen­tial needs. This would pro­vide a safe­ty net for all and a reward for our nation­al invest­ment in cheap renew­ables. Fund­ing for the scheme could be topped up through a prop­er wind­fall tax on fos­sil fuel prof­its, and by charg­ing high­er con­sumers, typ­i­cal­ly the wealth­i­est, for a pre­mi­um on excess con­sump­tion. This pre­mi­um tar­iff would also help keep con­sump­tion down and incen­tivise well-off house­holds to invest in ener­gy efficiency.”

“The man­i­festos are a mixed bag on cli­mate. Unsur­pris­ing­ly the Con­ser­v­a­tive man­i­festo is weak­est and demon­strates their con­tin­ued lack of abil­i­ty to join up the cli­mate and cost of liv­ing cri­sis and find solu­tions that meet either or both of them . The Con­ser­v­a­tives, Labour and the Democ­rats are all in some form still pur­su­ing North sea oil and gas extrac­tion. Lib Dems and Con­ser­v­a­tives by con­tin­u­ing to push for dan­ger­ous unnec­es­sary new licens­es and Labour fail­ing to revoke the exist­ing ones. Lib­er­al Democ­rats and Labour have good com­mit­ments to meet our inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate tar­gets but are not ful­ly lay­ing out the plans, or most impor­tant­ly the spend­ing, need­ed to get us there. Scor­ing done by Green­peace and Friends the Earth puts the Green Par­ty resound­ing­ly on top on cli­mate and also on nature. One of the most robust pledges from their man­i­festo is the com­mit­ment to a wealth tax — ensur­ing that the fund­ing tran­si­tion to a more jus­tice based ener­gy sys­tem both here and inter­na­tion­al­ly would be paid for by those with extreme wealth and who can actu­al­ly afford to pay for it. To clar­i­fy we’re talk­ing about scrap­ing off the top per­cent­age of wealth from bil­lion­aires rather than high­er tax­es for doc­tors etc. We’re expect­ing a Labour major­i­ty to come to pow­er and the par­ty have tru­ly set them­selves up for fail­ure with their own fis­cal rules. They’re going to have to back­track to make any progress on cli­mate action or reliv­ing the cost of liv­ing, and a wealth tax is an obvi­ous way for them to unlock huge amounts of mon­ey with­out fur­ther imped­ing on ordi­nary people.”

“Trans rights are human rights”. It should go with­out say­ing, but more and more, the exis­tence of trans women in par­tic­u­lar is being placed in direct oppo­si­tion to cis women, in what is prob­a­bly the most tox­ic of cul­ture wars. It’s a so-called debate that has fil­tered into sports, hos­pi­tals, and at its low­est, toi­lets. Talk of bio­log­i­cal sex has seen dis­course from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum over ​“large gametes”, Rishi Sunak mak­ing a joke about ​“the def­i­n­i­tion of a woman” at Prime Minister’s Ques­tions as mur­dered trans teenag­er Bri­an­na Ghey’s moth­er vis­it­ed Par­lia­ment, while Keir Starmer yes­ter­day said that trans women do not have the right to use women only spaces, even if they have a gen­der recog­ni­tion cer­tifi­cate. The result has been record lev­els of hate crimes report­ed against trans­gen­der peo­ple, with folk being five times more like­ly to suf­fer with men­tal health con­di­tions than cis people.

Labour have flip-flopped on their sup­port for trans peo­ple, with a man­i­festo that argues for their recog­ni­tion, yet pub­licly argu­ing that trans peo­ple do not have the right to use women only spaces, and that trans peo­ple in hos­pi­tals should be treat­ed in ​“side rooms”.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives are dou­bling down on their lack of recog­ni­tion for trans peo­ple and chil­dren, which they will enshrine in law in the Equal­i­ty Act.

The Lib Dems pledge to sup­port trans peo­ple and affirm­ing their iden­ti­ties. They also pledge to ban con­ver­sion therapy.

The Greens will give trans peo­ple more legal ways to express and live their iden­ti­ties, includ­ing on their passports.

“Mer­maids, along with the rest of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty, are extreme­ly con­cerned about right-wing par­ty poli­cies with a clear anti-trans agen­da. Pro­pos­al to change the Equal­i­ty Act to rede­fine sex as bio­log­i­cal sex, risks strip­ping trans peo­ple of their hard-won rights and pro­tec­tions, and will sub­se­quent­ly legit­imise the dis­crim­i­na­tion and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty. Pro­posed RSHE and trans school guid­ance fails to reflect best prac­tice accord­ing to inclu­sive edu­ca­tors, sup­port­ive par­ents, and trans young peo­ple them­selves, and will place trans and non-bina­ry young peo­ple direct­ly in har­m’s way.

We wel­come par­ty poli­cies that treat trans peo­ple with dig­ni­ty and respect. This includes enact­ing poli­cies that enable trans peo­ple to exer­cise auton­o­my over their own deci­sions and author­i­ty over their own lives. The trans youth man­i­festo, which we pub­lished in June, out­lines what young peo­ple need from their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives: they want to feel safe, wel­come and pro­tect­ed, and to live in a world where they are cel­e­brat­ed, not debated.”

Tried to rent a flat recent­ly? Inter­viewed for a £1,000 a month box room while in com­pe­ti­tion with 20 oth­ers? Put in an offer only to find out it was already gone? The UK’s hous­ing sys­tem is utter­ly bro­ken. Aver­age rents rose by 9 per cent last year as years of neglect­ing to build afford­able homes, Right to Buy erod­ing the stock of social hous­ing each year since 1981, and next to no pro­tec­tions for renters has left gen­er­a­tions with no means to ever gain hous­ing secu­ri­ty. Mean­while for home­own­ers, the UK’s soar­ing infla­tion has seen inter­est rates and mort­gage pay­ments rise (some as high as 50 per cent) and hous­ing providers hik­ing ser­vice fees for those on shared own­er­ship schemes. The sit­u­a­tion has left many unable to afford hous­ing, and home­less­ness rose by 14 per cent over the course of 2023.

Labour plan to build more homes and social homes and increase pro­tec­tions for renters by end­ing Sec­tion 21 and giv­ing them more pow­er to con­test rent hikes. They will also focus on tack­ling lease­holds and work with coun­cils to end homelessness.

While abol­ish­ing Sec­tion 21, Con­ser­v­a­tives will empow­er land­lords by giv­ing them more pow­ers to evict ten­ants on ​“anti-social” grounds. They will encour­age more homes in dense urban areas, rather than the coun­try­side while also tar­get­ing travellers.

Lib­er­al Democ­rats will­increase build­ing of new homes, with a focus on social homes, while also giv­ing local author­i­ties the pow­er to scrap the Right to Buy and abol­ish­ing Sec­tion 21 no-fault evic­tions. They will also scrap the Vagrancy Act and aim to end rough sleeping.

The Greens plan to scrap Sec­tion 21 and Right to Buy, as well as build an exten­sive num­ber of social homes a year. New homes will be made to fit green reg­u­la­tions and they will encour­age rent con­trol from local authorities.

“All of the major polit­i­cal par­ties under­stand that rent­ing in this coun­try is bro­ken and have pledged – to vary­ing degrees – reform intend­ing to improve ten­ants’ sit­u­a­tions. The Con­ser­v­a­tives, Labour, the Lib­er­al Democ­rats and the Greens have all promised to abol­ish arbi­trary Sec­tion 21 no-fault evic­tions, but it is worth not­ing that this was the case in 2019 as well and the gov­ern­ment failed to deliv­er. The next gov­ern­ment can­not repeat that mis­take; Labour’s pledge for an ​“imme­di­ate” abo­li­tion is wel­come but must become the real­i­ty if they were to win the election. 

“Too many of us are forced out of our homes by unaf­ford­able rent ris­es so any new pro­tec­tions must stop the free-for-all that allows land­lords to push rents up faster than ten­ants’ wages. Labour has promised to enable ten­ants to ​“chal­lenge unrea­son­able rent increas­es”. The par­ty’s mes­sag­ing around the issue has focused on bol­ster­ing rights in the courts to chal­lenge an increase, with­out spec­i­fy­ing how high that increase can be. In order to suf­fi­cient­ly slam the brakes on soar­ing rents, there must be a lim­it on rent increas­es pegged to the low­er of wage growth or inflation.”

“We have 4 key poli­cies we want the next gov­ern­ment to intro­duce. First­ly, pub­lic invest­ment in a mas­sive pub­lic house build­ing pro­gramme. We need 3.1 mil­lion coun­cil homes over the next 20 years, and we want them to be pub­licly owned. Oth­er poli­cies can tin­ker around the edges and make some expe­ri­ences bet­ter for cer­tain groups, but with­out a seri­ous com­mit­ment to build­ing coun­cil homes and end­ing the right to buy, we won’t arrive at a place where every­one has a place to call home. Sec­ond­ly, we want the next gov­ern­ment to imple­ment rent con­trols in the pri­vate sec­tor, and are call­ing for an inquiry to be launched into the best method and mod­el for the UK. High rents are dri­ving down liv­ing stan­dards and frag­ment­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Third­ly, we want every­one, regard­less of tenure, to have a safe and decent place to call home. Stan­dards need to be raised across the board, but cru­cial­ly, local author­i­ties and nation­al reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies need to be resourced to enforce the new rules. In many cities, local author­i­ties are bare­ly able to scratch the sur­face of the issues because they don’t have the staff — there’s no point in hav­ing a rule you can’t enforce. It must be more cost­ly for land­lords and hous­ing providers to ignore dis­re­pair than it is to fix it. Final­ly, we must end unfair evic­tions by scrap­ping Sec­tion 21 and ensur­ing new laws only allow for land­lords to evict ten­ants in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances. Who­ev­er wins, we will con­tin­ue to fight for these changes and for safe, secure and afford­able hous­ing for all.”

While the Tories tri­umphant­ly pat them­selves on the back for reduc­ing infla­tion, we are still worse off than we were two years ago. The cost of liv­ing cri­sis is not over, and for many, con­tin­ues to wors­en. At the same time the rich­est in the UK con­tin­ue to get rich­er, while the emer­gence of AI threat­ens to take away the liveli­hoods of mil­lions. The result has seen the high­est num­ber of work­ing days lost in Decem­ber 2023 since the 80s and an unprece­dent­ed joint walk­out from NHS con­sul­tants and junior doc­tors in Sep­tem­ber. In response, the Con­ser­v­a­tives have intro­duced the Strikes (Min­i­mum Ser­vice Lev­els) Act, which imple­ments lev­els of ser­vice that need to be reached dur­ing strike action in a move to lim­it their impacts. The past few years have also seen the emer­gence of the gig econ­o­my, with the likes of Uber and Deliv­eroo giv­ing many oppor­tu­ni­ties for work and income, but with lit­tle to no pro­tec­tions and pay sta­bil­i­ty typ­i­cal­ly afford­ed to work­ers, while Ama­zon work­ers have alleged that their toi­let breaks are timed. It’s seen new forms of indus­tri­al action emerge as take­away dri­vers took strike action, while Ama­zon has been embroiled in a bat­tle with its work­ers over unionisation.

Labour are aim­ing to give work­ers more pro­tec­tions and rights by end­ing zero hours con­tracts, fire and rehire, min­i­mum wage age bands, and intro­duc­ing day one rights to parental leave, sick pay and pro­tec­tion from unfair dismissal.

The Tories aim to cut nation­al insur­ance as a means of giv­ing work­ers some­thing, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly cut­ting ben­e­fits (specif­i­cal­ly dis­abil­i­ty), while intro­duc­ing nation­al ser­vice is the manifesto’s tent­pole policy.

Lib­er­al Democ­rats pledge to give gig econ­o­my and free­lance work­ers more pro­tec­tions, while increas­ing wel­fare safe­ty net – abol­ish­ing the two child cap and increas­ing uni­ver­sal credit.

The Greens will intro­duce a gen­uine liv­able min­i­mum wage at £15 an hour, while giv­ing zero hours and gig econ­o­my work­ers the same rights as ful­ly employed. They will also push for a (not mas­sive) tax on extreme wealth while increas­ing ben­e­fits. The par­ty also have pos­si­bly the most rad­i­cal pol­i­cy with a 10:1 pay ratio for pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor com­pa­nies, mean­ing no one in a com­pa­ny can earn more than 10 times the low­est earn­ing worker.

“As pre­dict­ed, Labour’s man­i­festo lacks any kind of trans­for­ma­tive agen­da that would help actu­al­ly change the lives of work­ing peo­ple. The water­ing down of poli­cies, such as the change from ban­ning zero hours con­tracts to ban­ning ​“exploita­tive” zero hours con­tracts, leaves loop­holes open for employ­ers to exploit the most vul­ner­a­ble. Sad­ly, due to Labour’s eager­ness to appease busi­ness­es such as Deliv­eroo and Ama­zon, it seems as if some of the most exploita­tive forms of work will be allowed to flour­ish, and it once again falls on work­ers them­selves to com­bat these practices.

As a union that has rep­re­sent­ed pre­car­i­ous work­ers who have been neglect­ed by gov­ern­ments and the law for so long, we know the impor­tance of mak­ing change through grass­roots organ­is­ing, rather than rely­ing pure­ly on elec­tions or advo­ca­cy. If Labour were seri­ous about improv­ing the lives of the work­ing peo­ple they would begin to dis­man­tle the var­i­ous obsta­cles to build­ing work­er pow­er, repeal­ing anti-union and anti-protest laws, remov­ing the trade union levy, mak­ing it eas­i­er for work­ers to strike and exer­cise their demo­c­ra­t­ic rights, and end­ing the demon­i­sa­tion and per­se­cu­tion of migrant and undoc­u­ment­ed workers.”

The Geno­cide in Gaza con­tin­ues to dev­as­tate mil­lions in the Strip. The death toll stands at over 37,000, near­ly 80,000 injured, while sewage and hos­pi­tal infra­struc­ture has been com­plete­ly razed. Israel’s ​“right to self-defence” has been a con­sis­tent theme from British politi­cians, with Rishi Sunak con­tin­u­ing to ped­dle the line even after British aid work­ers were killed in an Israeli air strike, while Keir Starmer told LBC that Israel had the right to with­hold pow­er and water from civil­ians in the Gaza Strip. In the face of it, a glob­al Boy­cott, Divest­ment and Sanc­tions move­ment has emerged, which saw bands pull out of fes­ti­vals over spon­sor­ships linked to arms sales to Israel while McDonald’s share prices fell by 4 per cent after the retailer’s Israeli fran­chise said that it had giv­en away free meals to the country’s mil­i­tary. Mean­while 15 Nation­al March­es for Pales­tine have seen mil­lions take to the streets since Octo­ber 7 and a May poll showed 73 per cent of Brits sup­port­ed an imme­di­ate cease­fire – a stark gap between pub­lic and politi­cian opinion.

“Over the last 9 months we have been wit­ness to more deprav­i­ty than the human heart can bear. Atroc­i­ty upon atroc­i­ty, aid­ed and abet­ted by a gov­ern­ment that has — at best — cho­sen to look the oth­er way when con­front­ed with geno­cide. Come the morn­ing of July 5^th, who­ev­er forms the next gov­ern­ment will have a real chance to make change.

Labour, the Lib­er­al Democ­rats, and the Greens have all com­mit­ted to an imme­di­ate cease­fire and hostage deal in their man­i­festos, but with ICC and ICJ rul­ings like­ly years away Labour’s refusal to end arms licens­es to Israel with­out the court rul­ing on crimes leaves vot­ers ask­ing whether their com­mit­ment to a ​‘renewed peace process’ is mere­ly lip ser­vice.

We have reached the Israel-Pales­tine event hori­zon; the delib­er­ate stok­ing of divi­sion between Jew­ish and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties, dra­con­ian anti-protest laws, the dog­mat­ic cling­ing to IHRA’s frankly dan­ger­ous def­i­n­i­tion of anti­semitism — con­flat­ing the Israeli state with Jew­ish peo­ple broad­ly — have all failed to slow this movement’s momen­tum. Vot­ers con­tin­ue to feel betrayed by poli­cies which place the prof­its of arms man­u­fac­tur­ers above human life, despite pub­lic opin­ion being over­whelm­ing­ly in favour of a ceasefire.Our next gov­ern­ment must com­mit to end­ing not only this geno­cide, but the con­di­tions which have foment­ed it: an end to Israeli apartheid, and end to occu­pa­tion, an end to the last 76 years of horror.”

Read more Huck Elec­tion con­tent here.

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