Thoughts on Labour's manifesto

Introduction.

Spending commitments.
Addressing climate change. Broadband as modern infrastructure investment. Education for life. Regressive policies. Where is the welfare system?

Raising revenue.

95% is a good and untruthful line. Corporate tax. Worker’s shares policy is a second corporate tax. The average citizen and tax.

Issues of personal interest.

Brexit policy. Council tax. Trust on foreign policy. Paternity leave.

Conclusion.

Introduction.

The 2019 Labour manifesto has been met with the support of 160 economists and the adoration of the party rank and file. It is a bold document designed to attack - and attack hard - in order to make up the current gap in the polls between Labour and the Conservatives. Contrast this with the Conservatives, who have chosen to put out a manifesto sparse on content and detail, presumably hoping to ride their current lead through to December 12th. 

While the manifesto is clearly radical in the rate of spending increases it proposes, and the pledges on infrastructure investment and the climate are extremely positive, praise for it must be qualified. Some have expressed concerns that the speed at which the party wants to increase investment is simply not possible, since there just aren’t the numbers of unemployed workers with the necessary skills available. More damningly, there is woefully little on in-work benefits, despite the party’s repeated focus on in-work poverty; there is little to make local councils cheer; and its claims regarding revenue raising seem questionable and in parts disingenuous. It includes policies that sound great from a podium, but are actually regressive and represent a blatant appeal to particular groups without much concern about the distributional consequences. What should be singled out for nearly unqualified praise, however, is the party’s Brexit policy, which is the position on offer that is most likely to begin the process of healing in our country.

This post is lengthy, as one would expect given the subject. It is of course by no means comprehensive - it is not possible to have well-thought out positions on every topic in British politics, let alone be able to put those thoughts in one reasonably sized document. I’m neither a pundit nor a politician, but an ordinary voter, so I’ve perhaps asked for far more of the reader’s time than is reasonable, but nevertheless an account of an ordinary voter’s thoughts on a manifesto seem important enough to be written down somewhere. I have aimed to comment only on what is in the Labour manifesto, and not on comments that politicians have made outside of it, with two exceptions: Corbyn’s statement that he would remain neutral in a second referendum, and in a discussion of the extent to which the manifesto pledges on defense policy are pledges which voters can rely on.

Spending commitments.

Addressing climate change.

We have recently heard from climate experts that there’s a significant chance that the Earth has already passed tipping points for the global climate. Researchers suggest that much of Teesside - the area I call home - will be underwater in a little over thirty years. We should be angry, we should be afraid, and we should be acting. 

The Labour manifesto opens with a full section dedicated to the environment and Labour’s take on a ‘green new deal,’ which is a very promising development and implies that tackling climate change is a number one priority. There is little said about adaptation beyond improving flood protection, which is unfortunate; we must admit that we have failed to prevent at least some amount of climate emergency. Furthermore, there is a limit to what a single country can do to prevent serious climate change. The UK has consistently seen its emissions (even when including carbon leakage) go down - yet world emissions have gone up. Given this, and the warning from climate scientists on Wednesday, it is time for parties to seriously consider what changes in infrastructure and organisation are needed to prepare the UK for a world with some exposure to a climate crisis. However,the absence of such a discussion is unsurprising - all parties are unwilling to discuss this area in what may be seen in a fatalistic way, which is most likely electorally smart. Given the extensive plans for mitigation that the party has presented, it would be unfair to use this as a litmus test for the sincerity of the party’s commitment to tackle and handle climate change.

The mitigation strategies included are comprehensive, with welcome policies on food production and land use, transport, tree planting and nature restoration, and investment priorities. Particularly welcome are the policies to restart state funding of tidal wave energy production in Wales, and McDonnell’s plan to delist companies that are failing to tackle climate change from the London Stock Exchange (LSE). 

The former policy addresses projects for which the Conservative government has withdrawn funding, citing problems with the return on the investment. This objection misses the point. The cost of inaction is incalculable; the need to switch power generation to sustainable models is urgent. The Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project is a pioneering technology, which goes some way to explaining the high cost, and we should bear in mind that the completion of this project will reduce the cost of similar future projects. More than this, it is a transition we can’t choose to not make. The threat is existential, and if the upfront costs of challenging it are high, then we need to figure out how to pay for them.

Similarly, the threat to delist companies that do not do their part to address climate change is radical but sensible. There is only so much a government is able to do through its own action, and most economic activity is private. It is therefore incumbent on companies to take action in the fight against climate change, and it is reasonable to say that a requirement to be listed in the UK should be to take responsibility for this existential threat. One may have concerns regarding the effect on UK growth as high productivity companies retreat from the LSE, but we can no longer sacrifice the climate for growth. Examples such as Sweden have shown that the economy can be decoupled from greenhouse gas emissions, and hence that growth can be achieved sustainably. Continued growth in living standards can only be achieved sustainably, for any other method of growth will have unacceptable consequences that will be felt by everyone in a not-too-distant future. Even ignoring this, a fear of such flight from the LSE is easily overstated. London will continue to be a strong attractor for publicly traded companies. The UK’s long run economy is strong, and London’s banking hub is massive. One can only hope that other countries would take the example given by the UK and implement similar policies, further reducing the potential for lost growth, as companies lose the option to pursue unsustainable methods of production in more and more countries.

The manifesto proposes a great number of domestic efforts the country can make to play our role in climate change mitigation, but we must also think wider. The manifesto comes tantalisingly close to pledging to introduce carbon border adjustments. The intention of this is to prevent carbon leakage - the phenomenon whereby countries that impose high carbon prices simply import carbon intensive products from countries with low carbon prices. Carbon adjustments would address this by imposing a tariff such that the importer pays the same carbon price as if the product had been produced in the UK. The manifesto acknowledges the problem of carbon leakage, and while it does not advocate carbon border adjustments, it pledges a review into measures to address carbon leakage - an area that has, until now, been ignored in UK political discourse. By and large, the Labour manifesto is extremely positive on the issue of climate change.

Broadband as modern infrastructure investment.

At first glance, the policy to provide free broadband to all seems to be an offer of bread and circuses, and indeed some focus groups suggest that this is exactly how some voters perceive it. This plays into a justified concern of Labour’s priorities that first arose during the 2017 election, when the party committed to ending tuition fees but maintaining the benefits freeze. 

The objection to the broadband policy is not unreasonable and was perhaps exacerbated by the party’s presentation of the policy, but ultimately the pledge represents a very reasonable, modern infrastructure investment that has a very good analogy with road building, and in particular with HS2.

Much like road building, this spending would entail a high upfront cost followed by relatively small marginal costs, and so, like road use, we would not expect a direct charge for usage by an individual or business. The upfront cost of each investment is justified morally by the expectation that the public is able to easily move around the country, and economically by the growth in productivity that greater connectivity provides. In the case of full coverage of fibre-to-premises broadband, Open Reach estimates a £59 billion boost to UK productivity, and a £740 million boost to online sales. 

The party’s intention is to begin rollout in rural areas, then towns, and finally urban centers. This is a sensible way to proceed. It is vital that the government addresses rural areas which have been left behind in this area (as in so many others), and denied the opportunities to increase living standards and to boost their economies. While it is possibly the case that the cost-benefit analysis would not support extension into urban centers, this is of no grave consequence to the policy, as the government would simply be able to change course while still having improved broadband coverage in areas that need it most.

However, the policy is not entirely positive. As the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review suggests, we should be concerned that a monopoly on broadband could eliminate the competition that is so vital in driving innovation.  Far better would be the use of public competitive enterprise - establishing a state-owned entity to compete with private companies on broadband provision. By providing quality free broadband, private companies would by necessity have to improve their service to compete or fade out of the market. In turn, the existence of these private companies should provide an upward pressure on the quality of the state-owned enterprise. In either situation, the consumer benefits. In the current policy - that of part nationalising BT - this upward pressure does not exist, and we risk the standards of broadband services declining across the UK.

Further, it does seem somewhat strange to offer a free broadband services to households that are not at all struggling with broadband fees. A means-tested fee seems like a reasonable remedy to this, but may be costly and cumbersome to implement. An alternative could be a slight increase in income tax rates to pay for this policy, as this is already a progressive tax (in the sense that higher earners contribute a higher proportion of their income). Of course, this would contradict Labour’s somewhat dubious claim that only the 5% of highest earners will see tax increases - but this is a line that Labour should quickly abandon, as we shall discuss later. 

Education for life.

Provided the funding exists, Labour’s policy regarding education for life is the ideal retraining policy. If we are to reap the benefits of a more globalised economy, we must acknowledge that this is due to ‘creative destruction,’ whereby less competitive firms are forced to close due to competition from more competitive firms. This means not only job losses, but the loss of industries in which former workers are likely to have specialised their labour. Retraining, at any point in one’s life, is essential for all to share in prosperity. More than this, to provide everyone with the best opportunity of living their most fulfilling life, we need to allow people to change course and learn new skills, and re-enter education when their current occupation is no longer satisfying. There is both a moral and a distributional case for this policy, in addition to its aggregate effects on the UK economy. Such a policy would create a much more well-trained labour force and would massively reduce labour frictions, thereby increasing productivity - particularly productivity in high-skilled industries - allowing real wages to rise, and reducing unemployment. Everyone in the UK would benefit from this scheme, be it directly or indirectly, and even if it is not fully implementable within the next Parliament, it should remain a goal for successive governments.

Regressive policies.

The term “student loan” invites thoughts of a repayment scheme that is unconnected to income and imposes an unwelcome burden to the payee. As it is, the payment of student loans is effectively a 9% tax on annual income above £25,000 that is capped both by the value of the student loan, and by time, with the ‘debt’ being written off after thirty years. It is not a debt analogous to conventional debt, and to conceive of it as such is unhelpful. Because of this structure, abolishing tuition fees is essentially a tax break for high earning graduates.

The motivating principle of the current structure is that those who have financially benefited from higher education contribute to paying the cost of this investment, whereas those who have not  - either because their degree did not lead to a high paying job or because they did not attend a higher education institution - do not. Figures regarding low rates of repayment are often cited as evidence that the system is failing; rather, it is evidence that the system is working as intended. Not everyone is expected to pay this debt, only those who have benefitted from their ‘loan’ enough to be able to pay. The state contributes to the investment in our education and pays for it by effectively taxing those who personally benefit - a model of taxation we should surely support. The alternative is having the cost fall on lower earners by distributing the whole cost evenly across taxpayers through normal taxation. As well as the ideological case against free tuition, there is also evidence that the introduction of tuition fees has increased working class participation in higher education. It is also possible that  to keep the costs of higher education manageable, placements in universities would have to be capped, resulting in lower access for poorer families.

A similar problem of regressive effects plagues the pledges to abolish prescription fees and the return of license fees for over-75s. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies notes, last year, only 11% of prescriptions were subject to the £8.50 cost, with 89% of prescriptions being completely free. This is due to the progressive system currently in place, which grants exemptions based on age, disability, chronic illness, and employment status. By and large, those unable to pay without such payment being a burden are able to access prescription drugs for free, as they of course should. The abolishment of these fees addresses a problem that doesn’t exist, and simply creates a higher, unnecessary burden on the taxpayer. 

The situation regarding TV license payments requires more attention, but for the same reasons as above, the restoration of free TV licenses for over 75s is not a progressive move. As noted by the Resolution Foundation, there is little justification for paying for the TV licenses for better-off over 75s. It is perhaps time that Labour considers a truly progressive change in the funding of the BBC, which would link payment of a TV license directly to income, rather than to age. The justification for the free licenses for over 75s presumably rests on the principle that we should protect access to services for vulnerable people, but the relevant vulnerability here is the ability to pay. It does not seem to make much sense that a wealthy 76 year old is provided a free TV license but a low income family is not. 

These policies of course sound good to very many. On the face of it, it does seem unfair that one has to pay to specialise what they can contribute to society, it does seem unfair that one has to pay for medicines, it does seem unfair that the elderly are now expected to pay for their TV licenses. But every time the party suggests scrapping tuition fees, there’s a lower income voter who asks why there’s money to do that, but not to provide greater support through our welfare system. Every time the party suggests scrapping prescription charges, there’s a parent thinking that they already get their children’s prescriptions for free, and if there’s money for this policy, why isn’t their money to provide greater support through higher child benefits. And every time they think this, they’re right, and Labour should start moving away from these pledges.

Where is the welfare system?

The upshot of this is that the Labour party has failed to prioritise appropriately. The manifesto is shockingly light on changes to benefits beyond (rightly) pledging to abandon universal credit with the IFS estimating that the changes they have pledged amount to reversing just one quarter of the cuts implemented since 2010. There is no mention of in-work benefits or working tax credits, despite the rhetoric the party employs around in-work poverty. Why are these concerns behind reducing payments for high earning graduates, or the 11% who will save £8.50 on their prescriptions? Tangentially, why is there no pledge or even comment regarding those struggling under HMRC's loan charge? The spending on infrastructure and the green revolution is welcome and necessary, but the lack of attention paid to the most vulnerable in our society in any materially significant way is not. Perhaps the calculation was made that voters would respond positively to infrastructure investment, since such spending has tangible and highly visible results, as opposed to changes to the welfare system which many people do not interact with in a significant way. If that’s the case, as it seems it may well be, the branding of this manifesto as the ‘manifesto of hope’ is profoundly inaccurate.

Raising revenue.

95% is a good and untruthful line.

The line that the party has been pushing throughout this campaign is that 95% of people will not pay more in taxes. This may or may not be a good line. It seems to resonate with activists but can only be motivated by the belief that the average earner is unwilling to contribute more for a better society, which is bleak, and is arguably wrong. Both the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation dispute the claim that the spending that is suggested can be funded in this way; apparently recognised by Labour, as the manifesto contains tax increases for those below the 95th percentile of income.

Corporate tax.

The Labour party claims that much of the revenue will be generated through raises to corporate tax. The belief that this doesn’t affect natural persons seems to rest on the leadership’s assumption that natural persons don’t interact with large corporations, seemingly imagined as entities that float above society, inflicting only harm and damage. Of course, this is not the case. Corporations employ people, and sell goods and services to people. Corporations also respond to changes in taxes, and do not simply absorb them without consequence, with their four main options being to raise prices to incorporate the tax; to reduce wages (or at least slow down increases) to absorb the cost increase; to reduce capital investment to absorb the cost increase; or to reduce profit.

Each of these responses is harmful to citizens in some manner. The result of higher prices or lower wages is obvious - reducing the spending power of consumers or reducing the income of workers, leading to lower quality of living. It is odd that this concern is not mitigated or acknowledged within the manifesto, given that it rightly describes VAT as a regressive tax and pledges not to increase it over the course of their parliament. Reductions in capital investment would not initially harm the consumer, but eventually lead to lower productivity growth, and hence reduce the capacity for wage increases further down the line, reducing improvements to standards of living over time, with all the consequences that lower growth rates entail. 

One would presume that the Labour party hopes for the latter outcome - that profits are simply reduced. This course is perhaps the one with the least direct damage to consumers, but has unfortunate consequences for pension schemes and those who rely on them. Pension pots are driven up only by the performance of their investment portfolios. A reduction in profits leads to a reduction in dividends, which leads to weaker stock performance, which leads to weaker pension growth. This is dangerous for those on defined contribution pensions, but particularly dangerous for those who will rely on defined benefit schemes, which made commitments based on an expectation of roughly similar growth as today, and may be unable to operate when people expect to rely on them.

None of this is to say that corporate tax shouldn’t be increased. It is only to argue that corporate taxation doesn’t exist in a bubble, and changes to corporate tax effect everybody, and we should be honest about this when we discuss changes. We should be honest that to do some good, most of the time there will be an associated bad, and we should transparently provide the information the electorate needs to weigh up costs and benefits. Corporate tax in the UK is extraordinarily low, and much lower than most comparable countries. The fear that corporations would flee from the UK if we raise corporate tax to a still comparably low rate is nonsensical. Perhaps there is a moral case for raising corporate tax even including these consequences, or a practical case given how changes interact with other planned changes. Perhaps they indicate that we need to radically rethink how we tax those who benefit from company profits more directly. But in any case, it is wrong to act as though higher corporate tax is a free source of revenue decoupled from the rest of society.

Worker’s shares policy is a second corporate tax.

John McDonnell’s plans for publicly traded companies to become 10% owned by their employees within 10 years were widely discussed on announcement long before the launch of the manifesto, but are still useful to consider here. The outline of the plan is that 10% of every publicly traded company with over 250 employees would be owned by an employee ran body called an Inclusive Ownership Fund (IOF). The IOF would receive and distribute dividends on its shares to the employees, but with these dividend payments capped at £500 per employee per year, and the remainder of any corresponding dividend going to the Treasury. 

There are many benefits to genuine employee ownership, such as higher productivity - likely due to greater morale and a feeling of investment in the project - and a greater intimacy with the business’ operations, creating better intra-company relations. Policies to encourage genuine employee ownership and improve the success of the cooperative movement should be welcomed with enthusiasm. 

However it is hard to describe this policy as one of genuine employee ownership. IOFs will not be able to sell, buy, or otherwise manage their shares, and employees will not be able to sell or manage their stake in the IOF. There are very few instances in which you are compelled to possess a thing over which you have no control or rights to sell which we would consider ownership. Further, due to the £500 cap, in a majority of cases the policy will not constitute a profit-sharing exercise, as the upper limit means that in many cases that this ‘dividend’ will not be reflective of the company’s performance, and nor will it be an incentive for higher productivity. 

As noted by Clifford Chance (an international law firm), the policy is best thought of as another corporate tax. They estimate that of the £10 billion that companies would be required to pay under this policy, only £1 billion of this would go to workers, with the other £9 billion accruing to the Treasury. According to their calculations, this effectively equates to a 5% tax, which, given other commitments to raising corporate tax to 26%, results in effectively a tax of 31%, notably higher than most of our peers. Whether or not this is a problem is for an individual voter to assess, although in this case, fears of companies moving out of the UK and hence reducing UK productivity growth, employment, and thereby reducing the UK tax base are a lot more well founded, particularly given the rapid shift from relatively low corporate tax to relatively high corporate tax. Whether or not the latter state is better, such rapid changes rarely lack consequences.

A further unintended consequence of this policy is that any tax structured with a discontinuity has the effect of incentivising against growth beyond the discontinuity - in this case 250 employees. We should be wary of any policy that reduces productivity growth in such a way, and if Labour is intent on this scheme (rather than one that incentivises genuine employee ownership) it should seriously consider a scheme whereby the amount of shares held by the IOF is phased in from 0% to 10% as a function of the number of employees. This would prevent the situation in which a company chooses not to grow, since any growth of less than 10% would represent an unprofitable change.

The average citizen and tax.

This stealth tax and the explicit raise in corporate tax, as well as the intended rise on income tax for those earning over £80,000, are all necessary to put up the facade that 95% of people won’t be paying more. This is a lie in any instance, due to other planned tax changes such as scrapping a benefit for married couples and changes to dividend tax. I firmly believe that these latter tax changes are of great importance in addressing the fairness with which we treat couples, and to address the unfairness of the preferential treatment currently afforded to unearned income, but regardless of whether or not these are positive developments, parties should be honest about how they intend to raise funds and who the ultimate payer of these taxes are.

But the problem is deeper than that. The motivation for such a line is the belief that people don’t want to pay tax. A left wing party should be making the case that it is patriotic to build a better society together; it is incumbent upon us to convince people that the contribution to this project and to each other is a patriotic duty, and the enjoyment of the society we can create is our right. And there is evidence to suggest that this is a view that is shared by a majority of UK citizens. A Fabian Society report suggests that people link their tax payments to their citizenship, and that they are proud to contribute to good public services. The perception of tax as a thing that the electorate objects to is largely a result of implementation of individual taxes. One place we see evidence of this is the largely positive response to Gordon Brown’s 1p increase on National Insurance in 2002 to fund the NHS. The government treated the taxpayers like the adults that they are, explaining why the increase was necessary and what it would fund. Taxpayers understood and were happy to support a service that is of the utmost significance in our country, and the same is true today, with polls suggesting that two-thirds of voters would be happy to pay more in tax to save our NHS.

The scale of spending Labour is planning is admirable (though should perhaps be scaled in over a longer time period, and have a greater focus on welfare reform) but its fear of raising taxes for the majority means that its spending ambitions are hard to believe, and to the extent that they are achievable, there are unintended consequences that have not been adequately addressed.

Issues of personal interest.

Brexit policy.

Labour has been surprisingly effective at de-branding this general election from the ‘Brexit election.’ Focus groups suggest that the more a voter cares about Brexit, the harsher their feelings towards Labour, so this plan is not an unreasonable one. The party has been effective at using regular policy announcements to put its opponents on the back foot and redirect a large part of the dialogue towards its bread and butter issues, such as the NHS and nationalisation of utilities.

It is unfortunate that Labour has had to largely duck out of the Brexit debate, since they have the most sensible Brexit policy offered by any party. It is perhaps not necessary to negotiate another deal with the EU but the desire to distance themselves from Johnson’s adaptation of the May deal is understandable, and given the party’s desire to renegotiate in terms more agreeable to the European Union it seems likely that this would be achievable in the time frame they set out. 

The referendum that they suggest - particularly given Corbyn’s recently stated intention of remaining neutral during such a referendum - seems like the one course of action that has the potential to reunify the country, or at least begin the process of healing that is so desperately needed. 

The case for a second referendum is strong. In almost every voting intention poll, we have largely seen only shuffling of voters between remain/referendum parties and shuffling of voters between leave parties, with the vote split near 50/50 every instance. This was reflected in the result of the European Parliamentary elections. We have polls suggesting that for a large period of time now, the majority of the public has been opposed to Brexit. Ironically enough, because of Brexit, an extremely proud pro-European movement has emerged and changed the landscape substantially. None of this is a guarantee that the majority of the electorate would now support remaining in the EU, but that anyone that says they know with certainty the will of the majority is lying. 

Legitimate concerns have been expressed regarding the perception that supporters of a second referendum wish to overturn the result of the first - to ‘defy democracy.’ Retorts that allowing a vote can’t be undemocratic by definition are unhelpful, and run contrary to practise we observe in the House of Commons that prevents a Parliament being presented the same motion more than once in a given session. We acknowledged recently that this convention is sensible for preventing government from wearing down Parliament, and the analogy holds well for the argument against repeated referendums. However, the kind of question being suggested is substantially different to the question that was asked before, and is a question that we need answering before embarking on the massive constitutional change that leaving the EU represents.

The question asked in 2016 was inappropriate, and unjustifiably so given the precedent of the Scottish referendum. What the public deserved was a concrete plan for what a post-EU Britain would look like - and ideally what the transition would look like - in the form of a white paper, so that the people’s instruction to the government would be clear and deliverable. We were not given this. In the actual event, a vote for leave to pursue a future of lower immigration looked the same as a vote to leave to pursue a future of higher immigration from non-EU countries, and a vote to leave and establish a more protectionist state looked the same as a vote to leave and open trade negotiations with states not currently negotiating with the EU. The instruction to the government was inherently and inevitably unclear. A second referendum between two clearly defined options is needed to rectify this.

Why two options, and why the two that Labour are suggesting? The former question (annoyingly enough) is essentially a mathematical problem, which is Arrow’s impossibility theorem. This states that it is impossible for there to exist a ranked voting system with more than two options that is ‘fair’ in a sense that maps safely onto a common sense definition of fair. The result of a referendum which we have every reason to expect will be exceptionally close and on such an explosive issue will not reunify the country if it is the consequence of a choice between imperfect voting systems. We cannot leave - or remain - on the technicalities of hard-to-understand voting systems. The question needs to be between two clear choices so that we can all agree on the winner and move forward as one country.

Some have made the argument that since we have already voted for leave (albeit in a very amorphous form), the options on the ballot should be leave options. This seems to be ill-founded logic. It is perfectly possible, given the tight margin of the 2016 referendum, that between remain and any specific form of leave the former would win - perhaps by a significant margin - given that those who voted remain voted for the same future, whereas it is likely that someone who voted for a Brexit with greater immigration will not vote for a Brexit with lower immigration, and someone who voted for a Brexit with more open borders will not vote for a Brexit with less open borders. Given the reasonably high probability that this is the case, it would surely be a bizarre situation in which this is not one of the options available to voters. This is even ignoring the evidence that suggests in a re-run of the 2016 referendum, the electorate would vote differently on account of what Brexit has revealed of itself thus far. 

What of the leave option? Labour is quite right to insist that it must be a credible leave option, which is to say, one that a majority of Parliament believes it can genuinely implement without the cost to the public exceeding what is acceptable. Perhaps it is the case that Johnson’s adapted May deal doesn’t satisfy this criterion. However the deal that Labour are proposing, one with access to the single market and inclusion in the customs union, seems to be deliberately chosen as a non-starter for those who support leaving the European Union. It is clearly not acceptable to transition from the current situation to one which is identical except with reduced democratic participation and reduced UK influence, but under Labour’s proposed deal, entailing as it would following EU laws, denying the UK an independent trade policy, and requiring freedom of movement, all without having any influence on these laws and the EU trade policy is quite clearly a downgrade of our current situation. We should support participation in the EU’s legal system so that we have access to a market which would in any event influence UK production for EU export, a phenomenon known as the Brussels effect. We should support freedom of movement for all the benefits that a flexible labour force provides and for all the opportunity it provides a UK citizen. But given that these questions (at least until recently) were those that were most important to UK voters, it is incumbent on government to ensure that the electorate is actually able to vote on them.

It is important to notice that the two major issues with the currently negotiated deal are that it allows a no-deal Brexit at the end of 2020, and that it splits Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.  The former issue is not a problem if the public vote for this deal under a Labour government, as they will be able to make the decision to extend the transition period to allow for a more ambitious and mutually beneficial trade agreement. The latter issue - that of creating a customs border between Britain and Ireland, and by requiring that Northern Ireland remains part of the single market of the EU, and not the single market of the United Kingdom - is perhaps more terminal to the current deal, and is perhaps best addressed if the ‘solution’ to the Irish border question is restored to a full backstop. Perhaps the choice between remain and May’s original deal with Johnson’s political declaration is that most appropriate right now.

The public deserves a choice between a genuine Brexit and to remain in the European Union. This is perhaps not delivered exactly by the Labour pledge, but Labour are the party offering the policy that is closest to this, and Corbyn’s intention to remain neutral is the smartest decision that can be made in order to restore unity, by preventing accusations of bias in implementing the decision, and to prevent those with a more populist-bent aim  from running a people vs government campaign.

Council tax.

This is an issue of personal interest to me and perhaps does not rate highly in the minds of most voters, justifiably warranting its non-inclusion in the manifesto. Nonetheless, it is an important issue. The attack of central government on local councils’ ability to raise revenue has been two-fold. The first and most obvious is the dramatic cut in local council funding from central government; the second and more antidemocratic measure has been to make it significantly harder for local councils to raise more in council tax, implementing a policy whereby any increase over 2.99% must be approved via referendum.

The former has resulted in around 80% of local councils fearing for their financial sustainability, and the reduction in many regions - particularly rural areas that can provide fewer leisure services to raise revenue - of all non-statutory spending, including libraries, youth centers, and all manner of services that enrich our communities and bring local people together.

The latter has meant that voters in local elections cannot be seriously offered the choice to reverse these cuts. While some argue that the policy on raising council tax represents a greater exercise in local democracy by handing this decision to the voters, it is in fact a much weaker exercise. The requirement of a referendum raises a serious impediment to locally elected officials being able to raise and spend revenue in a manner consistent with their agenda. Any public poll and the associated campaign require time, money, and effort to be put in place - all three of which are exceedingly precious for strained local councils, particularly noting that acting as a councillor is not a full time job. The consequence of this is that such raises are almost never considered seriously, even in long-held Labour wards. The policy is extremely effective in preventing councils from acting out of lockstep with central government, and as such represents a great harm to democratic principles. Further, this requirement means that any candidates running on a platform of higher spending is unable to promise to voters that they will be able to bring that vision to fruition, since it relies on the uncertain outcome of an expensive and uncertain referendum. Surely denying the electorate clarity in what they can expect from the officials they choose to elect can only harm local democracy? When one considers this Conservative policy and its Brexit policy, we see a certain degree of irony that when it comes to issues such as raising local council tax, local groups are expected to vote twice on the issue by the party that is refusing a second vote on EU membership, and that a party that resents the influence of a larger body of which it is a member still supports central government imposing its will on local communities.

All of this is to say that it is of the utmost importance that this policy is reversed, both for practical reasons relating to desperate shortages of funds and for the ideological purpose of strengthening of local democracy in the UK. It is unfortunate that the Labour party has not seen this issue fit to include in its manifesto, nor the issue of raising central funds for local councils, nor the related issue of raising allowances awarded to councillors so they may be able to focus on local governance full time.

Trust on foreign policy.

As in 2017, the Labour manifesto pledges to maintain and renew Trident, maintain spending 2% of GDP on defence, and support our membership of NATO. These are all welcome policies, though it could be argued that as climate change results in new sea trade routes for Russia, and as the military is increasingly struggling for funds, that defense spending needs to be increased, but that is a discussion for elsewhere. The main concern is that these positions are at odds with the position of Jeremy Corbyn and the leadership more broadly, and it is difficult to trust that these promises will be honoured. 

While it is beyond unlikely that a Labour government would outright refuse to renew Trident, it is possible they would pursue the policy only half-heartedly, providing less-than-adequate funding or otherwise creating delays. While they would not reduce defense spending, they may increase the scope for what is considered defense spending to a degree beyond what an average person would reasonably consider it to be. While they would not withdraw from NATO, it is possible that they would take advantage of the flexibility in the phrasing of the article 5 treaty obligation for collective defence to not provide meaningful defence to an attacked ally. The concern is not whether a Corbyn-lead government would honour these manifesto pledges in word, but rather in fact.

Corbyn has no enthusiasm for the armed forces, as he has made clear on several occasions, having said that it would be wonderful if every politician in the world decided to abolish their military. This has been reported in many circles as a statement that Corbyn would abolish the military, but surely this is the position that all of us hold? The world would be a better place without war. That isn’t to say that military action isn’t sometimes necessary, say to act against genocide as in Kosovo, but that the world would be a better place if it were not should be a very uncontroversial position.

More damningly, however, is his imperative to “fight all the cuts, except those in the armed forces, where we want to see a few more cuts taking place, and no more nuclear weapons,” which he declared at a rally in 2010. This is hard to read as anything other than a desire to not abolish the UK’s army, but definitely to reduce its status. For completeness, it should be noted that in recent years the Labour party commit to maintaining the UK’s status as a ‘tier one’ military power, but this isn’t a well-defined term and it’s not hard to imagine that such a hard campaigning and long standing anti-military Prime Minister would seek to reduce military spending in some manner, perhaps as suggested above.

The case against trusting Labour on the issue of Trident is clearer. The leadership has a history of consistently breaking with the party whip and voting against the renewal of Trident, he has a long and proud history of campaigning for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and in 2015 leadership hustings he claimed that he is against the renewal of Trident. Corbyn has regularly avoided answering the question as to whether he would ever initiate a nuclear strike, though it is worth noting that until recently it was not uncommon for Prime Ministers to use a ‘constructive ambiguity’ regarding the use of nuclear weapons, so this is not as inherently anti-nuclear a position as it may initially seem. Thornberry has claimed that the decision on a nuclear strike would be made collectively. This is of course not possible in the event that Government is struck, and it is why one of the first acts of a prime minister is to enclose in an envelope instructions for those manning the Trident submarines in such an event. The opportunity for collective deliberation in such a circumstance clearly does not exist, so such letters are a vital aspect of our nuclear defense. Given the Labour leadership’s view on the nuclear deterrent, it is not hard to imagine that the sending of such letters may be much delayed, and that one may be concerned about the contents of such letters if one supports the nuclear deterrent - we should bear in mind that the principle behind a nuclear deterrent is that having it means you never have to use it, so the contents of such letters may not be of great concern, though their existence most certainly is. On the whole, it would be unfair to dismiss concerns about how proactively or not a Labour government would pursue the renewal of Trident.

Finally, regarding NATO, Corbyn has on many occasions argued that the body is irrelevant since the end of the Cold War, and in fact has described it as an attempt to provoke action from the USSR, as well as describing it as an engine of oil delivery. Coupled with Corbyn’s voting record indicating total opposition to all military action, it is reasonable to be concerned with the party leadership’s commitment to collective defense. All of this means that it is ultimately very hard to trust the manifesto pledges on defense issues will be honoured in sentiment, even if they are in word.

Paternity leave.

This is a policy unlikely to attract any serious attention, but - and please indulge my brief self-indulgence - I hope to one day be a father. I hope to do this not so that after two weeks or four weeks I can see my child in passing on weekdays, and not so I can provide my partner with the task of effectively raising our child alone. Labour’s policy on paternity leave is to increase it from two weeks to four weeks. This is disappointingly unambitious. 

We can categorise arguments for maternity leave roughly into two bins: arguments along the line that mothers need time to recover after having given birth, and arguments that early bonding between a mother and child is vital for healthy development. While the justification of time for recovery clearly does not exist for fathers as it does for mothers, if this is the sole justification and not concerns regarding familial bonding, it still makes sense for mothers and fathers to have roughly equivalent rights in this regard. If it is unfair to ask a new mother to work for a certain amount of time as they need to recover, it is unfair to ask a new mother to raise a child without support from their partner for most of the week. If instead we justify maternity leave as beneficial for the child, then this argument holds equally well for paternity leave. In either case, we should support much greater reform in this area, and Labour’s pledge is nowhere near enough.

There is an additional gender equality aspect to a policy of roughly equal child leave rights, which is that while gender discrimination is of course illegal in hiring and pay, it of course exists. We see it in the data, in particular we see a motherhood penalty, whereby women’s earnings and earnings growth drops significantly after the birth of a child. It is not hard to imagine that the potential for a worker to depart from work for six months to a year is priced in by unscrupulous and immoral employers who are largely protected from the law due to the nature of these cases being hard to try in court. In a society in which this is a factor for any potential parent, one would expect this effect to be absent. Along with preventing social concerns from affecting decision making of new fathers, this means we should expect Labour to promote a use-it-or-lose-it policy of paternity leave, as opposed to fully shared parental leave. Of course, this manifesto suggests we are nowhere near that situation.

Conclusion.

Labour has described its manifesto as a manifesto of hope. There are great ambitions regarding our response to the climate change crisis which threatens all of us, and modern approaches to infrastructure investment. But to declare it a manifesto of hope is to go too far. Where is the hope for those struggling in poverty but still in work? Where is the hope for those who rely on the benefits system, when the party has pledged to effectively undo only a quarter of the cuts since 2010? Where is the hope that the UK public are willing to contribute more to create a better society?

Ultimately forced to choose between the party that offers this manifesto and the other parties. Despite the problems this manifesto has regarding the aspects in which it’s claimed ‘hope’ is lacking, and despite the concerns around the feasibility of mobilising infrastructure investment as fast as Labour plans given available capital, this is a positive document in many respects. It should be cheered for its approach to the climate crisis, for its modern approach to infrastructure spending, and for its education for life policy. The scale of the problems it tackles is large and they have promised an equally large response, and given the choice between this manifesto and any of the others, this is up their with the best. 

But we do not and should not make our choice based on manifestos alone. I have here sought to avoid discussion of either the broader situation of the Labour party and its leadership, and the political context that exists beside this. Despite my support for a manifesto in broadly this direction, it is still hard to think of voting for a party led by a leader whose commitment to anti-semistism often seems less than sincere, and who has expressed support and solidarity with brutal regimes and a weakness in condemning terrorism both domestic and foreign. It is likely this is the position of many voters up and down the country. Is this manifesto good? Yes, though not uncomplicatedly so. I would vote for a Labour with this manifesto under almost any other leader. It remains to be seen if this manifesto with the current leadership is enough for the country to change its mind from where it currently is.