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14/15 PULL-OUT POSTERS: TAKE & PLASTER IN THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PLACE YOU CAN FIND

07 #POSITIVENEWS

13 CREATIVE RESISTANCE IN CROATIAN SQUAT CULTURE.

27 CLICKTIVISM: A FORCE FOR GOOD OR SELFISH TREND?

03 SHOCKED BY THE SNAP GENERAL ELECTION ANNOUNCEMENT?

11 BREXIT: WHAT WENT SO TERRIBLY WRONG?

21 THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: A THREAT TO YOUNG WOMEN.

29 THE LABOUR PARTY’S TEN PLEDGES TO THE VOTERS OF BRITAIN.

TEXT AMY ELLIOTT

Shocked by the snap general election announcement? You shouldn’t have been.

What does it mean & what’s next?

On Tuesday April 18th, in a statement outside Number 10 Downing Street Prime Minister Theresa May called for a snap General Election on June 8, going back on repeated promises not to.

Whilst Theresa May going back on her word shouldn’t come as a shock, this announcement blindsided many. May had explicitly stated on numerous occasions that there would be no election. Even just a few weeks prior to her announcement on April 18th, May’s spokesperson said: “There isn’t going to be one. It isn’t going to happen. There is not going to be a general election.”

The only thing that is certain in the case of Theresa May is a pattern of dishonesty and inconsistency.

It should never be a mistake to trust your prime minister to speak truthfully, however, in May’s Britain, this is now commonplace. It should come as a shock that an event our prime minister promised wouldn’t materialise, is now happening by her hand. However, in Britain’s current political landscape, it comes as less of a shock each time May

goes back on her word; it’s almost Rupert Murdoch’s of the world. expected. If May going back on This, we can find in Jeremy Corbyn. her word did come as a shock to you, it really shouldn’t have. Corbyn is a exceptionally hard working MP who passionately fights Please let me draw your attention to protect the poor and vulnerable, to the fact that May was the seeks to protect the NHS, wants to remainer who reinvented herself nationalise natural monopolies and as a hard Brexiteer, for partisan take back publicly financed utilities self-interest. May was the leader that were sold off to investors at a who allowed her chancellor to pittance, aims to stem the flow of break a key Tory election pledge capital from the poor to the rich, on national insurance, only to and campaigns tirelessly to seek U-turn when the betrayal became diplomacy over war. Perhaps most impossible to argue for because threatening of all about Corbyn of her small majority. She also is he wants to stop corporate tax said that now wasn’t the time for a breaks, close down overseas tax Scottish independence referendum avoidance, and stamp out wage because of the instability it would inequality. This makes him hugely cause, and then motioned for an unpopular with the wealthy elite. unnecessary general election.

She announced a pause on the You may think ‘this all sounds great, Hinkley Point C nuclear power why does he get so much bad press?’ station and then – under pressure - because he represents the biggest from China’s regime – U-turned. threat to the right wing ideology This is a woman of unashamed and stability of the super rich – the partisan self-interest. This is not same people who own our national the leader we want or need. We media a.k.a. the likes Rupert need a selfless, relentlessly hard Murdoch (owner of the Sun, Sun on working leader who will not bow to Sunday and is the man behind Fox pressure from fellow high powers, News, BSkyB, News Corp, etc.), who will not get into bed with the and Lord Rothermere (owner of

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the Mail, Mail on Sunday, and the Metro). Both live abroad with their billions, and would stand to lose out if Corbyn were to be elected.

Their defence is a Corbyn smear campaign. Manipulate how the public sees the threat via mass media, and their voting behaviour will follow suit. Don’t let the pieces fall so easily into place for these people, don’t allow yourself and those around you to be manipulated to serve the interests of the 1%.

When you read, read critically and with awareness of potential agendas behind the words.

A perfect example of right-wing press manipulation of Corbyn’s image was reflected when the Labour leader turned down tickets to the opening game of the Rugby World Cup in 2015. The press and high profile MPs alike slaughtered him. The press claimed he had ‘snubbed’ the invite to the opening ceremony. Boris Johnson was quoted saying “This is turning into a national joke…Come on Jezza: Scrum down for England.”

e t a e r C , e g n a h c r u o y e t a e cr e r u t u f n ow What wasn’t widely reported was that Corbyn had prior commitments, ‘scrumming down’ to meet with his constituents, the people he was elected to represent and serve. He sat down for a private meeting with one of his homeless constituents to listen to her issues, as well as a full to the brim waiting room of others who had turned up to his weekly constituency meeting.

So, whilst other politicians were quaffing down the free hospitality in the premier VIP seats, Corbyn was doing what the public elected him, and pay him to do.

A London School of Economics study into how Corbyn is represented in the media found that only a pathetic 11% of all newspaper articles about him bothered to accurately state a

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single one of his actual policies. here is to vote. It is your greatest In the hard-wing Daily Mail weapon against a hard Brexit, and Express that figure was 0%. a dishonest Theresa May, and a self-serving government. If you The responsibility for actioning the want a government which fights change in direction for this country for a Brexit deal that puts jobs, does not lie upon your shoulders the economy and living standards - that is for Corbyn and his team. first; and stand for a Britain run in Your responsibility is allowing these changes to be set into motion. the interests of the majority, not the In short, your only responsibility elites, then you know what to do.

What does this snap election mean?

ZEITGEIST

It means we as an eligible electorate have a sacred opportunity to alter the future of our country, of ourselves, that we should under no circumstances - waste. It means a chance to oust an untrustworthy, lying partisan concerned only with serving herself rather than the country she leads, from the helm of Great Britain.

It means we can change the path we’re currently on. All we have to do, at the bare minimum, is vote. The eligibility to do so is your human right, but you can only do so after you register. Over 100,000 under 25s had registered just days after the election was announced and you must become one of that growing number.

Don’t put this on your mounting to-do list for ‘tomorrow’, you can register online taking only 5 minutes of your time, at

www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

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AMY HALL ILLUSTRATION

TEXT AMY ELLIOTT

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#Positiv China is planning a national park three times larger than Yellowstone in the US, to help boost the wild population of giant panda. It will link 67 existing reserves to make mating easier. • A seven per cent annual drop in teenage suicide attempts among US high school students is linked to the legislation of same-sex marriage, say researchers.

• More than 30 million people in Kerala, India, will be given access to free WiFi after the state declared it a basic human right. • El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban metal mining. • Clean energy jobs in the US now outnumber jobs in oil and gas by five to one.

• Denmark announced it has reduced food waste by 25 per cent in five years. • Experts revealed that 86 per cent of new power in Europe came from renewable energy

sources in 2016 with wind energy overtaking coal as the largest form of power capacity. • The world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, has warned it will vote out directors of companies who fail to address the risks posed to their businesses by climate change. • A teenager is on track to plant a trillion trees. Felix Finkbeiner, 19, who began his tree-planting quest when he was nine, founded environmental group Plant for the Planet. It has overseen the planting of more than 14bn trees in 130 countries and aims to plant 1tn – 150 trees for every person on Earth.

• The value of UK ethical markets grew to almost double that of tobacco, new research suggests. • The cancer death rate in the US has dropped by 25 per cent since 1991, saving 2.1 million lives. • India banned all forms

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veNews 39 per cent of shoppers now buy organic each week.

• Nasa announced that Jeanette Epps will become the first black American to board the International Space Station when she takes part in a mission in 2018. Read our interview with her here. • A river in New Zealand has been granted the same legal rights as a human being.

After 140 years of negotiations, the Māori won recognition for the Whanganui river. • Europe is poised for a total ban on bee-harming pesticides. Draft regulations reveal that the European Commission wants to prohibit the insecticides that cause ‘acute risks to bees’. • France has passed a bill urging companies to respect employees’ time outside of office hours. The ‘right to disconnect’ is designed to ensure respect for rest and work-life balance.

of disposable plastic in its capital, Delhi. • A species of manatee is no longer endangered. The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would downgrade the West Indian manatee from ‘endangered’ to ‘threatened’ after numbers in the wild increased from several hundred to 6,000. • China is set to close 67 ivory carving factories and retail shops, roughly a third of the total, as it moves to implement a pledge to end all domestic ivory sales by the end of 2017. • Finland became the first European country to pilot a basic income scheme. Supporters suggest that unconditional monthly sums could curb mass unemployment and create a more equal society. • The UK saw a seven per cent increase in sales of organic produce from 2015-2016, new figures revealed. Some

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ZEITGEIST

BREXIT: WHAT WENT

ZEITGEIST

Me and my girlfriend had returned to our AirBnb after having dinner in Bilbao’s old town. We walked through the door to meet a German couple, similar ages to ourselves, who were similarly sharing our flat alongside our Basque host. We got talking (embarrassingly, of course, in English), shared a glass of wine, and that’s when I felt the overwhelming urge to apologise.

I wanted our European friends to know that it was not us who elected to terminate our relationship with Europe. The pages and pages of post-Brexit analysis, which has often taken on the form of a sort of mass soul-searching, have consistently diagnosed dichotomies. By which I mean it have been argued that Brexit brought to the surface a long-in-the-making North/South divide. Or a long-in-the making urban/rural divide. Or a long-inthe-making collapse of the Labour party. Or just another example of shy Tories. But as I sat in a flat in Bilbao, talking to my German and Basque friends, the dichotomy that felt most real was generational.

The Independent have recently reported that 120,000 Brexiteers have died since the referendum.

That’s a startlingly high figure.

Does this show that Brexiteers are insensible at crossing roads or are statistically more likely to cycle without helmets? No, this horrifying figure speaks singularly of the generation dichotomy that Brexit exposed. Lets look, then, at the figures. YouGov’s on-the-day poll suggested that 75% of 18-24 years old voted to stay, compared to 39% of those aged over 65. This is a genuinely stark contrast. But why?

Perhaps this dramatic dichotomy is rooted in the fundamentally inverted perspectives that these two different demographics have.

Young people (a term, which reminds me of patronising MPs having their pictures taken outside a

soon-to-be-closed youth club, that I HATE) approached the referendum with a sort of light, clean, untainted optimism. Our logic was based on culture, on the migration of techno music from Berlin to London, on fashion student’s experience of visiting Milan with their university course, on the many Erasmus years that millennials have benefited from, or your Danish colleague, or Polish mate, or that one mad night you had in Budapest. It was a decision that fully accepted the integration of European cultures, and a desire to continue celebrating this. Romantic, perhaps, but also a positive commitment to a progressive experience of multiculturalism.

12 0 , 0 0 0 Brexiteers have died since the referendum In contradistinction, someone who is over 65 has an entirely different perspective to the issue of Brexit. This person stands up and looks back on the entirety of their life. They look back at the swinging back and forth between Labour and Conservative governments. They look back at the economic prosperity and the following crashes. They look back at the changing demographics of our cities. And when Murdoch’s propaganda machine binds the current economic stagnation, the current precariousness, to the “flood” of migrants from mainland Europe; those who are over 65 feel like they have so much to lose. This is indeed a fundamentally retrospective logic, a logic based on past experience and a logic that looks back.

This dichotomy, between those who look forward to cultural integration, and those who look back in fear, is made all the more powerful by the

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SO TERRIBLY WRONG? sad reality that one of these groups must live with the consequences of Brexit. Us, the millennials, the young people, the Remoaners*, feel as I felt in Bilbao: apologetic, guilty, maybe even embarrassed? I am not suggesting that there should be age restrictions on voting- no, far from it, I would have liked to extend the age of enfranchisement to 16 year olds. But, the point is, how did the Brexit debate happen so archaically? How was the debate performed by only those of the ageing demographics?

When, on the television, or in the papers, or on the radio, was there ever a level playing field between a young person and a pensioner? Maybe, then, this dichotomy would not have been so severe and maybe the oldest generation might have realised that this a decision they simply don’t have to live with.

75% of 1824 years old voted to stay, compared to 39% of those aged over 65 Clearly, if this (almost utopian to consider now) debate had have happened, different sets of issues would have emerged. Firstly, let’s talk about minimum wage.

Currently, minimum wage is set and protected by the European Union, and it is not retirees that have just graduated from degrees and are working for minimum wage in coffee shops across the country.

Secondly, travel. Benidorm aside

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(as hypocritical an anomaly as it might be), it is not thousands of retirees who benefit from freely moving across the continent for work or for pleasure. It is not thousands of retirees who dream of upping sticks to the creative hustle of Berlin, or Barcelona, or join the design renaissance of Scandinavia. The impending limits on travel are compounded by the housing crisis that we, just as with Brexit, have inherited.

Take London, for example, and consider how quite impossible it is going to be for any millennial to seriously consider buying a house in the next 25 years.

That is why Berlin or Marseille have become so tempting.

I am completely aware of how selfish these millennial arguments might be. A 70-year-old might be tempted to lean over, and whisper in my ear telling me that I am, we are, spoilt. They might like to remind me that we live in a world of plenty, in a rich society that they built for us. And they are not wrong. But my point is that we, as the next generation of custodians for this country, have the right to demand what this country will become. And I know that I do not want to move further away from Europe, to enforce borders, to lose valuable employment and travel rights. But, quite the opposite, to embrace further the vision of European integration and sharing that Erasmus, the Renaissance man whose name is taken by the programme of European student exchange, had dreamt of.

TEXT LUKE GREGORY-JONES * Remoaner = A person who is outraged and frustrated over the result of the European Union membership referendum in the United Kingdom.

inconvenience,

Sorry for the

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ZEITGEIST

REBELS WITH A CAUSE // THE UNITED STATES

With the election of Donald Trump and a new era of conservative government in the United States, serious threats are being posed to a vast spectrum of individuals under the premise of ‘making America great again’. If you are a person of colour, if you are woman, if you are LGBTQ; your rights and quality of life are at risk.

The individuals currently in power are heavily Republican and conservative, residing on the far right of the political spectrum. The conservative ideologies held by these individuals, with the catalyst of power, are now translating into legislation. This poses a threat to many communities and groups of people, but for women specifically, it threatens areas we’ve previously The Trump administration and his fought so hard for progress within; conservative branches of government female healthcare, awareness to sexual have already made plans and are violence, and equality in the workplace. actioning implanting policies and changes to existing policies that will Since January when the new negatively affect the aforementioned administration took office, there are groups of people. With each new day plans being made and steps being something or someone comes under taken to repeal the Affordable Health threat, and with that growing numbers Care Act, and Planned Parenthood. are launching resistance to these actions. Meanwhile women are still being treated unequally in the workplace, One of the groups of people that are and still earning only $0.80 to the being undermined and threatened dollar that men are earning. With through policy and social changes an administration like the one U.S. under the current administration are currently has, gender inequality women, in particular - young women. is once again a growing, not a

shrinking, obstacle to overcome.

Access to adequate healthcare is a basic human right, and crucial for maintaining the health of women of all sizes, races and classes. One of the largest organisations in the U.S. that is instrumental in meeting this need is Planned Parenthood. Funded federally by the taxpayer, Planned Parenthood provides an array of health services for women (in particular, women of low income), from sex education, to pap smears, and cancer screenings. For young women, Planned Parenthood is especially crucial because they provide cheap birth control, STD testing and treatment. Even more crucially, some also provide information and access to safe, legal abortions. It is this latter service that Republicans register their complaints with, resulting in a mistrust of the entire organisation to the tune of campaigns to defund and dismantle this essential service.

Despite abortions consisting of only 3% of all of the services Planned

Parenthood provides, Republicans are hell-bent on shutting the organisation down based on ‘moral high ground’.

Trump’s most recent blow came in the form of reinstating the controversial “global gag rule”. This means foreign organisations that take US family planning money can’t use any money, from any other donor, on abortionrelated services. It’s a restriction on how they use their other, non-US government money, and it applies to providing abortions or giving any information about abortion, including medical advice or referrals — even in countries where abortion is legal.

The USAID’s two biggest family planning organisations Marie Stopes International (MSI) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) will refuse to sign onto the policy, officials for each organisation stated.

Losing USAID funding will leave MSI with a $30 million budget shortfall, or

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: A THREAT TO YOUNG WOMEN about 20% of its annual budget, and 1.5 million women without access to contraception through its clinics, said Marjorie Newman-Williams, vice president and director of international operations for MSI. IPPF said that it expects to lose $100 million, or roughly 25% of its budget, affecting programs in 30 countries. With the result being an additional 2.2 million abortions globally each year — 2.1 million of which will be unsafe, NewmanWilliams said. Trump’s dangerous influence over women’s health has now extended outside the borders of the U.S., and that is terrifying.

Trump and his administration are also in the works of repealing the Affordable Care Act, which is vital to young women. Under the ACA, young women can remain on their parents healthcare plans until the age of 26. ACA also covers women’s preventive care, as well as ensuring healthcare costs remain consistent

across genders, (yes, being a woman can cost even more here). Healthcare is a vital human right, but for young women there are a vast array of issues that may arise, and systems that were in place to cover this are under threat from the current administration.

normalise sexual assault. By denying the allegations brought by these women, it downplays women’s rights.

If Republicans and Americans are okay with electing someone who makes misogynistic, disrespectful comments about women, are they okay with doing and saying these things in general?

In the months leading up to the election This point was brought up many times of Donald Trump, there were numerous at the Women’s March, and it is accounts of allegations of sexual clear that women will not stand for it. assault brought against him. Although Trump denied these claims, there was Yet another frustrating issue for young hard evidence that he indeed was working women today is equality in ill-intentioned. In the now infamous the workplace. Women are still only recording of a conversation Trump had making $0.80 to the dollar of what regarding a female news reporter, he men are earning: that’s just 80%, and talked about how he would kiss her for women of colour it’s as low as 54%. whether she liked it or not and how There are disparities in income of women he would grab her by the genitals, compared to men in all sectors of the which he believed he was entitled American workplace. It’s disheartening to based on his gender and wealth. for a hard working woman to discover she is being paid less for the same Despite all this, the information was job as her male counterpart, and brushed under the carpet, and he was it is by no means justified or fair. It is elected president. Incidents like this archaic, senseless, and it is inequality.

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Despite the number of women holding at least a bachelor’s degree now outnumber men, males continue to dominate the workplace in terms of numbers and pay checks, particularly in high-earning industries. Globally, women hold a whole 24% of leadership roles in businesses. Politics is one such industry (a whopping 19.5% of the members of Congress are female), and the Trump administration is a perfect example. Women occupy just four out of the twenty-four cabinet positions Trump personally picks. What kind of message does that send to young girls? Are women not capable enough for the job to Trump and to his team? On the bright side more women are stepping up in local governments and in congress.

But of course in response to the threats on women’s civil rights and liberties, there has been an amazing show of resistance. One of the strongest organised efforts of this

resistance was the Women’s March held in Washington D.C. on January 21st. According to the organisers of the march, the demonstration was meant as a warning to the Trump administration that we will not be undermined and that women’s rights are human’s rights. Marches were

not only held in D.C. but worldwide, with over 500 million participants.

The Women’s March was one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in history. The message here is clear; ‘Dear Trump, do not underestimate us, you’ll never get away with this’.

These are just three areas of concern

that are vulnerable to Trump and his republican cohorts. It is scary to think of the future of young women in the next four years that Trump will reside in office. But the Women’s March and the other demonstrations of resistance are letting the people in power know that they will not take our

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rights away, and should he try, we are not afraid to stand up and fight.

TEXT AMY ELLIOT & ORPA ALI, resident of Arkansas US

ILLUSTRATION AMY HALL

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CLICKTIVISM: A FOR

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A portmanteau of the words ‘click’ and ‘activism’, clicktivism is defined “the use of social media and other online methods to promote a cause.” Often used as a pejorative term, ‘clicktivists’ are typified as ‘armchair activists’, pledging their support to causes simply via signing an online survey or liking a Facebook page, whilst not contributing to the cause beyond their laptop or smart phone, having achieved that ‘feel-good’ rush of endorphins they were after. The term was recently legitimised by the Oxford dictionary, who announced they would be adding it to their online platform in February.

The term’s popularity has been catalysed by the current wave of political activism gripping the Western world in response to highly discussed topics such as Brexit in the UK, and the Trump presidency in the US. Much of this discussion has taken place online, and naturally on social media. Social media is often responsible for giving

Trump, his supporters and opponents were emerging more rapidly than in the past. “We have lots to add all the time. We don’t have ‘fake news’ or ‘alternative fact’ this time, because they have just started gaining currency, but I am sure they will be in the next update,” he added.

Clicktivism is not a new term. The number of people politically active online has been steadily on the rise since the general election in 2010.

Six million people in the UK have signed or started a digital petition on Change.org, a global website with headquarters in San Francisco, which launched in April 2012. And 3 million people in the UK are members of 38 Degrees, a web-based activist organisation founded in memory of the late campaigner and founder of the Body Shop, Anita Roddick.

the electorate - some 360,000 people - is a member of one of the three main political parties; a quarter of what party membership was 30 years ago.

Micah White, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street and writer of Clicktivism: The Pollution of Activism with the Logic of Silicon Valley, is one such critic.

He argued, “Clicktivism is to activism as McDonalds is to a slow-cooked meal. It may look like food, but the life-giving nutrients are long gone.”

There are, however, many who praise the phenomenon of online activism.

Clicktivism is not exclusively the act of pledging support to, or promoting a cause online. It also encompasses organising protests, facilitating boycotts, crowdfunding and keeps the public informed. Serving the higher goal of utilising digital media to raise awareness for, and to facilitate, The pejorative connotations of the social change and activism. Platforms word are seated in the belief that those such as Change.org and 38 Degrees

respective platforms are available to anyone with access to a computer, and thus provide an outlet for those who have little or no other options in order to get their story told. They potentially reach millions of possible supporters; some of whom may possess the power, whether in numbers or professional position, to enforce tangible change.

“Digital campaigning shouldn’t be seen as a threat but as a challenge,” stated spokesman for the Electoral Reform Society, Will Brett. Online activism also works towards eliminating elitism and the idea that you have to ‘earn your stripes’ to become an activist. Anything which provides an opportunity to pull an individual into activism that may never have even considered it before cannot be deemed useless.

The use of online activism has been recognised by the House of Commons, with the Commission on Digital Democracy of 2015 recommending that by 2020; the

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A QUICK EGO BOOST? birth to new terms, resulting in them gaining currency until they integrate into popular discourse. Another word often banded about on social media, ‘haterade’ (excessive negativity, criticism, or resentment) was also added to the Oxford dictionary at the same time as clicktivism. With every new batch of words added to the dictionary comes a reflection of the current climate; as we saw previously when many Brexit-related terms were legitimatised during the last update.

“We are getting a convergence of high-level politics and online language in quite a new way,” said Oxford dictionary’s head of content development Angus Stevenson. “We had all the words around Brexit in the last update and we are now starting to see all the words around Trump coming into the dictionary.”

Stevenson said that new terms from

branded ‘clicktivists’ are subscribing not to the cause they pledge their support to online, but to the selfish notion of that feel-good ego boost that you feel when you like that anti-animal cruelty charities Facebook page or retweet an article decrying Theresa May and her political party. Critics have voiced their concerns that this is simply serving to satisfy the need to feel as if they’re contributing to change whilst achieving very little, in favour of taking practical action to enforce change such as attending political rallies or becoming members of action groups. It appears political engagement has been watered down to the clicking of links with very little commitment involved.

And perhaps this is the case. Interest in politics appears to be at a high, with last June’s referendum seeing a national turnout of 72.2%, whilst political parties member numbers have sunk to an all time low. Less than 1% of

have counted many triumphs as a House of Commons should ensure result of their online campaigns. that everyone can understand what it does, second, that Parliament should 38 Degrees, for example, was behind be fully interactive and digital, and the campaign to help stop England’s third, (arguably most importantly) publicly owned forests and woodland that secure online voting should be from being privatised. In 2011, half an established option for all voters. a million people put their name to its petition forcing the then environment The convergence of politics with the secretary Caroline Spelman to do a online world is a natural evolutionary U-turn. More recently, they launched step; politics must reflect its electorates the ‘Protect the BBC’ campaign, interests to remain relevant and successfully preventing Radio 6 Music effective. This is how politics must adapt from closure, whilst campaigning in order to keep up with the modern heavily against political interference world. Otherwise, they fail to engage at the BBC, in particular, campaigning the 18-24 year old demographic, against Boris Johnson’s demand that and promote elitism and exclusion. the next director-general of the BBC be Whether ‘real’ activists like it or not, a supporter of the Conservative Party. the world of politics and online must unite if the former is to galvanise The use of online activism as a tool and engage with the ‘Gen-Z’ for enacting change should not be demographic of 18-25 year olds. dismissed as a valuable weapon in the public’s arsenal. The internet and all its | TEXT AMY ELLIOTT

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LABOUR’S 1 F U L L E M P L O Y M E N T We will create a million good quality jobs across our regions and nations, and guarantee a decent job for all. By investing £500 billion in infrastructure and industry, backed up by a publicly-owned National Investment Bank and regional banks, we will build a high skilled, high tech, low carbon economy to ensure that no one and no community is left behind. We will invest in the high speed broadband, energy, transport and homes that our country needs and allow good businesses to thrive, and support a new generation of co-operative enterprises.

S E C U R E H O M E S G U A R A N T E E We will build over a million new homes in five years, with at least half a million council homes, through our public investment strategy. We will end insecurity for private renters by introducing rent

controls, secure tenancies and a charter of private tenants’ rights, and increase access to affordable home ownership.

S E C U R I T Y A T W O R K We will give people stronger employment rights from day one in a job, end exploitative zero hours contracts, and create new sectoral collective bargaining rights. We will strengthen working people’s representation at work and the ability of

trade unions to organise, so that working people have a real voice at work. And we will put the defence of social and employment rights, as well as action against undercutting of pay and conditions through the exploitation of migrant labour, at the centre of the Brexit negotiations agenda for a new relationship with Europe.

S E C U R E S O C I A L

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N H S & C A R E

We will end health service privatisation and bring services into a secure, publiclyprovided NHS. We will integrate the NHS and social care for older and disabled people, funding dignity across the board, and ensure parity for mental health services.

A NATIONAL EDUCATION S E R V I C E We will build a new National Education Service, open to all throughout their lives. We will ensure there is universal childcare to give all children a good start in life, allowing greater sharing of caring responsibilities and removing barriers to women participating in the labour market. We will bring about the progressive restoration of free education for all; and guarantee quality apprenticeships and adult skills training.

A C T I O N T O S E C U R E O U R E N V I R O N M E N T

10 PLEDGES We will act to ‘insource’ our public and local council services, increase access to leisure, arts and sports across the country, and expand our publicly controlled bus network. We will bring our railways into public ownership and extend democratic social control over our energy.

CUT INCOME & INEQUALITY I N W E A L T H We will build a progressive tax system

We will act to protect the future of our planet, with social justice at the heart of our environmental policies, and take action to fulfil the Paris climate agreement. We will ensure a fair transition to a low-carbon economy, and drive the expansion of the green industries and jobs of the future, using our National Investment Bank to invest in public and community-owned renewable energy. We will deliver clean energy and curb energy bill rises for households – energy for the 60 million, not the Big Six energy companies. We will defend and extend EU environmental protections.

PUT THE PUBLIC BACK I N T O O U R E C O N O M Y We will rebuild public services and expand democratic participation, put the public back into our economy, give people a real say in their local communities with increased local and regional democracy.

so that wealth and the highest earners are fairly taxed, and shrink the gap between the highest and lowest paid.

We will act to create a more equal society, boost the incomes of the poorest and close the gender pay gap.

ACTION TO SECURE AN E Q U A L S O C I E T Y We will ensure that the human rights of all citizens are respected and all are protected

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from discrimination and prejudice. We will take action to tackle violence against women and girls, racism and discrimination on the basis of faith, and secure real equality for LGBT and disabled people.

We will defend the Human Rights Act and guarantee full rights for EU citizens living and working in Britain – and not allow them to be used as pawns in Brexit negotiations.

PEACE & JUSTICE AT THE HEART O F F O R E I G N P O L I C Y We will put conflict resolution and human rights at the heart of foreign policy, commit to working through the United Nations, end support for aggressive wars of intervention and back effective action to alleviate the refugee crisis. We will build human rights and social justice into trade policy, honour our international treaty obligations on nuclear disarmament and encourage others to do the same.

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