Emily Cole

Naked Politics Blogger

Politics is more confusing than ever and it can be pretty hard to know what each political party is offering- especially as a young person. We know you don’t have time in between working or studying for exams, to be reading through shit tonnes of pages. 

But as a young person, your opinion matters- massively. So to give you a hand, here’s Naked Politics’ election breakdown. Today, we’ve broken down the Labour party’s manifesto in terms of how positive we think they would be for young people.  

The Labour Party’s manifesto has been the most heavily scrutinised as, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), it would involve a substantial increase in the role of “the state”. Here’s a roundup of what they’re offering.

Education 

  • Private schools would lose the tax breaks they currently have as registered charities, and a new social justice commission would be set up to advise on how to integrate private schools into the state school system. 
  • Tuition fees would also be scrapped and maintenance grants – unlike the current loan system that gives poorer students a higher loan and more debt when they leave university – would be restored. 
  • The debt of students who’ve already graduated would also be written off. These policies would be expected to cost £11.5bn and £20bn respectively. The need for the Lib Dem’s Skills Wallet would be rendered pointless as Labour would put aside £3bn to allow adults to retrain free for up to 6 years during their lives. 
  • Children would learn about the legacy of the British Empire and colonialism and all we can say is it’s about TIME. The role of the Empire is something many only learn at university, so it’s no surprise that a YouGov poll in 2014 found that 59% of Brits thought the Empire was something to be more proud of than ashamed of. 

Brexit

  • Renegotiate a Brexit Deal with the EU within three months of being elected that protects jobs, the economy and workers with a customs union and close single market alignment. 
  • This deal will then be put to the people in a referendum WITH the option to remain on the ballot. 
  • Jeremy Corbyn will remain neutral so he can legitimately implement the result. However, a soft Brexit vs Remain could be a bit of a false choice and hardline leavers may boycott the referendum.

Tax and spending 

  • A new “super” income tax rate of 50% on those earning £125,000. Labour would also lower the threshold for the 45% tax rate from £150,000 to £80,000. 
  • There has been a lot of misinformation on social media about how much tax people would pay under these rates. The UK has a marginal tax rate, so you would only get taxed at 50% on your earnings over £125,000. 
  • Labour have also proposed to re-raise corporation tax that has been cut under the Tories. It would rise from 19% to 21% in April 2020, up to 24% in 2021 and 26% in 2022, which would put it almost back in line with where it was in 2010.  
  • Labour have claimed that these policies mean you will only pay more tax if you are in the top 5% of earners. This ignores their plans to scrap the Marriage Tax Allowance, whereby married couples would no longer receive a tax deduction. This is obviously going to affect those who earn less than £80,000. 
  • They’ll abolish Universal Credit and replace it with a new system and as we’ve seen over the last decade this comes with immense complexity, cost, and implementation problems. 
  • They’re repeating their pledge made in 2017 of nationalising mail, rail, water and energy but this year they’ve added OpenReach (an arm of BT) as to provide free, full fibre broadband to every household by 2030. There’s a lot of debate about how necessary broadband is to people’s lives; and if we’re going to go on a mass nationalisation spree, why not focus on more fundamental aspects of people’s lives, such as food? 

Housing

  • Plans for a new social housing build programme, proposing more than a million houses to be built over the next decade. 

Climate change

  • A Green Industrial Revolution which would include an expanse of electric car charging points, the introduction of interest-free loans to buy electric cars, a ban on fracking, and investment in green industries. 

Democracy

  • Like the Lib Dems they’re proposing votes at 16

If you’d like to find out more about who Naked Politics is officially recommending young people vote for, check out our main Manifesto Breakdown.

Check out our more detailed breakdowns on our homepage!

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Last Update: May 24, 2024