Labour conference - LIVE: Leadership faces backlash after John McDonnell says new Brexit referendum should not include remain option
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The Labour leadership is facing a backlash from party members and its own MPs after John McDonnell said any future Brexit referendum should not include the option of remaining in the EU.
The shadow chancellor said that, if Labour does eventually support another public vote, it would only be on "the terms of Brexit" and would not give the public the chance to reverse the result of the 2016 referendum.
The issue has dominated the party's annual conference in Liverpool. Last night, a tense six-hour meeting saw delegates agree a motion on Brexit that will be voted on later in the week.
The text commits the party to "support all options remaining on the table including campaigning for a public vote" but makes clear that Labour would prefer a general election.
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On another busy day, Mr McDonnell also announced plans to give workers a 10 per cent stake in their companies.
The shadow chancellor said his proposal for "inclusive ownerships funds" would make employees up to £500 a year better off.
John Healey announces two new housing policies:
1. Government-funded renters unions to help tenants organise and defend their rights against landlords.
2. A new national levy on second homes that are used as holiday homes, with the proceeds used to help house the homeless.
He finishes by talking about Grenfell, saying:
It has been more than fifteen months since that terrible national tragedy.
"Fifteen months on. Why have nearly half the Grenfell survivors still not got permanent new homes? Why are more than 400 other tower blocks still cloaked in that same lethal Grenfell-style cladding? Why has government still not banned combustible cladding?
So I say to the prime minister: if this was your home, would it really take this long to fix? If this was where your family slept each night, would you fail to act over fifteen long months?"
Len McCluskey, leader of Unite and a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn, is now addressing the conference hall.
He says in the last few months "everything possible has been used to attack and undermine our party and our leader" but that Labour continues to hold its poll position "despite the smears from the media and some in our own ranks who should know better".
He says voters can see through "the venomous attacks for what they are: the last throw of an elite desperate to hang onto its privileges, perks and ill-gotten gains".
Len McCluskey gets a huge round of applause as he attacks people who have accused Jeremy Corbyn of antisemitism.
He says:
"Yes anyone with a point of view should be heard, but anyone screaming 'you are a racist' at Jeremy Corbyn has lost every sense of moral proportion, and I might add, comrades, that they've lost every shred of decency as well".
Far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has writen to Conservative MEPs thanking them for their support in a recent vote against him...
This is interesting, from a delegate in the room when Labour's conference Brexit motion was decided. He says members explicitly rejected a line about any second vote being solely on "the terms of Brexit"- i.e. the exact argument John McDonnell made this morning...
FULL STORY: Pro-EU Labour MPs condemn John McDonnell’s plan to deny voters option to Remain in fresh Brexit referendum
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is now speaking from the conference podium. He says:
"The Tories have created an age of insecurity where people have little if any power or control over their lives. It’s no wonder so many people voted for Brexit. They voted for any form of change. It was an anti-establishment vote.
So I believe it’s time. It’s time to shift the balance of power in our country. It’s time to give people back control over their lives.
McDonnell is laying out his plans to give employees a stake in their companies through "inclusive ownership funds":
"We will legislate for large companies to transfer shares into an 'Inclusive Ownership Fund.' The shares will be held and managed collectively by the workers.
The shareholding will give workers the same rights as other shareholders to have a say over the direction of their company. And dividend payments will be made directly to the workers from the fund.
Payments could be up to £500 a year. That’s 11 million workers each with a greater say, and a greater stake, in the rewards of their labour."
There's new information from John McDonnell on how Labour's plans to renationalise the water industry would work. He says:
"Nationalisation will not be a return to the past. We don’t want to take power away from faceless directors to a Whitehall office, to swap one remote manager for another.
Today, Rebecca Long Bailey and I are launching a large scale consultation on democracy in our public services. We are also setting out our plans for a new publicly-owned water system that puts this essential service back in the hands of local councils, workers and customers."
Promising "unprecedented openness and transparency", he says Labour is ending the profiteering in dividends, vast executive salaries and excessive interest payments".
Instead, he says, profits will be reinvested in water infrastructure and staff, raise environmental standards or used to reduce bills.
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