Labour drops plans to keep free movement after Brexit and 2030 climate pledge, manifesto reveals

Jeremy Corbyn hails document as 'most radical' in decades, including a pledge to build 150,000 low-cost homes for rent every year

Labour has rejected demands by activists to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and keep free movement after Brexit, its manifesto reveals.

Jeremy Corbyn, launching the document in Birmingham, hailed it as “most radical” in decades, including a pledge to tackle the housing crisis by building 150,000 low-cost homes for rent every year.

But the manifesto risks disappointing Labour activists by watering down the ambitious party conference vote to end the UK’s contributions to climate change in just 11 years’ time.

Instead, it commits a Labour government to achieving “the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030 in a way that is evidence-based”.

And, as The Independent reported last weekend, it says a separate conference vote to “maintain and extend free movement rights” after Brexit will “be subject to negotiations”.

The manifesto also drops another conference vote to abolish private schools, instead planning to “close the loopholes enjoyed” and seek advice on “integrating private schools”.

Labour insists its big spending plans will be fully costed, raising £5.4bn from income tax hikes on the wealthy, £6.3bn from reversing corporation tax cuts, £14bn from changes to tax on capital gains and dividends and £8.8bn from new tax on financial transactions.

Putting himself forward as an almost revolutionary scourge of the “rich and powerful”, he pointed to their “furious reaction” to his plans.

“If the bankers, billionaires and the establishment thought we represented politics as usual, that we could be bought off, that nothing was really going to change - they wouldn’t attack us so ferociously,” he told his audience.

“I accept the opposition of the billionaires, because we will make those at the top pay their fair share of tax to help fund world class public services for you – that’s real change.”

And he added: “You really can have this plan for real change because you don’t need money to buy it. You just need a vote – and your vote can be more powerful than all their wealth.”

The 105-page manifesto, entitled ‘It’s Time for Real Change’’ also pledges:

* A windfall tax on oil giants – “so that the companies that knowingly damaged our climate will help cover the costs”.

* To abolish the House of Lords – with the “preferred option of an elected senate of the regions and nations”.

* A trial of universal basic income – as an “innovative ways of responding to low pay”.

* To scrap universal credit.

The organisation Labour for a Green New Deal - which had pushed for the 2030 commitment - hailed “the most ambitious programme of climate action ever seen in this country”.

“By 2030, Labour’s transformational green industrial revolution will have created a million unionised, good green jobs, overseen a fivefold increase in offshore wind power, and made 27 million homes warmer and more energy-efficient,” said Lauren Townsend, its spokesperson.

“What’s more, it will be the big polluters who pay for all this, not working people.”

On Brexit, the manifesto, as expected, pledges to negotiate a new divorce deal with the EU within three months and hold a referendum within six months, with the alternative option of remaining in the EU.

Mr Corbyn rejected a questioner’s accusation that his refusal to state his personal view made him “a joke” arguing his was “a responsible and serious approach”.

“What I’m saying is, let’s get together on this and the people have the final say.”