The annual Brexiteer outrage over EU flags supposedly “hijacking” the Last Night of the Proms didn’t disappoint.

Thank EU for the Music returned to the Royal Albert Hall on September 12, handing out around 5,000 EU flags to concertgoers. The group has been distributing free flags at the Proms every year since 2016 and handed out an estimated 50,000 in Liverpool in the run-up to Eurovision in 2022.

Naturally, GB News was not impressed.

The right-wing broadcaster reported that crowds had “succumbed to a pro-Brussels love-in,” claiming EU flags appeared to outnumber Union Jacks during performances of Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory and other Proms favourites.

But in its eagerness to mock the campaign, GB News managed to give Thank EU for the Music some valuable free publicity.

The article helpfully explained that the group describes itself as a “pro-European group of musicians and music lovers campaigning peacefully for music without borders.”

It told readers that concertgoers were being encouraged to wave the flags in solidarity with musicians affected by post-Brexit touring barriers.

And it went further, outlining the group’s calls for Labour to secure easier EU touring for British artists, improve access to work permits and reduce restrictions around customs, transport, tax and social security.

It even quoted the campaigners arguing that the government’s own evidence shows reducing these barriers would bring economic and cultural benefits to both the UK and EU.

Quite the campaign advert and an argument, it seems, that is becoming increasingly difficult for Brexit supporters to dismiss.

Brexit has created huge barriers for British musicians wanting to work in Europe.

A 2024 Musicians’ Union survey found 75 percent of respondents who had previously worked in the EU said their bookings had declined. 59 percent said touring the EU was no longer financially viable, while 72 percent said their income from EU work had fallen.

And the evidence is no longer coming solely from musicians’ organisations.

Recent government research into the economic impact of Brexit on touring found that UK performances in EU countries in 2024 remained 21 percent below 2019 levels. It estimated that the reduction in UK touring associated with EU exit resulted in £208 million less gross value added and 2,490 fewer full-time equivalent jobs between 2022 and 2024 across the touring sectors covered by the research.

Smaller-scale touring has been particularly affected, with additional immigration, customs, transport, taxation and social security requirements increasing costs and complexity.

In other words, those 5,000 EU flags are not simply a political stunt. For many musicians, Brexit has made it harder and more expensive to do their jobs.

Speaking exclusively to Left Foot Forward, a Thank EU for the Music spokesperson said:

“We thank GB news for highlighting our campaign and we appreciate that they are interested in improving the careers and livelihoods of musicians all-round the country. The best way to support them is by restoring  free movement for musicians

 “As a musician we know our new prime minister will also be keen to help.  

“Andy, we urge you to act on official government research at the forthcoming EU-UK summit and support the UK music industry by negotiating a bespoke cultural touring arrangement or restoring freedom of movement for musicians.”

There is, of course, another response from the right to the sight of EU flags at the Proms: to turn the issue into a culture-war complaint about “lefties”.

Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley went even further, claiming people will vote Reform because “lefties are so incredibly irritating”.

“EU flag-wavers at the Proms embody the bourgeois disdain for Britain that is driving support for Farage,” he writes.

It’s quite a leap from musicians asking for fewer bureaucratic barriers to earning a living to claims about “bourgeois disdain for Britain.” It completely misses the issue at the heart of the campaign: the impact of post-Brexit restrictions on musicians’ livelihoods.

Yet the Brexit culture war continues to reduce the issue to flags.

But the more the right-wing media focuses on the flags, the more it risks drawing attention to the reason they are being waved in the first place.

Thank EU for the Music was founded in 2016 in response to the Brexit vote and campaigns for a borderless music industry. It has continued to call for fewer barriers to European touring and for freedom of movement for musicians.

The group has welcomed the government’s recent research into the impact of Brexit on touring, arguing that the evidence backs up what musicians have been saying for years.

Its campaign is particularly relevant to young and emerging artists, who are less likely to have the money, administrative support or established networks needed to navigate the additional costs and bureaucracy.

The issue, then, is rather bigger than whether someone happens to wave an EU flag at the Proms.

For musicians trying to build careers across Europe, it’s about whether Brexit has made their work more difficult, expensive and bureaucratic — and whether the government is prepared to do something about it.

Thank EU for the Music says it will continue campaigning until it achieves “music without borders”.

And, thanks to GB News and the Telegraph, a few more people now know exactly what it is campaigning for.

Image credit: Bruce Tanner (Last Night of BBC Proms Royal Albert Hall Musicians need Freedom of Movement)

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Naomi Pohl has been general secretary of the Musicians’ Union (MU) since 2022. In those four years, the music industry has faced major challenges, from the aftermath of Brexit to the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

At this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton, LFF spoke to Pohl about these issues and what she wants to see Andy Burnham’s government do to address them.

Pohl began by telling LFF that Burnham “gets a lot of the issues” in the music sector and that he “understands the issues with generative AI and EU touring”.

She then went on to explain what the big issues facing her members around AI are. “Well, the problem that we’ve got at the moment is that to start with it was AI developers training on mass catalogues of works, but without any permissions in place”, Pohl said, adding: “But now the problem is that we’ve got licensing deals actually happening. So, for example, major record labels like Warner will go and license the catalogue to an AI developer.”

She continued by setting out what this means for musicians themselves, telling LFF: “Most artists are going to have contracts that predated generative AI and so there’s nothing in contracts that says if work is licensed for training purposes, what the royalty rate should be.

“So, what happened with music streaming is they went for the lowest possible royalty rate in the contract. And we think it should be a 50/50 split with the artist. But there’s no transparency around these deals – and session musicians, the backing musicians, get absolutely nothing just like [with] music streaming.”

What should the government be doing to address this? Pohl told LFF that it’s a combination of new regulation, strengthening existing laws around copyright, and establishing new rights for musicians in relation to AI.

She said: “We want regulation from the government. We want copyright laws to be strengthened. And ideally we want our members to have new rights that relate to AI so that anyone like a record label or an AI developer would need to come and seek permission from the musician and actually pay them something if they wanted those rights.

Pohl continued: “So if it’s just left to the market like it is at the moment, then we’ll end up with all these licensing deals done behind closed doors and there’ll be no transparency around how artists are being paid if at all.”

How confident is the MU that Burnham will deliver on this? Pohl told LFF: “I think that the word on the street is that Andy is maybe a bit more friendly to the creative industries. I think there was a bit of a concern that Keir Starmer’s administration maybe were more pro [the] AI sector and what growth that could deliver to the economy.

“But of course, the creative industries also deliver growth, and I actually think it’s not a binary choice. It’s not a case of the government can back AI or back music. Potentially, there could be licensing deals that are done that are fair if the government actually supports us.”

Aside from AI, one of the most pressing issues the MU is seeking to address is the impact Brexit has had on the ability for musicians to tour within the EU, and the consequences this has had for their income.

New research has estimated that between 2022 and 2024, the UK touring sector lost £208 million and 2,490 jobs due to reduced touring activity across Europe. The research also suggested that reduced touring by UK musicians resulted in estimated losses of more than £1 billion to EU member state economies.

Pohl told LFF: “I think in the previous set of negotiations with the EU, really the EU touring issue [was] seen as being a UK problem – like it affects our members more than it affects the EU. But I think the importance of this research is that it shows there is an economic impact on both sides of the border, and that there’s an advantage to us allowing touring and facilitating touring.

“So we want to see issues addressed like the cost of Carnets, which are the equipment passports that our members have to get, which can be minimum £300 or £400, but they can be thousands of pounds.

“We also want to see some sort of solution to the 90 day issue, where we’ve got at the moment our members are restricted to working or 90 days in a 180 day period. So if you’re on a long running show that’s touring in Europe, you have to come back after 90 days. Robbie Williams actually had to send back his whole crew tot he UK and bring out an entire different crew, which is just complete madness.”

Pohl continued: “We’ve got at the moment different rules in different territories, where we just need to have ideally one EU wide visa waiver agreement which would mean it would facilitate our members touring between territories without having to get visas and work permits for each individual territory.”

As with other unions that represent workers in the creative and arts sectors – such as Equity – the MU has another big concern at present: the ongoing BBC charter renewal process. The current charter expires at the end of 2027, and the government is therefore in the process of renewing and reviewing it, which will steer the future of the broadcaster for the next decade.

“We also want to see a decent license fee settlement for the BBC charter renewal, we want to make sure that they’ve got stable, secure funding”, Pohl told LFF, adding: “We want it to be a universal BBC, we don’t support the idea of having a two -tier system for people who pay a subscription and get better content or better access. For me, that’s not a message that this government wants to send to people – that you have to pay to get increased access. It should be the BBC should be for everyone.”

She went on to say: “The BBC‘s already made some commitments around use of AI. We’d like to see them go further. We’d like to have a firm commitment that they won’t use AI generated music and other creative content. We want to make sure that they’re still paying good salaries. I know that at the moment because of the state of the BBC and the fact that less people are paying the license fee, we’re not getting RPI pay rises.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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BBC Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce roasted Reform MP Danny Kruger on the programme for his party’s hypocrisy and confected outrage over laws applying retrospectively.

Reform have been facing questions over donations the party has accepted from two crypto billionaires, Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo, who both gave £36 million each last week.

Questions have been raised over whether the donations are legal and if they would have to be returned.

Even before the current donations to Reform, the government was already looking at tightening the rules following the Rycroft Review into foreign financial influence. The government then said it would introduce a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas electors.

And the rules go further than simply stopping somebody living abroad from writing an enormous cheque. They would also continue to restrict some people who return to Britain, until they have been resident here for a full calendar year.

Crucially, the government intends the new limit to apply retrospectively to donations made since 25 March this year. Donations caught by the new rules and above the limit could therefore eventually have to be returned.

Reform have tried to claim that laws which apply retrospectively are undemocratic and unconstitutional and Kruger tried to make the same point on Question Time.

Bruce asked the East Wiltshire MP: “Do you think laws should never be applied retrospectively?”

When he replied that this is a “very important principle,” Bruce asked: “Then why does Reform want to retrospectively change the law by rescinding indefinite leave to remain to people that already have it?”

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Reform MP Danny Kruger drew much laughter and ridicule after claiming that the two crypto billionaires who donated an eye watering £72 million to Nigel Farage’s party expected ‘nothing in return’.

Last week, crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo donated £36 million each to the party in the space of just 24 hours.

Questions have been raised over whether the donations are legal and if they would have to be returned as well as over what Delo and Harborne are expecting in return from the party. 

Even before the current donations to Reform, the government was already looking at tightening the rules following the Rycroft Review into foreign financial influence. The government then said it would introduce a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas electors, a move that could apply retrospectively.

Critics have pointed out that Reform has already given the crypto billionaires what they want, including a pledge to cut their taxes, lighter regulation of their industry, and to limit competition.

Kruger insisted on Question Time that the two donors would get nothing in return for their donation, which prompted much laughter from the audience.

He said: “I think that it’s an admirable thing that these two men – who will get nothing for it, no peerage, no policy. They’re not getting anything for it. There’s absolutely nothing in it for them.”

Nothing in return? Really?…

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The Mayor of London mocked Green Party leader Zack Polanski during a session of the London Assembly by answering a question from him in Urdu.

It came after Polanski, who is a member of the London Assembly, was criticised for posting a campaign video in the national language of Pakistan. In the video, he introduced himself and encouraged voters to vote Green in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on October 8.

Some Urdu speakers had described his video as ‘cringe’ while Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said it made him feel “uncomfortable”.

At Mayor’s question time in the London Assembly on Thursday, Polanski asked Khan a question about data centres.

Khan proceeded to answer Polanski in fluent Urdu, mocking his video.

According to a translation provided by the mayor’s office, Khan said: “Peace be upon you. I was worried that you would ask the question in Urdu, but you asked your question in English.

“I’ll be spending time in Holborn and St Pancras this week and I’m going to be there. Maybe we will meet there.”

Reacting to Khan’s clip, journalist Dan Hodges said: “OK, I don’t care what people’s general views are about Sadiq Khan. This is pure class.”

Others called Khan’s video a ‘treat to watch’.

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Reform continues to make the headlines for all the wrong reasons after its party leader in Wales announced he was stepping down following his arrest on suspicion of assault.

Dan Thomas, who became Reform UK Wales leader in February this year, was arrested on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour. He was released without charge.

Thomas said in a statement: ““It has been the honour of my life to have been the leader of Reform Wales and see this party go from zero to 34 elected members and become the largest opposition group in Welsh history.

“With deep regret, I am now standing down from this position due to personal reasons.

“Over the weekend, I was reported to the police and was released without charge.

“I stress that I have done nothing wrong, but I do not want the coming headlines to be a distraction from the fantastic work our Senedd team is doing in holding this government to account.”

Gwent Police said: “On Sunday 13 September a 45-year-old man, from the Aberbargoed area, was arrested on suspicion of assault and engaging in controlling/coercive behaviour.

“He has been bailed pending further enquiries.”

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Oliver Ryan, Labour MP for Burnley

Some time ago I had the opportunity to spend a morning on a busy building site on Rossendale Road on the edge of my constituency of Burnley. Here 87 homes for families were under construction. I met Barratt Homes, the developer, and the National House Building Council (NHBC), which insures new homes, and redistributes any profits it makes back into the industry. Building more homes is incredibly important for the next generation, but what matters just as much to many of my constituents is building homes to the highest possible standard, that will stand the test of time.

I was interested to hear that each year NHBC carries out around one million inspections for quality assurance, attention to detail, technical expertise, health and safety, and consistency when compared to the original drawings. Developers cannot simply throw up shoddy buildings; they must subject themselves to stringent inspections before they can receive a warranty.

The need for high quality has been on my mind since last month’s announcement of the first £10 billion of the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme: more than 70,000 homes, the majority at genuine social rents, with almost £1 billion in the North West. After fourteen years of selling off more than we built, that is a serious answer to a serious problem. But we must build these homes to a high standard. My constituents in need of housing deserve nothing less than a safe, warm place to live and grow.

We have the money in place. Besides the funding, the challenge comes in two parts. The homes must be demonstrably good, and building them must visibly pay something back locally. Local consent is the next challenge. When new plans for housing emerge, my constituents in Burnley, Padiham, and Brierfield will ask me: what’s in it for us?

It is tempting to dismiss that as NIMBYism. That is a mistake. Opposition to housebuilding is usually not generalised opposition to new homes, but a sense that local people will not see returns, and that new homes will be of poor quality, which has sometimes been a persistent issue nationally.

The first can be ensured by independent standards and verification from organisations like NHBC. Developers cannot just assure local authorities their properties will be well built; they must be backed up by published standards, which are verified by independent inspectors. This gives people confidence. And it works: this year’s National New Homes Customer Satisfaction Survey, verified by Ipsos, found 93% of buyers would recommend their builder and 90% were happy with their home’s quality. This is the sixth year the score has been running above 90%, showing growing confidence, which will translate into greater consent for new building.

For the second half of the challenge, the honest answer to “what’s in it for us?” is jobs, apprenticeships, and training; and here the industry is ahead of government. I heard on my visit that NHBC is investing up to £100 million in twelve multi-skill training hubs which will benefit 3,000 site-ready tradespeople every year. At these hubs, apprentices train on replica sites in 14 to 18 months, instead of up to 30, so a young person being trained up at a site can do so in the knowledge that they will be working in the same conditions in which they trained. For every 10,000 homes, we need around 2,500 bricklayers, 2,500 groundworkers, and 1,000 carpenters. Needless to say, we do not have them. The sector needs 239,000 more workers by 2029.

So as we push for an increase in housebuilding, across both social housing and private development, here is my ask as we in the Labour Party gather for our annual conference in Liverpool: put skills hubs in the new town plans from day one.

When we stand up a development corporation in Leeds, Tempsford, or Manchester, a construction training hub should sit on the masterplan alongside a school and a GP surgery. At Northstowe, Homes England provided land for an NHBC training hub that trains 200 apprentices a year. This should leave a skills legacy for years to come.

The Prime Minister has rightly put social value at the heart of public procurement. It now needs to be delivered in every community with local recruitment, apprenticeships that reach care leavers and work for those who have long been without it. Money that stays in our local communities. And training that outlives the project.

Opposition parties offer nothing more than grievances about a housing crisis they have no plan to fix. We can offer better: social homes at rents people can actually pay, built to a standard someone independent will stand behind, by young people from the same town on wages that stay in it. Where you are from should never determine where you end up, and it should never determine whether the home you are offered is any good.

Next week in Liverpool we will rightly celebrate our plans for the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. Let us also commit to what will deliver it: a package of measures that ensures homes of the highest quality and skills that will serve a new generation of British construction workers. That is how you win consent, and how you keep it.

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Reform continues to be exposed for having links with far-right thugs and groups, after an investigation revealed that a Facebook group involved in the recent far right anti migration protests which saw balaclava clad men block roads and cause disruption, was set up by a Reform activist.

Earlier this month, hundreds of men wearing all black and balaclavas took part in two anti-migrant protests in Dover and Portsmouth. In Dover they blocked the town’s two main roads for several hours and in Portsmouth they blocked migrant coaches.

Ministers condemned the “thuggish and intimidating behaviour” of far-right activists who blocked roads, and who were coordinated by Danny Thomas, a close associate of anti-migrant and anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson.

While Reform leader Nigel Farage issued condemnation of the far-right protesters, saying it was ‘disgusting’ and that nobody, ‘whether they’re on the left or right, should be wearing balaclavas’, it seems not everyone in Reform shares his sentiments with some keen to support Thomas’ far-right thugs.

HOPE not hate has discovered that the North East Patriot Platform and Tyneside Patriots Facebook pages, part of the Patriot Platform network that launched the intimidating masked vigilante actions in Dover and Portsmouth last week, have been set up by Mark Thorn, a Reform activist from Gateshead.

The anti-extremist group added: “Thorn describes himself as the “Reform UK Representative/Campaigner” for Gateshead Central & Whickham Constituency on his social media accounts, which contain a mix of pro-Reform and pro-Patriot Platform content, and appears to believe that the party’s criticisms of the movement are not sincere.

“Responding to criticism of Farage’s response from another member, Thorn argued that Farage public stance was guided by political necessity and might not match his “secretly and privately personal opinions”:

In the same Facebook group, five Reform councillors indicated that they were keen to support Patriot Platform’s activities. They included Cllr Trevor Shonk of Kent County Council, Cllrs Sandra Pickering and James Wright of Gateshead Council and Cllrs Paul Goldingay and Jamie Campbell of Solihull Council.

Once again Reform’s masks slips…

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This week, Brighton once again played host to the annual gathering of trade unionists at the TUC Congress. While it was the third Congress since Labour returned to power, it was the first since Andy Burnham took over as prime minister. 

Mr Burnham’s ascent to Number 10 loomed large over the event – and gave the whole thing a much more optimistic tone than it has had in recent years. Speaking to delegates, there was a palpable sense that Burnham offered hope for the movement and a real opportunity to prevent a Reform government. 

Likewise, both the senior cabinet members who addressed the Congress were warmly received by delegates. Housing secretary Angela Rayner spoke at the event on Monday, in which she gave a stark warning of what a Reform government would mean for workers. On Tuesday, first secretary of state Louise Haigh spoke in place of the prime minister, who had cancelled all engagements following the death of his father. She used her speech to commit the government to “turn the page on four decades of lost opportunity, to deliver the change our country is crying out for, and to build a future that the people we represent expect and deserve.” Both speeches were met with a standing ovation from delegates. 

Beyond the applause though, what do the leaders of some of the big unions think of the early days of the Burnham government? 

Equity’s Paul W Fleming told LFF that it is ‘markedly more competent’ than Keir Starmer’s‘. Dave Ward from the CWU said Burnham is the ‘best chance for working people’. Unite’s Sharon Graham told LFF that his ‘analysis has been good’.

So far, so good. But the support from trade union general secretaries isn’t unconditional or without warnings.Graham said she wanted to see “meat on the bones” and that he needed to prove “the working class could feel that their better days are ahead of them”. ASLEF general secretary Dave Calfe told LFF that Burnham has to use the budget to “make life easier for working people”. And while Ward said he was the best chance for working people, he also said he was the ‘last chance’ to prevent Reform from coming to power and seeing Labour out office for a long time. 

The prospect of Reform coming to power, and the threat of the far-right, were threads that ran throughout much of this year’s Congress. The TUC general secretary Paul Nowak used his keynote speech at the event to lay into Nigel Farage’s party, saying: “Reform do not, never have, and never will represent the interests of working people”, and calling for a ban crypto donations. Delegates also agreed to set up a task-force to combat the far-right online. They also voted for a motion which saw the TUC commit to take steps to tackle the far-right’s “weaponisation of women’s and girls’ safety”.

On the topic of motions – what were the big debates at this year’s Congress? Ultimately, there was very little disagreement within the movement this year, with most motions passing unanimously. Compared to Congresses over recent years, this one was much more cordial. 

The main disagreement came on Wednesday morning, over a UCU motion on the ‘Wages Not Weapons’ campaign, which calls for investment in public services, rather than defence spending. The motion called for the TUC to “build on the Wages Not Weapons campaign by advancing a trade union vision of security based on decent work, quality public services, equality, climate action, democracy and peace”. Although it passed, it proved divisive, with Unite and GMB among those to speak against it.

Despite not causing disagreement in the hall, this year’s Congress did pass a number of other significant motions. Delegates voted to oppose the EHRC code of practice and support self-ID for trans people, to call a national demonstration this autumn calling for investment in public services, and to push the UK government to end all military cooperation with Israel.

With the storytelling done, here’s the full line-by-line rundown of everything that happened:

The interviews

• Sharon Graham: A just transition could be as transformational as the 1945 Labour government
• Andy Burnham must ‘make life easier for working people’ – interview with ASLEF general secretary Dave Calfe 
• Andy Burnham is ‘best chance for working people’ – CWU general secretary Dave Ward 
• Zack Polanski will be sixth Green MP after Holborn and St Pancras by-election, Rachel Millward claims
• Andy Burnham’s government ‘markedly more competent’ than Keir Starmer’s – Equity general secretary

The speeches

• Louise Haigh tells TUC Congress Labour government is ‘proudly on the side of working people’
• Angela Rayner gives stark warning of impact of Reform government on workers in TUC Congress speech
• TUC general secretary slams Tory and Reform ‘flat-earthers’ over climate policy
• Paul Nowak calls for ban on crypto donations in damning attack on Reform UK
• TUC general secretary celebrates ‘biggest increase’ in trade union membership ‘since records began’
• TUC president blasts ‘vindictive and pernicious’ legislation that blocks trade unionists’ ‘fundamental human rights’
• TUC president perfectly sums up why trade unionism matters

The motions

• TUC calls for end to all UK military cooperation with Israel in wide-ranging BDS policy
• TUC votes to build on ‘Wages Not Weapons’ campaign and advance an alternative vision for security
• TUC passes motion condemning ‘institutional racist targeting, harassment and humiliation’ of Professor Jason Arday 
• TUC backs motion calling for investment in climate resilience 
• TUC backs ASLEF campaign for publicly owned trains to end railway profiteering 
• TUC calls on Labour to make good on its promise to deliver ‘biggest wave of insourcing in a generation’ 
• TUC agrees to call national demonstration to demand investment in public services
• TUC votes to condemn EHRC code of practice and back self-ID for trans people
• TUC issues call for radical shift in British economic policy
• TUC agrees to launch social media taskforce to take on far-right online
• TUC commits to ‘defend’ teachers from ‘attacks’ by Reform-controlled councils

The rest

• Privatised water firms acting “like a criminal racket”, Apsana Begum MP claims
• Labour Party’s record on trans rights ‘absolutely disgraceful’, Nadia Whittome tells TUC fringe 
• Sharon Graham explains why workers not bosses are what keeps the country going in just 29 words
• Government must ‘face up to reality’ on climate crisis, Fire Brigades Union leader says
• Union leader destroys far-right’s claims to care about women’s safety

The stuff that’s still to come

We’re not quite done yet! We’ve still got two more interviews to get out from this week. Watch this space for our conversation with the Musicians’ Union’s Naomi Pohl and USDAW’s Joanne Thomas. 

TUC was the first conference in our calendar of coverage for this season (as Reform refused to let us in!) Next up, in just over a week’s time, we’ll be in Liverpool covering Labour Conference. We’re proud to have provided some of the most comprehensive coverage of TUC Congress of any media outlet in the UK. But this reporting doesn’t come cheap.

If you haven’t already done so, please consider chipping in and donating today to help fund our conference season coverage.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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Palma Oxley is a researcher at the Fabian Society, working at the Fabian Housing Centre

Andy Burnham’s new government has rightly kept housing at the top of its agenda. Angela Rayner has reiterated the commitment to build 1.5m new homes over the parliament and to oversee the ‘biggest council-housebuilding programme since the post-war period’. But to meet this challenge, they must go further. Standardising some aspects of housing design could help boost numbers without compromising on quality.

Starmer’s administration had undertaken significant reforms to boost housebuilding by rewriting outdated planning laws – including through the newest National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – and committing £39bn for new social and affordable homes. 

But the Fabian Housing Centre has estimated that every region failed to meet its housebuilding target last year and that England will fall far short of building 1.5 million new homes over the next five. Even Angela Rayner has made it clear that the target is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. Clearly, the government must go further if its commitment to building thousands of good-quality homes every year is to materialise in neighbourhoods and communities across the country.

One of the ‘quick wins’ for government would be to standardise housing frames. High-quality, well-designed homes are essential, if meeting the new homes target is to genuinely improve the lives of people across the country. However, what constitutes a good home in the eyes of local authorities varies from one area to the next without good reason. Housebuilders are left without clear guidance on what kinds of homes and designs are needed and where. 

This lack of clarity is damaging for all builders, including housing associations. Every minor change adds administrative delays, paperwork, and extra material costs. But it particularly impacts small and medium-sized builders who cannot easily absorb the impact of delays and shifting design requirements. When a builder is forced to make unexpected changes to designs of homes and sites, they lose the ability to achieve economies of scale across their supply chain.

The current approach also fails to protect the architectural character of our towns, despite its intention, as what is deemed good design can shift even within localities. And a lack of building, stalled sites, and planning refusals can lead to the decay of local areas.  This approach has also failed to lead to interesting, well-designed homes that garner public support. In the absence of a clear definition of what makes a good home in a local area, innovation is risky, rather than rewarding. As a result, developers prefer design choices that are ‘safe’ and can pass planning.

Instead, the government could require local authorities to adopt standardised housing frames and local design guides for developments in their area. This would support local identity and architectural character, while supporting innovation, and offering builders clarity and predictability about acceptable forms of development from day one.

In a recent Fabian Housing Centre report, we recommended two changes. First, the government should establish a diverse set of England-wide standardised housing frames for different types of homes, perhaps following a competition which consults the public. Councils would be required to select a few frames that best suit their area. Second, local authorities should be required to establish a clear design code within their local plan, covering height, density, site layout, and distances between homes for light and privacy. 

When housing developments adopt the local authority’s chosen frames and comply with these local design codes, they should be automatically fast-tracked through the planning system. Other unique styles could still be approved, but they wouldn’t qualify for this fast-tracked route. This could cut the cost of development by around two percent.

England would not be the first to adopt this approach of standardised housing frames and design guides. In Ireland, standardisation is being used as part of a programme to boost the number of social homes by 50 per cent. New South Wales in Australia adopted these policies to deliver 112,000 homes over the next five years. Croydon saw delivery on small sites double after the introduction of a suburban design guide for small sites. 

As the new administration beds in and the next election comes into view, housebuilding is only going to become more important, as waiting lists rise and the market struggles. The temptation will be to compromise on quality, so that developers can build more.

But fast-tracking planning permission for compliant homes would both cut the cost of development and create great places to live. These small changes could transform how we build homes and help tackle the housing crisis in every community.  

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Unite is one of the UK’s largest trade unions, representing over 1 million workers in a range of sectors. Its general secretary – Sharon Graham – is one of the most prominent figures in the labour movement, having first been elected in 2021 and comfortably re-elected this summer.

Under her leadership, Unite has sought to assert its influence on the political scene in order to deliver policy change for its members, while maintaining a relentless focus on workplace organising over issues of pay, terms and conditions.

During her time in office, she’s butted heads with governments of various flavours. With Andy Burnham now in Number 10 and leading a new-ish administration, LFF spoke to Graham at this year’s TUC Congress about what she makes of his early days in government and what her union wants him to deliver for workers.

“At the moment the working class feel that their best days are behind them”, Graham told LFF, adding: “They don’t believe their children will have better jobs. They don’t believe their children are going to be able to buy a home. And actually they feel that everything that was there is almost in the past, not the present.”

She went on to say that Burnham needs to “crack the code” to ensure that “the working class could feel that their better days are ahead of them”. She said his “analysis has been good”, but that there needed to be “meat on the bones”.

What would this look like? Graham’s initial answer comes with a proposed contrast to the early days of the Keir Starmer government. Within months of coming to office, Starmer and his chancellor Rachel Reeves proposed major cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, a move vociferously opposed by many in the trade union movement.

Graham told LFF that Burnham needs to deliver a “Winter Fuel in reverse”, arguing that “he has to something positive and clear”, and that this should be “immediate”.

With the budget coming up in October, the government has an opportunity to deliver this. For Graham, there are some clear policies it could adopt that would improve the lives of workers and begin to rebalance the economy.

First up is tax thresholds, which Graham argues should be un-frozen. “It’s one of these hidden things that’s happening that most people don’t even realise”, Graham told LFF. She added that in: “2022, they were frozen by the Tories, continued on by Labour. But if that had not happened, the £12,500 band would be £16,000, and the 40% tax threshold at £50,000 would be £66,000. We’ve got low paid members and pensioners going in too early on the 20%, and you’ve also then got tanker drivers, nurses, teachers coming in at the 40% bracket when they shouldn’t be in at the 40% bracket at all.”

Graham continued: “So even though that’s something that in a way is really hidden, I think the signal it would give is: work pays.”

Alongside this, Graham has called for the government to use the budget to ‘ease’ the pressure on people around energy costs.

But Graham and Unite are looking for a more extensive set of economic changes than this. At this year’s TUC Congress, delegates backed a Unite motion which called for an “ambitious industrial strategy to deliver good well-paid jobs and reindustrialise Britain”, an end to public sector austerity through taxing wealth, and a loosening of the government’s ‘fiscal rules’ to allow more direct investment in jobs.

Graham told LFF that “since the 2008 crash and Covid, it’s been workers and communities that have paid the price for the entirety of it”, and called for the government to say that “workers and communities aren’t going to pay anymore”, arguing that they should instead be “going to the exceedingly rich” and the “banks who we bailed out” to fund the economy.

Alongside this, Graham said she wants to see a substantial “package of investment in British industry”, the “reindustrialisation” of the UK, and for the government to begin taking energy into public ownership. She told LFF: “In an average house bill of £1,700, £500 pound is profit. It’s a bit of a no-brainer. At some point we need to take this back into public hands.”

Graham acknowledged that “we might not get everything”, but argued that “if the package shows this is a Labour government fighting for the working class and making sure that everyday people are not paying the price – they’ve done that since 2008 – I think he [Burnham] will get a good hearing.”

On that economic package, how the government addresses the climate emergency and decarbonises the economy is a central interest for trade unions. How that transition is managed is a key area of debate within the trade union movement.

Unlike some within the movement and the wider left, Unite does not oppose the expansion of oil and gas extraction in the North Sea.

Graham told LFF that Unite’s support for continued drilling in the North Sea is in order to buy time to deliver a fair and just transition for workers into a net-zero economy.

“Everyone I speak to wants net-zero”, Graham said, adding: “But you cannot have one part of the equation, which is the target, if you don’t have the other part of the equation, which is how the jobs are going to be replaced and what those industries are”. She went on to say that continuing to extract oil and gas from the North Sea “just buys time for us to be able to hopefully convince a government that they have to invest in these new industries”, arguing that “The problem we’ve got at the moment – there isn’t any transition”.

For Graham, the transition to a decarbonised economy is a massive opportunity for the country and for workers, but one that is not currently being taken. “We led the first industrial revolution. We’re nowhere as far as this is concerned with the fourth industrial revolution”, Graham told LFF.

Later in the interview, she went on to say that this transition could be ‘transformational’ for the country. She said: “It could be something transformational on par with the 1945 Labour government if they got it right. I mean, imagine if there was a plan to nationalise our energy at the same time that we were building new industries in Britain for the first time. It’s an unbelievable package.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has criticised the ‘so called ceasefire’ in Gaza which has left more than 1,200 Palestinians dead after it came into effect.

Miliband made the comments during an appearance on The Rest is Politics podcast and told presenters Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell: “All of us condemn in the strongest terms the murder that Hamas did on October the 7th, but nothing can justify what has unfolded in Gaza since then.

“And actually, you know, it’s worth saying since the ceasefire, the so-called ceasefire, 1,200 Palestinians have been killed.

“You know, that is not much of a ceasefire.”

The comments came after Miliband passed some of the strongest criticisms of Israel’s actions ever issued by the the UK government last week.

Miliband accused Israel of “turning a blind eye” to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians living in the West Bank, who are increasingly under pressure to relocate from settlers.

He told Parliament that Britain will sanction goods and services from Israeli settlements – which are illegal under international law – in the occupied West Bank and set out an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

There’s also a ban on the advertising in the UK of illegal settlement properties and a new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

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Delegates at this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton have endorsed a policy of ending all military cooperation and arms trading with Israel. They backed a motion proposed by Artists Union England (AUE) and seconded by UNISON.

The motion began by noting the “catastrophic destruction of Gaza, including infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and universities, following Israel’s genocidal assault since 2023, killing over 70,000 Palestinians, displacing millions, and increase in illegal settlements, military occupation and apartheid”.

It went on to argue that the TUC had an obligation to “answer the call of Palestinian workers for solidarity” and back the “global Palestinian-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS), which it described as “an effective strategy to pressure Israel to end its ongoing genocide, system of apartheid, occupation and denial of the right of return for refugees”.

As a result of the motion, the TUC will campaign for the UK government to end all military cooperation and arms sales with Israel, and to “impose wide-ranging sanctions on Israel until it complies with international law”. It will also see the TUC “support the Palestinian led BDS movement; trade union-led campaigns in support of Palestine; the workplace days of action; divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, in cooperation with union members in those companies”.

Alongside AUE and UNISON, delegates from Unite, NASUWT, the National Education Union, PCS and the CWU spoke in favour of the motion.

The motion was welcomed by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). Peter Leary, Deputy Director of PSC said: “This historic vote, committing the Trade Union Congress to support the Palestinian-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions, recognises that the limited steps announced by the government fall far short of meeting Britain’s legal obligations not to assist Israel’s ongoing genocide, apartheid, illegal occupation and other violations of international law.

“Trade unions and workers across Britain are right to call for continued political pressure and action in the workplace to end the complicity of companies, institutions and the government in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

“In response to the call from Palestinian trade unions and the BDS movement, workers across Britain, alongside workers from around the world, will put this motion into practice on Thursday 26 November when they take part in the TUC-backed workplace day of action in solidarity with Palestine.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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Trade unionists have been gathering in Brighton this week for the annual TUC Congress. At the Congress, delegates have been debating and agreeing the trade union movement’s positions on key political and economic issues.

On the final day, delegates supported a motion proposed by the University and College Union (UCU) to build an alternative vision for security “based on decent work, quality public services, equality, climate action, democracy and peace”. The motion called on the TUC to build on the ‘Wages Not Weapons’ campaign, which calls for investment in public services, rather than defence spending.

This is the second year in a row a motion on this issue has been debated at TUC Congress. In 2025, delegates backed the UCU’s original Wages Not Weapons motion, which called for the TUC to ‘prioritise campaigning for public investment in Britain’s public realm’, to ‘commit to a safe, liveable planet’, and to ‘reaffirm that our movement’s priority is welfare and wages, not weapons and war’.

As with last year, this year’s motion was highly contentious, prompting a heated debate in the hall. Alongside UCU, delegates from the National Education Union (NEU) and RMT spoke in favour of the motion. Unite, GMB and Prospect delegates were among those to speak against the motion.

Unlike last year, however, the motion did not go to a ‘card vote’, and the chair deemed it to have been clearly carried within the room.

The motion called for the trade union movement to “campaign for sustained public investment in health, education, housing, social care, social security and climate resilient”.

Alongside this, the motion called for the TUC to “raise awareness of fundamental rights, including the right to conscientious objection and opposition to compulsory military service in the UK”, and “work with the ITUC, ETUC and other partners to promote conflict prevention, diplomacy, international cooperation, human rights and respect for international law”.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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Reform UK has been plaugued by yet another crisis at its flagship local authority after three more councillors quit.

The three councillors quit Durham Council for a number of reasons, bringing Reform’s majority on the local authority down from 65 to 51.

Durham council was supposed to be one of Reform’s flagship local authorities, showing how the party would govern if elected in national office and yet far from being a success, it has been plagued by bitter infighting and defections.

One of the councillors who has quit, Lyndsey Fox, said: “I’ve been thinking of resigning for some time, and the reason is because I reported a very serious safeguarding issue on July 14, and we’re now two months on and I’ve heard nothing.”

Reform’s record in local government has been defined by bitter infighting, broken promises and incompetence.

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Dave Calfe was elected as general secretary of rail union ASLEF in November 2025. That means this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton is his first at the head of the union.

It’s also the first TUC Congress since Andy Burnham took over as Labour leader and prime minister. The new government’s plans have therefore inevitably been a major point of discussion throughout the event.

In an interview with LFF at TUC Congress, Calfe gave his views on the early days of Burnham’s government and what his union is seeking to secure for train drivers.

Calfe started by saying that Burnham’s government is “very different from the last one” and “a lot more engaged”, going on to add that he is “looking forward to the next few months of working with the government, particularly for us in rail, but also for working people across the board”.

What should the government’s priorities be? For Calfe, the “most pressing thing we need to get addressed” is the fact that people “with three jobs [are] still struggling to make ends meet”. As such, he told LFF that he wants the government to use the upcoming budget to “make life easier for working people”.

Alongside this, Calfe also called for the government to make changes to the tax system in the budget. He told LFF: “I think the taxation system in the country is probably out of kilter with with where most working people are”, before adding: “there are people with massive wealth in this country who literally pay nothing on that wealth”.

For Calfe, this kind of agenda will not only be important in improving workers’ lives, but it will also help to see off the threat of Reform and the populist right.

He told LFF: “I think if if Labour start making a difference for working people, then the focus will change”.

He went on to say: “People are desperate at the moment and they’ve been desperate for a very long time and they don’t see mainstream politics doing anything for them. And so they’re looking around to see who’s saying what, saying things that make them feel that they’re not being as worse off as they are today.”

Beyond the budget and the economy, Calfe spoke to LFF about another major issue affecting ASLEF members – the climate emergency. Climate is significant for ASLEF for two reasons – first because increasingly frequent extreme weather events have a direct impact on train drivers’ conditions and safety, and second because the rail industry is a central part of the transition to a decarbonised economy.

Calfe is under no illusions about the severity of the issue and the scale of the challenge it poses for both workers and the country, telling LFF: “They’re talking about next year being even hotter or more extreme than this year’s weather has been.” He went on to describe the impact this is having on ASLEF members, saying: “We still have train cabs without air conditioning, and we had our members in 40-50 degree heat for many hours through this summer, and I don’t thin we can put up with that next summer.”

Calfe said that “we need some mitigations in place” to address these impacts on drivers, before going on to address what is needed to secure the future of the railways more broadly. He told LFF: “Network Rail needs the funding to put in place the resilience for climate change”, adding: “Some of the soil conditions have changed because the soil is drying out, and that’s not happened just this year, that’s happened in previous years at other locations where they have to put emergency speed restrictions in place. And so we want to see a long-term plan”.

These calls were echoed by TUC delegates this week, who passed a motion calling for a maximum working temperature and for investment in climate resilience.

The climate crisis isn’t the only big issue facing the railways right now. Privatisation remains on the agenda.

Since Labour came to power in 2024, one policy area it has talked extensively about is its decision to take the rail operators into public ownership. However, this doesn’t mean that the whole of the railway is in public hands.

Presently, the rail operators don’t own the trains themselves. These are instead leased from privately owned rolling stock companies (ROSCOs).

ASLEF is pushing for change here, arguing that the trains themselves should be publicly owned too. At this year’s TUC Congress, the union got the support of the wider trade union movement for its Own Our Trains campaign, which is seeking to get the government to move in that direction.

LFF asked Calfe why the union is prioritising this campaign. “So ROSCOs took £2.9 billion out over the last five years in profit and dividends”, he highlighted, later adding: “It’s really important that the money stays in the industry and doesn’t get siphoned off elsewhere. They’ve [the ROSCOs] come into the industry to make money, but we want the money to stay in the industry.”

He would elsewhere go on to explain what the demands of the campaign are: “We’re not seeking for the government to go and buy the ROSCOs or renege on any contracts they’ve got. What we want them to do is put something different in place, use a different funding model – EUROFIMA or similar, or green bonds as we’ve discussed – as a way of procuring trains that are then owned by the government stroke the operator.” Calfe later added: “We’re not looking to try and buy them out or end up in court for year after year trying to break contracts. What we want to do is we want those contracts or that rolling stock to be procured directly”.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: ASLEF

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Delegates at this year’s TUC Congress passed a motion condemning what it described as the ‘institutional racist targeting, harassment and humiliation’ of Professor Jason Arday.

Arday was professor of sociology of education at Cambridge University. He was found dead in his home in August 2026 following intense media scrutiny of his academic work and public claims. The scale and nature of that scrutiny has been widely described as racist, disproportionate and unjustified. Arday’s death is currently subject to an inquest.

The emergency motion was proposed by the University and College Union (UCU) and the National Education Union (NEU).

The motion agreed by the TUC stated that “Black staff and students continue to experience institutional racism, discrimination and inequality across higher education”, and “the treatment of Professor Arday is a product of institutional and systemic racism”.

The motion will see the TUC send condolences to the family and friends of Professor Arday, call on the government to take action to end institutional racism in higher education and to push for the government “to strengthen accountability for institutions that fail to address racial inequality and ensure funding and policy support meaningful anti-racist work”.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: ConiferousForest19 – Creative Commons

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First Secretary of State Louise Haigh has told delegates at this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton that the Labour government is ‘proudly on the side of working people’.

Haigh made the comments in a keynote address to the Congress. She was speaking at the event in place of the prime minister, who has cancelled public engagements following the death of his father.

Haigh told delegates: “We know we need to go further and faster to deliver the scale of change the country expects. But never be in any doubt whose side this Labour government are on.

“Whether it was standing up for workers illegally sacked by P&O Ferries, or changing public procurement to create more good jobs here in Britain, we are proudly on the side of working people.

“And Congress, I can promise you now, under this government there will never be any doubt about whose side we are on.”

Later in her speech, Haigh said: “We’re going to put power back into our communities. We’re going to put power back into the workplace. And together, we’re going to put power back into the hands of working people.”

Haigh concluded her speech by saying: “Every single day in government we are campaigning against the vested interests, the forces trying to stop progress; against the unaccountable crypto billionaires living thousands of miles away who think our democracy is up for sale; against the politicians who pretend to be on the side of workers but pocket millions in undeclared donations and speak openly about their plans to strip working people of the very protections they rely on; against the far-right ringleaders marching on our streets in balaclavas seeking to spread fear and division in our communities; against all those who talk down our country and say that things can’t better, that this can’t be done.

“Congress, today we recommit ourselves to our collective endeavour, to turn the page on four decades of lost opportunity, to deliver the change our country is crying out for, and to build a future that the people we represent expect and deserve.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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The Labour MP Apsana Begum has issued a blistering critique of water privatisation, accusing the industry of acting ‘like a criminal racket’. She made these comments at a fringe meeting at this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton.

Begum spoke at a meeting titled ‘For an Irreversible Shift in the Balance of Power and Wealth’ hosted by Arise and the General Federation of Trade Unions.

Speaking about prime minister Andy Burnham’s stated intention to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism, Begum told the meeting: “What is said against neoliberalism will be rendered meaningless, in my opinion, completely meaningless if our government is not willing to end the disastrous experiments with privatisation that have robbed our country and our people of hundreds of billions of pounds.”

Begum then went on to specifically discuss the water sector. She told the meeting: “In water, firms are operating like a criminal racket – discharging thousands of hours of raw sewage into waterways [and] hiking bills every year, with almost £100 billion in dividends since privatisation.”

Later, Begum criticised the Labour government for having not yet ended water privatisation. She told the meeting: “The public are completely incensed about it, I’m sure we can all agree. But I cannot accept the government backing away from even the idea of using special administration measures, even for Thames Water.”

She later added: “I think we should be having a conversation about taking all water firms into public ownership.”

In her concluding remarks, Begum told the meeting: “We have to keep demanding an economy that works in the interests of workers and the wider public. I think public ownership has to be at its heart.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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