email rounding up the latestLabour has watered down plans to strengthen workers’ rights as Sir Keir Starmer tries to woo corporate leaders and discredit Tory claims that his party is “anti-business” ahead of the next general election.
Instead of introducing the policy immediately, Labour has agreed it would consult on the proposal in government, considering how “a simpler framework” that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed “could properly capture the breadth of employment relationships in the UK” and ensure workers can still “benefit from flexible working where they choose to do so”.
Momentum, a leftwing campaign group within Labour, declared the party leadership “wrong to water down its commitment on a single tier of status for workers” and accused the party hierarchy of bowing to “corporate interests”. “There has been a very noticeable change in the . . . commitment to engagement with business,” said a corporate lobbyist, who contrasted the approach with the party’s leftwing radicalism under Jeremy Corbyn.
Business secretary Kemi Badenoch is poised to attack Labour’s employment plans © Chris J Ratcliffe/EPA/Shutterstock