The 2026 local elections have earned their place in our cabinet of catastrophes, aided by drifting voters, dwindling numbers of activists, and new defectors to our enemies announced every few days. ‘Rats from a sinking ship’, one commentator suggested.  

A council that’s insourced our council housing, implemented transformative landlord licensing, built new affordable homes, defended local libraries and youth services, and helped make Lewisham’s secondary schools the most improved in the country was badly punished. Punished for what exactly?

Oh, yes, the government – right.    

Surely not the same Labour government that’s bringing our rail and energy back into public hands, delivered the Employment Rights Bill, banned no-fault evictions, cut NHS waiting lists, and removed cruel benefit caps? Surrounded by snake-oil populists to our left and right, it’s striking how the facts of what has been achieved proved a harder sell for the average voter than the fantasy of what could be if only things were – that siren call – completely different.

READ MORE: Politics is complicated and that’s OK

It’s not just our voters; fantasy has been the comfortable home of many left-wing politicians for too long. In opposition, we were brave with our demands. In power, we’ve become slow to defend ourselves. All Labour governments are a miracle. As with many miracles, this one has been met with suspicion even from our own side; not because it is wholly unworthy, but because we are no longer practised in the simple act of recognising, let alone championing, what Labour looks like in power.  

Since I lost my own seat in Deptford, friends have been asking me ‘what’s next?’ I think, in the face of years of hard work being rewarded with a crushing defeat, what they’re really asking is ‘why bother? Why not sack this off and go to the pub? Be young! Enjoy your life!’

But even when our inner political animals feel more kicked dog than king of the jungle, we know the truth, don’t we? Like all love stories, the highs are worth the pain.

The idea that politics is a burden that we should look to shrug off as soon as is convenient proliferates when our argument becomes too focused on the ‘how’. Sorry, wonks, but ‘how’ is boring: which levers we’ll pull, which focus group said what about the specifics of which policy. In a divided country, where life’s little joys still feel out of reach for so many, I suspect the moment calls instead for our answer to that ‘why’.  

My continued membership of the Labour Party is the greatest act of love I can think of. Take my time, my work, my peace. Take it all and turn our efforts into the bricks from which we’ll build the world as we know it should be: fair, prosperous, free. The argument for our existence is moral, not procedural. The proof is in every desperate person who has been given a home or the means to feed their children. The only motivation I need to stick with our movement is knowing that, through our work, politics is transformed from an idea into an outstretched hand: we’re here, we’re with you. How could the question of how we should live, which conditions we should expect or accept, ever be boring?

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With Andy Burnham set to stand in what will surely be one of the most pivotal by-elections of the century, we are now entering “a battle for the soul of the party”. Yes – another one. Burnham, a politician who has learned to move between our traditions while retaining his own clarity of vision and emotional connection with voters, would be my pick for our next leader, when the time comes. But first, the people of Makerfield have to decide if he is theirs. His path to Westminster is a risky one, but we are all at a cliff edge now.

If we want people to trust us again, we must show them we can be brave. Voters hate a coward.

That means us too, my fellow rank-and-file members. While our political and media class descend on Makerfield, it’s up to us to defend the home front. I know we’re all bruised. So many candidates and campaigners across our movement have worked themselves to the bone, only to lose and lose badly. It would be so easy to slink off and hope that whichever man or woman finds themselves at the top come 2029 will wash away our shame and deliver us to victory. But you didn’t really think any of this would be easy, did you?

Luckily, bravery doesn’t need to be complicated. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is continue putting one foot in front of the other. Support our local parties. Rally round our remaining representatives in local government. Get to know your local MP, because God knows they’re going to need your help. Debate each other in good faith and resist the pull of factional fray that only ever leaves us weaker, worse off.

Already, the tide is turning. Reform and the Greens struggled to fill their slates in many places, meaning unsuitable candidates, unprepared for the demands of their office, have been elected. What does that mean? By-elections, coming to a town near you! With six already announced in London alone, we have to be ready to fight. So, wipe that bloody nose and prepare to get back out there. You can’t flinch now. We have more to lose, and much, much more to win.  

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Maybe your borough now has a Green Party controlled council? Don’t panic – all is not lost – in fact, now is the time that campaigning in your area matters most. Here are three things you can do. 

Use the Scrutiny Committee system well

The Greens certainly have ideas. But they are a party of the abstract and tend to fall down rather quickly when it comes to delivery. We have already seen this with Green-led administrations in Brighton and Bristol. This is why scrutiny committees are incredibly important. Read their local manifesto (it won’t take long – they’re generally big on slogans and pretty scant on detail). Take a note of each pledge, however vague, and put it in your back pocket. At every Scrutiny Committee, every Green Cabinet Member needs to be asked again and again: when will you implement your manifesto promises? What have you done to date towards this? How are you measuring progress? Be clear that as a scrutiny member you will only accept evidence and facts – not platitudes. Report back to your community, your CLP and your local paper.

READ MORE: ‘Labour is building a visible, accountable and confident state’

Use the Council Chamber to call out the empty rhetoric – especially on housing 

Does anyone know of a council housing development that the Green Party have actively supported? I am genuinely not aware of any. It would be unfair of course to say that the Green Party is against council housing…it is definitely 100 per cent in favour of perfect council new build projects that do not take up any space or involve any messy compromises. Sadly, these imaginary developments are not capable of helping homeless and overcrowded families in desperate need. This is why Labour Councillors and activists are vitally important in Green controlled boroughs – to fight for the council and socially rented homes that some of the most vulnerable families in your community need. In my own borough of Islington, the Green Party have tried to stop 658 council and social rent homes from being built. Keep a note in your other back pocket of any new build schemes that they have opposed in your area and any that they decide to cancel. Full Council Meetings are the place to ask questions and move motions to call out the Green Party’s lack of any coherent housing strategy. 

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Most importantly – keep up your activity in the community 

The worst kept secret in politics is that the Green Party tend to choose their next electoral targets by looking at areas with low levels of activity from Labour and other parties. This is why the work in wards won by the Greens begins today. A survey of local residents’ top priorities for their neighbourhood is a great way to start. Deliver it door to door as part of a newsletter. The results of your survey can help to inform three core issues that the local Labour Party team are going to campaign on in your area – making the case in the community, exposing any council inaction and pushing them for answers. The Labour Party at its best is about making a real difference to peoples’ lives – achieving results for communities up and down the country. This is the legacy that will outlast any Green Party slogan. Good luck! 

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Starmer seems set on fighting to stay in his position, while two thorns in his side battle each other for all to see. This is unfolding in newspaper op-eds and clipped social media videos with carefully calibrated interventions on the political argument of the day.

If anyone doubts this, the recent responses of Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham to Tony Blair’s intervention on Labour strategy offered a reminder.

READ MORE: Who benefits from Blair’s essay?

Blair’s essay itself hardly broke new ground, as much as his reputation alone prompted it to be heavily discussed across Labour circles. What mattered politically was not the content of the intervention but the reaction it generated. Within hours, Streeting and Burnham had both felt they had to enter the conversation. Not merely to disagree or agree, but to stake out their positions.

Streeting chose The Guardian, Burnham, The Observer. Yet the interesting development lies not in the newspapers themselves but in what happened around them.

Neither man treated the article alone as the intervention, which in years prior would have been ‘the done thing’. The article served as the anchor for a broader communications strategy. Clips appeared online. Arguments travelled through social feeds. A newspaper column now acts less as a final statement than as source material for digital circulation.

This marks a substantial shift in how Labour succession politics works.

Historically, Labour leadership contests rewarded internal legitimacy above all else. Candidates cultivated constituency parties, won over unions and persuaded activists who formed the selectorate.

Social media has ceased to function as a supplement to Labour politics and become one of its principal battlegrounds. Generating online enthusiasm can mobilise real-world organisation and reshape internal debate. Leadership contenders no longer rely solely on endorsements from MPs or union leaders. They need attention and reach, alongside a recognisable political identity that the Labour party, and wider country, would be willing to accept.

Streeting and Burnham understand this instinctively.

Since leaving his role in the cabinet, Streeting has become a free man. The constraints of collective cabinet responsibility no longer prevent him from demonstrating the exceptional level of political flair he so clearly has. He has taken to his car for a road trip series, filming himself as he tells viewers which destination in the country he is visiting next. All chosen with intent, to speak to people that were once nailed on to come out for Labour, who now feel the party has left them behind.

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Streeting has also taken to discussing complicated topics for Labour on his social channels. Interventions on Europe and the need to change our tax systems would appear to be in line with arguments placed forward by the left of the party – which typically has not been seen as his brand.

On the other hand, Burnham’s by-election is the perfect zoo – with all eyes on the political animals. It allows Greater Manchester’s Mayor to communicate his ideas, and – perhaps more importantly today – his personality, to the nation. Operating from outside Parliament gives him the advantage of being nowhere near critiques of the government. Burnham is successfully (for now at least) running the ‘change’ narrative again, choosing to make himself the symbol of this powerful political force.

Daily campaign updates are a banker for views, with his first generating 457,000. Yet this is nothing compared to the 2.8 million he has received on his introductory video to his campaign.

On social media Burnham has also taken on some of Labour’s more uncomfortable talking points. His second campaign update video saw him discuss grooming gangs with confidence in his own position. This is something many voters across the country care deeply about.

Neither politician currently stands in a formal contest, yet both behave like politicians engaged in one.

Until we have a formal contest, Streeting will continue to sharpen a profile built around competence, displaying the extent of his political antennae. Burnham will keep cultivating a politics of authenticity, regional credibility and soft populism. Both know they must move between mainstream and social media with fluency because Labour’s future contests will demand exactly that.

Leadership campaigns have, in truth, always started below the surface long before a traditional contest was contemplated. But in this social media age, the lines are even more blurred. What has become clear is that his contest has already begun. Streeting and Burnham understand the new rules better than most.

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Last week it was revealed that London Mayor Sadiq Khan had intervened to block a £50m Metropolitan police deal with the controversial company, having previously cited concerns about their “values”. Palantir’s leadership lashed out at Khan, accusing him of “putting politics over public safety”. They are rattled, and they have good reason to be.

Khan’s move is just the latest in a suite of examples where Palantir has been rejected. In December 2025 it was revealed that despite a seven-year lobbying effort by Palantir, the Swiss government turned down the company over fears that US intelligence might gain access to sensitive data. Then in March of this year, New York City’s public hospital system announced it would not be renewing its Palantir contract, following a sustained community campaign.

The world is waking up to the agenda of Palantir – and those concerns are being reflected here in the UK too.

READ MORE: ‘The political cost of keeping Thames Water privatised’

Parliamentarians from at least seven different political parties have spoken out in recent weeks about the risks of Palantir becoming embedded in our public services. This comes after years of campaigning by patients, health workers and privacy campaigners against the £330m contract awarded to Palantir to manage a giant database of NHS health information – called the ‘Federated Data Platform’ (FDP). Public and political pressure is growing, and it’s now being reported that government ministers are actively exploring triggering the break clause in the contract.

As a patient-led organisation, we recognise the enormous potential of health data to improve patient care and advance medical planning and research. NHS patients want their data to be used to benefit their own health and the health of the nation – but they want to have a say over how this is done, and they certainly do not want their most precious personal information in the hands of a US company with a track record in surveillance and military technology.

But this isn’t just about Palantir’s deeply controversial human rights record and complicity in the horror being enacted  in Gaza. There are also a growing number of concerns around the functionality and reliability of Palantir’s technology itself.

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Just a few days ago, leaked documents revealed that senior NHS leaders were briefed by staff who utilise the Federated Data Platform that it is eight to ten times slower at analysing data than the current NHS tool. Some NHS Trusts have so far refused to adopt the FDP, such as Greater Manchester ICB, who have said that their existing capability in data analytics is greater than the FDP offers. 

It would seem that ever since the procurement process began for this huge NHS contract, the British public have been misled.

We were told Palantir won the contract fair and square. Yet we now know that senior government representatives were privately courted, wined and dined in a years-long lobbying effort that began before the procurement even opened. This also involved Global Counsel – the lobbying firm of disgraced Epstein-linked former US Ambassador Peter Mandelson.

We were told that Palantir’s technology was the best in the business. We now know that there are NHS data experts who refute this and have opted to use more efficient pre-existing systems instead, and that data used to justify the FDP rollout was deeply flawed.

We were told our health data was safe and would not be directly shared with Palantir. It’s now been revealed that Palantir contractors will be granted ‘unlimited access’ to identifiable patient data.

How many more leaks or scandals will it take for the government to admit that Palantir is a wholly inappropriate and dangerous partner for our NHS?

Ministers have said that a decision will be made on whether to trigger the break clause in Palantir’s contract later this year. So the Labour leadership – whether it’s Keir Starmer or someone new – has an opportunity to right this wrong and chart a different way forward for the management of patient health data.Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook. You can also write to our editor to share your thoughts on our stories and share your own. The best letters are published every Sunday.

Keeping Palantir in our NHS would not only decimate trust amongst patients and staff, but it would push us further down the path of a dangerous “vendor lock-in” situation, which would embed Palantir at the heart of our public services and make us reliant on them for years and even decades to come.

A new approach is urgently needed; one that centres on health data systems and technologies that are publicly owned and democratically controlled, and which strengthen and improve our public services rather than weaponising and extracting profit from them.

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The current government is shaping up to be the best in a generation in terms of action. The new employment rights legislation is one side of that coin: it empowers and protects employed workers. The second side must be the protection and empowerment of the self-employed.

We now have the Fair Work Agency, with powers to enforce these rights. At the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), Kate Dearden MP serves as Minister for Employment Rights; she previously led the self-employed section at Community Union. Peter Kyle MP, on first winning election to Parliament, partly credited his success to reaching out to freelancers and small businesses in his community. Lucy Powell MP, in her bid for deputy leader, highlighted small businesses and the self-employed. In parliamentary committees, freelancers and the self-employed have allies, including Bill Esterson MP, Chair of the Energy Select Committee, who has long been a friend of the self-employed. The government is also appointing a freelance champion for the media community.

READ MORE: ‘The government’s workers’ rights agenda must include self-employed people too’

However, there are still dark clouds hanging over self-employed workers. We want to be recognised and respected—not “rescued” from self-employment. Self-employed workers do not ask for employment rights; instead, they ask for rights at work: the right to be paid on time, the right to an appropriate written contract, and the right to be free from bullying and intimidation. This should be the starting point.

This is important because, in recent years, thousands of workers have been reclassified as employees for tax purposes, but not for rights. (Believe it or not, the tests for being an employee for tax purposes and for employment rights are separate— they should be aligned.) We therefore also ask for proper employment rights from the client for whom we work when we are classified as employees.

Many freelancers have been pushed into zero-hours contracts or forced to work through payroll companies (such as umbrella companies) in order to bypass these rights. Umbrella company engagement rose to about 700,000 workers, a ~169% increase, from 2015 to 2022–23, and has risen more in recent years. Labour’s original policy was to abolish these arrangements, but it has now chosen to regulate them instead. This is partly because large organisations running payroll companies had been accused of using them for tax evasion—and it is important to note that it is the companies setting up these umbrella schemes, not the workers forced to use them, who are responsible.

The problem is that what should be an exception-based payroll model is becoming mainstream. Organisations are trying to minimise both their tax risks and the rights of their contingent workforce. We believe that taxes should trigger rights, yet through this loophole those rights are being avoided. The government has chosen to regulate this, in part due to our lobbying. While this has addressed some tax issues, the rights issues remain.

Under the umbrella company model, workers are required to use these companies but can at least obtain a semblance of some employment rights—though not from the actual end client for whom they work. This can be described as a legalised form of disguised self-employment; some might call it legalised bogus self-employment.

It is possible to receive minimal statutory rights, such as holiday pay (effectively deducted from wages), limited maternity and paternity pay (also funded from workers’ own earnings), and pension contributions—though there is no employer contribution from the end client, agency, or umbrella company. Workers are charged fees to process their wages, to contribute to pensions, and even to cover the apprenticeship levy owed by the umbrella company. This is all legal—and it gets worse.

There are some protections for those working through employment agencies as temporary workers. However, the industry trend appears to be pushing these workers into the umbrella model as well, ensuring tax compliance while minimising rights. Temporary workers are often urged to opt out of their traditional protections through a clause known as the “Conduct Regulations.”

In the industry, this is called “off-payroll working but inside IR35.” We call it exploitation.

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There is an even more troubling model—prevalent in the public sector, particularly in the NHS—where end clients hire workers directly off-payroll. These workers are classified as employees for tax purposes but receive no employment rights, not even the minimal umbrella company rights as they do not go through payroll firms. As a result, they receive no sick pay, pensions, holiday pay, maternity pay or paternity pay.

They are deemed employees for tax purposes, but in terms of employment rights, they effectively do not exist. Under the umbrella model, there is at least a nominal employer; under this model, there is none.

I have heard of cases where workers have tried to raise grievances and have been told they are not employees—or, in effect, that they do not exist. When they ask who their employer is, they are told they are neither self-employed nor employed. How can it be legitimate for the organisation paying their wages to evade this responsibility?

During COVID, many of these workers were excluded from support because they were neither employees nor traditionally self-employed. They were left on their own—excluded and forgotten. It is clear why.

This arrangement is a loophole in employment rights that must be closed in the upcoming Employment Status Bill.

Many self-employed workers, who have few protections, are particularly vulnerable. Those who value their independence are increasingly exploited. As more work becomes precarious and freelance, there is a clear need for unions to represent this growing group and prevent exploitation. Many unions are responding—the world of work has not stood still, and the fight for rights at work continues.

We should be fundamentally opposed to taxing individuals as employees without providing corresponding employment protections, rights or benefits. We should oppose “zero-rights employment.”

Employment taxes should trigger employment rights. While umbrella companies may sometimes be useful as payment vehicles, those rights should be vested in the end client. This system of disguised or bogus employment cannot be allowed to continue.

Organisations should either treat these workers as genuinely self-employed or as employees with full rights—there should be no middle ground.

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This presents a challenge for unions and for the government: to confront what is happening and to listen to workers. Fortunately, we have a Labour government, and supporting workers—both employed and self-employed—is in our DNA.

As a trade union movement, and as a Labour movement, it must be our intention to stand up for them.

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“Global warming is the greatest long-term threat to our planet’s environment. Scarce energy resources mean rising prices and will threaten our country’s economy.”

These are not my words, but rather the words of Tony Blair in his last conference speech as Labour leader in 2006.

Reading Tony’s latest article earlier this week, it seemed like his new revelations had forgotten some of the actions of his own government, and equally he had failed to learn some of the lessons that we should have from his own premiership.

Whilst I have much respect for Tony’s achievements as Prime Minister, there were two areas that stood out for me in his article. The first was Net Zero, where the New Labour Government did a huge amount of work, and the second was housing, where I fear that Tony has failed to learn the lessons from his time as PM.

READ MORE: Who benefits from Blair’s essay?

The Blair Government signed the Kyoto Protocol and invested in wind and solar energy. From 1997–2010, the UK’s share of renewables in our electricity generation doubled, and clear targets were set to reduce our emissions. This was the right thing for our country’s security and future, and for our contribution to a sustainable world.

The arguments behind the need to move to clean and green energy sources haven’t changed since then. The need to cut ourselves off from the whims of petro-states and dictators; the need to give businesses certainty around investment in the UK; the need to create long-lasting jobs for the future; the need to cut carbon emissions; and the need to protect the world’s environment all remain valid reasons.

As Chair of the Transport Select Committee, I meet with so many British businesses that are at the forefront of delivering new cutting-edge technology alongside net zero. Whether it’s the work that airlines are doing around sustainable aviation fuel or the work done by motorway service stations to invest in EV charging, almost every part of our economy is having to adapt to the reality of changing energy use.

We cannot bury our heads in the sand and ignore the fact that fossil fuels are not an infinite resource. They will run out, and burning them for energy damages our planet.

The other glaring hole in Tony’s article was housing, a word that did not feature once, yet it is one of the defining challenges facing the UK. The housing crisis ruins the life chances of far too many, whether that’s children who cannot learn as they are sharing small rooms with siblings, or workers suffering worse health outcomes due to their living conditions.

In my constituency, I see so many examples of this crisis. In particular, many young graduates with well-paid jobs who still can’t afford to buy a home without help from a family member. 

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Many more are living in poor-quality private rented housing, with rents of over £2,000 a month. Despite around 65% of private rented tenants being in paid work, the UK Government spends £30 billion a year on housing benefits, which is, in essence, a subsidy to private landlords.

The omission of housing was also glaring because I genuinely believe that the last Labour Government made a mistake in failing to invest in new council housing. In 1997, we had over 4 million council homes yet by 2010 this number had dropped to around 2.5 million. The small number of new housing association homes built did not cover this gap and we did not build enough council homes. 

The Blair Government also failed to fix the broken Right to Buy mechanism by stemming the loss of affordable, decent-quality homes or by enabling councils to spend the receipts from sales on replacement stock. They merely reduced the discount on the purchase price for tenants. This failure has left a long legacy across the country where council homes are desperately needed.

This is why I was so pleased that this Labour Government is working with councils to build more council homes and investing £39 billion into social housing, while also further limiting the rules around Right to Buy.

I saw the huge benefits that a Labour Government brought to our corner of West London. Our local hospital, West Mid, was rebuilt, schools received much-needed funding, and the minimum wage and tax credits lifted so many of my constituents out of poverty. This is why I have sought to defend the record of the New Labour Government and the difference it made.

However, I believe that we need to confront the future and learn from the past. We cannot ignore the challenge posed by both the climate crisis and the housing crisis, which impact my constituents every week.

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I have recently watched a young person I love struggle to find a job. Normally this is one of the most well-adjusted, confident young men I have ever known. I recall reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and thinking about him. While I found a lot to agree with in Haidt’s analysis, looking at this young person and his sister, my first thought was: “the kids are alright”. But as he struggled to find work it was clear it was wearing him down.

Recently, having sent out CVs for months, this young man found a job. We went for dinner in his second week and the difference in him was night and day. All his confidence, excitement and joie de vivre was back. He was tired after a long day but it was the kind of tiredness that comes from a fulfilling day’s work. He was fatigued – he was not listless.

READ MORE: Milburn Review to set out stark NEETS challenge and call for whole system reform

This feeling should be available to all young people but as the Milburn Review sets out today, it is not. That is a disaster for a generation of young people who have already lived through so much.

If you are 18 today you have only ever known the conditions that arose out of the economic turmoil of the 2008 crash. You went to schools that suffered under austerity watching youth services disappear just as you aged into them. Your world was shaped by the divisions of Brexit – something 75% of young people believe was the wrong choice. Your secondary education – a time so essential to learning not just academic but also social skills – was interrupted by Covid lockdowns where you were expected to go weeks – sometimes even months – without seeing friends in person. They did this as a sacrifice for a nation that now owes them an enormous debt.

Today’s report sets out the problem, and it is a crisis we can all agree exists. The tricky part will come with setting out agreed solutions.

There are two right wing answers to this crisis that Labour should avoid.

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The first is to roll back the rebalancing of workers’ rights that this Labour government has undertaken. As Paul Nowak has rightly said today, Labour should be speaking of this change more proudly; not allowing ourselves to be cowed into submission. Work is good for us, but good work – with rights as well as responsibilities – is an essential component of that. We have to find a way to defeat this false sense of choice between good jobs and no jobs.

The second is to make cutting the welfare bill the priority rather than making the system work better. This is putting the cart before the horse.

If Labour is to succeed in this agenda and transform the lives of young NEETs there will – in time – be a reduction in the benefits bill.

But if we start from staring at a spreadsheet, we lose our ability to look to the horizon.

We have to start from a position where we are ready to invest what it takes in making people able to live fulfilling, contributory lives. We must invest in system change now that will – done right – save money on the welfare bill in the future. But we must do so because we are investing in the future of our people. If bringing down the cost of welfare becomes the driving compulsion behind any measures, we will go for cheap half-measures that will not address the long term, systemic failings that need to be dealt with first and foremost.

Having said that, some of the measures needed might go against some of the more liberal instincts of the Labour Party, which kick against some types of compulsion – seeing compulsory learning or training or putting conditionality on benefits as against our values.

I understand this instinct, but I think back to my days as a bored, unhappy, listless young person and I believe I would have benefitted from some compulsory work experience. It must be well designed to allow young workers to feel confident, not cowed. It must – as Jodie Gosling has outlined for us today – ensure that it is available to – and inclusive for – everyone.

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What Milburn has set out today is not just a crisis for young people. It is a crisis for our whole society. What will be needed will be bigger than tinkering at the edges of the welfare system, education, or the world of work. The solutions Milburn comes back with in the autumn should invite us all to step up to this challenge

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The post The Milburn Review exposes a generational crisis appeared first on LabourList.

Yet after a disastrous set of local election results, the same old predictable voices are coming out of the woodwork to make opportunistic and bad faith calls for the ERA to be watered down. 

Over the past week we’ve seen Next boss and Tory Peer Lord Wolfson and Tony Blair make headlines by railing against it. 

Make no mistake: both Blair and Wolfson are defending a broken status quo which has seen insecure work explode, living standards squeezed and working poverty rates soar. 

READ MORE: ‘Labour has work to do to regain the trust of Prospect members’

Those happy with this broken status quo are out of touch. They don’t have to deal with the lived reality of insecure employment, not knowing from one week to the next what will be in your pay packet. 

Let’s take the issue which Lord Wolfson has homed in on: guaranteed hours.  

Millions of workers up and down the country are on a variable or zero hours contracts. 

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That leaves them at the whim of a bad employer who can take away their hours at the drop of a hat. No hours. No pay. No security. 

How are working parents supposed to balance that with the unpredictability of childcare? It’s near impossible.  

This failed approach has left millions without security, not knowing how much they’ll be earning from week to week.  

That isn’t just bad for workers – it’s bad for our economy too. Less money in workers’ pockets means less spent on our high streets.  

But it also feeds into a sense of despair in this country which is poisoning our politics.  

A poll conducted for the TUC after the local election found that nearly half the country think that you cannot get ahead no matter how hard you work – and fewer than one fifth think their personal finances are getting better. 

We need to turn that around. And the foundation must be making sure we end the scourge of insecure work for good. 

That’s why unions, leading women’s and child poverty campaigners and academics have come together to call on the government to stick to its guns on delivering new rights to secure contracts. 

It’s essential that all workers benefit and that agency workers are included too. 

The reality is that voters up and down the country emphatically support the government’s workers’ rights agenda. Seven in ten want the government to deliver guaranteed hours – including most Tory and Reform voters. 

The problem? Barely any of them knew Labour is delivering these policies.  

Too often the government has acted like it’s embarrassed of this agenda, refusing the chance to pick fights with bad bosses for fear of criticism from Big Business. 

This needs to stop. Ministers need to ignore the noise and crack on with delivering security at work for all. It’s time to shout from the rooftops and show working people this government is on their side.

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The post Paul Nowak column: ‘It’s time for Labour to shout about workers’ rights from the rooftops’ appeared first on LabourList.

At the launch of the interim report, Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary, is expected to say: ““Six in ten have never had a job. Twenty years ago, that figure was closer to four in ten. Detachment is no longer temporary. For too many young people it is becoming permanent. We are at risk of a lost generation.” 

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The interim report sets out stark details of co how the first rung of the career ladder has thinned and for too many young people it is now out of reach.

Milburn will say the current broken system is failing a generation. Around 60 percent of young people who are Neet are economically inactive, up from 55 per cent in 2015, making up around 580,000 of the population.  But 84 per cent of NEET young people want a job or training.

Alan Milburn is expected to warn today that Britain faces a “generational fault line” unless it confronts the whole-system failure that has seen nearly one million young people locked out of work, education and training.

The Blair-era minister was commissioned last year by Keir Starmer’s government to investigate why the proportion of people classified as Neets is higher in the UK than in other comparable economies.

The first part of the report was published on Thursday, with Milburn calling for fundamental system reform, recommendations for which will be released later in the year. 

The report offered stark findings about the challenges facing young people, identifying a variety of failings across the welfare, health and education system. It also sought to challenge myths around the reasons for the rising number of Neets.

The issue is seen as among the biggest challenges facing the government, with concerns about knock-on impacts on UK productivity and GDP.

Milburn’s recommendations to solve the problem are set to be published later in the year. Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist, and Louise Casey, crossbench peer and social welfare expert, have been among those advising on the report.

He wants ministers to grasp the nettle and address the issues in the health and disability systems that are currently failing to get young people into the labour market.

Milburn told MPs earlier this month that the issue was “visceral” and that there is “almost a fear in society about what the next generation faces”.

In England, figures from 2024 suggest that Neets are nearly twice as likely to have a health condition than the rest of the 16-24-year-old population, while the proportion of young Neets with a mental health condition is around 19 per cent — two and a half times the rate in 2012.

After taking office, Labour embarked on a series of welfare reforms, with the aim of encouraging more people back into work, while also bringing down the rising cost to the Treasury of welfare spending.

However, a significant portion of those reforms unravelled last summer, after over 100 MPs threatened to rebel amid anger at cuts to personal independence payments.

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And the consequences are lifelong. Young people who spend extended periods as NEET face lower earnings, poorer health, reduced civic participation, and higher risks of long‑term unemployment. Prescriptions for anxiety and depression are over 50 per cent higher in the ten to 20 years following their period out of education or training. De Fraja, Lemos and Rockey (2021) calculate that each month of unemployment at age 18 to 20 leads to a permanent income loss of 1.2 per cent per month unemployed. These are not temporary setbacks; they are structural disadvantages that compound over decades. When we allow a young person to drift into exclusion at 18, we are shaping the inequalities they will face at 28, 38, and beyond.

READ MORE: Milburn Review to set out stark NEETS challenge and call for whole system reform

And nowhere is this crisis more visible than among disabled young people, who face far higher NEET rates than their non‑disabled peers. Young people considered to have Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND) are around 80 per cent more likely to be NEET than average. This creates a devastating divide; in 2024/2025, 29.6 per cent of disabled young people were NEET in the UK compared with 8.7 per cent of non-disabled peers, a gap of 20.9 percentage points.  The NEET rate for disabled people was 30.7 per cent in 2013/14, and 29.6 per cent in 2024/25. It has barely moved.

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Yet we know what works. I have seen it firsthand. Supported Internships are one of the most powerful tools we have for transforming outcomes for disabled young people. When delivered well, they provide structured, meaningful work experience, tailored support, and a pathway into paid employment.

It proves what I have witnessed throughout my career: when disabled young people are given the right support structure, they thrive. They gain confidence, skills, and a sense of purpose. Employers gain loyal, capable staff. Society gains from their talent, perspective and wider participation through employment that unlocks their full potential.

The Department for Education’s decision to expand a pilot for non-EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) holders demonstrates awareness and appetite, but the programme faces significant barriers to scaling. Employer willingness, provider capacity and funding availability, including through Access to Work, all constrain supply. A young person with an EHCP who wants to work, whose family wants them to work, and whose school believes they could work, can still find that no supported internship is available within a reasonable distance. The system has created a model that works, but not to date the infrastructure to deliver it at scale.

As we look towards the findings of Alan Milburn’s upcoming Young People and Work report, we must consider the problem at hand. The NEET crisis among disabled young people is a moral crisis. It tells us who we value and who we overlook. Individual, social and economic potential is being wasted, and we must face this as we ‘Get Britain Working’.

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The post ‘No young person should be locked out of participation’ appeared first on LabourList.