Labour will renationalise water and energy in first 100 days if they win

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has launched Labour’s plan for its first 100 days if it wins the general election on Thursday.

He said: ‘We are setting our sights higher than any opposition party has ever done before’.

In a speech in London today, the shadow chancellor vowed to end the ‘decade of austerity’ that he says has been in place under the Tories.

He said if the party wins the election it will be down to the ‘millions who stood up against what they saw has been happening in society’.

Mr McDonnell said: ‘Boris Johnson has actually admitted austerity was wrong… while promising in their manifesto to continue it for another five years years.

‘As the IFS said about the Conservatives’ Manifesto, it has austerity “baked in”.’

He added: ‘Let me be crystal clear about this – we’re setting our sights higher than any opposition party has ever done before. And we’re doing that because we have to.

‘Because the scale of the challenge is greater than ever before.’

Labour's plan for its first 100 days

Among its first policies the party says it will: 

• Begin the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership
• A new Budget ‘to save the NHS’ on February 5
• Begin negotiating and securing a new Brexit deal to put to a public vote within six months
• Launch legislation to scrap tuition fees
• Launch urgent homelessness support by giving councils more money
• Start a spending review to allocate resources for the next five years

Mr McDonnell added: ‘In our first 100 days we will start the processes of bringing water and energy into public ownership.

‘We’ll set up boards to run these utilities made up of you, the customer, and you the people, the workers, as well as representatives from local councils, metro mayors and others.

‘We’ll make sure that decisions are taken locally by those who understand the services – those who use them and those who deliver them.

‘Meetings of these bodies will be public and streamed online, with new transparency regulations set higher than ever before, so you can see if your road is being dug up, why, and for how long.’

He added: ‘Meanwhile of course, during this period, Jeremy Corbyn, our new prime minister, and his negotiating team will be negotiating and securing a new Brexit agreement with our EU partners to put before the British people within six months.’

The chancellor said the party had already begun having meetings with Treasury officials to draw up its Budget plans for ‘as soon as’ the party gets into power.

He said: ‘Don’t be fooled by the doubters who say our plans are unachievable.

‘A decade of austerity, and 40 years of believing the market knows best, have dulled people’s sense of what’s possible, just as actually they were intended to do.

‘That’s why – if we are to help make hope real again – we need to remake government, and what people expect from it.

‘We’re creating new institutions – institutions that will become the normal part of people’s lives, like the NHS.

‘Institutions that we will come to cherish and rely upon, like the NHS.

‘And, like the NHS, institutions that will only be set up under a Labour government.

‘Central among those institutions will be publicly owned and democratically run utilities, because when Labour put money in your pockets, we will also put power back in your hands.’