Labour vows to tax the rich 'to help the many'

A Labour government will tax the rich to help "the many, not the few," Jeremy Corbyn said.

Unveiling the party's manifesto ahead of the General Election, Mr Corbyn detailed the party's plans to expand the 45p tax rate to £80k (the top 5% of earners).

He also wants to reintroduce the 50p tax rate rate on earnings above £123k.

The party plan to raise £48.6 billion in taxes to fund public spending commitments of the same figure.

This will include £19.4 billion through corporation tax which would increase to 26% by 2022, bringing in an extra £20 billion.

The party would also impose a "Robin Hood tax" on financial transactions, raising another £26 billion.

The main elements of the document were made public last week following an unprecedented leak of a draft copy.

It set out plans to renationalise key industries - including the railways and Royal Mail - scrap tuition fees, boost workers' rights and reverse the so-called bedroom tax.

Labour plans to renationalise the railways as each private franchise expires, with fares frozen and guards put back on driver-only trains and publicly-owned bus companies created.

The Royal Mail would also be renationalised, while energy would be taken back into public ownership through the establishment of a rival to the "Big Six" suppliers.

The party is also promising to "save" the NHS with a £37 billion cash injection over the course of the next parliament.

The manifesto also reaffirmed Labour's commitment to the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent after Mr Corbyn lost his battle to scrap it.

The Conservatives denounced the proposals as a recipe for tax and borrowing which would put the country on the "road to ruin".

The leaked draft set no target for cutting immigration post Brexit, something Mr Corbyn confirmed in an interview with ITV's Tonight programme on Monday.

Outlining his "programme of hope" in Bradford, Mr Corbyn said: "People want a country run for the many not the few.

"For the last seven years, our people have lived through the opposite, a Britain run for the rich, the elite and the vested interests.

"Labour's mission, over the next five years, is to change all that.

"Our manifesto spells out how, with a programme that is radical and responsible.

"It's a programme that will reverse our national priorities to put the interests of the many first."

The Labour leader said the policy agenda will "change our country while managing within our means" in his speech at the University of Bradford.

  • Read the Labour Party manifesto in full

"This is a programme of hope," he said. "The Tory campaign, by contrast, is built on one word: fear. The Tories are still the nasty party.

"The party of prejudice, the party of the rich, the party of the tight-fisted and the mean-spirited.

"I am confident that once the people of Britain have the chance to hear our promises and plans, they will decide now is the time for Labour."

For the Conservatives, Treasury Chief Secretary David Gauke said Mr Corbyn's plans were a "shambles".

"His economic ideas are nonsensical, his views on national security indefensible and he'd make a total mess of the Brexit negotiations," he said.

"It's ordinary working people who will pay for the chaos of Corbyn.

"Jeremy Corbyn has made so many unfunded spending commitments it is clear that Labour would have to raise taxes dramatically because his sums don't add up."