BY NIKKI ADEBIYI, FOUNDER @ BOUNCE BLACK
Labour has won the UK General Election! Like all parties, it is by no means perfect, but the fact that they won by a landslide shows that there is appetite for change. Here’s what happens next:
- Forming the Government: Labour will form the new government with their leader, Sir Keir Starmer, becoming the Prime Minister.
- Policy Implementation: Expect new policies focusing on healthcare, education, and social justice.
- Cabinet Appointments: Key roles and positions will be assigned to shape the new administration. Find out who’s in the Cabinet Office here.
- First 100 Days: Look out for immediate actions on key promises.
We’ll be keeping an eye out on the actions taken by the new government that cut across racial equity, mental health, social mobility and employment law. For now, here are the key promises made in the Labour manifesto, taken from our UK General Election guide:
2024 Labour Party Manifesto Summary
| Policy Area | Key Points |
|---|---|
| Economy | Increase investment in infrastructure and green technology; create well-paid jobs; ensure fair taxation. |
| Health | Boost NHS funding; reduce waiting times; expand mental health services; provide free prescriptions. |
| Education | Free school meals for all primary children; reduce class sizes; increase funding for schools. |
| Environment | Achieve net-zero carbon emissions; shift to clean energy; ban fracking. |
| Social Justice | Strengthen workers’ rights; introduce a Race Equality Act; ensure gender pay equality. |
| Public Safety | Recruit more police officers; focus on community policing; toughen sentences for serious crimes; introducing Stalking Protection Orders; criminalising spiking. |
Promises Around Key Policy Areas
| Policy Area | Key Promises |
|---|---|
| Racial Equity | Introducing a Race Equality Act to ensure equal pay, prevent dual discrimination and root out racial inequalities. Introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting for large employers. Updating the Mental Health Act to stop disproportionate detention of Black people. Close the Black maternal mortality gap. |
| Mental Health | Reduce waiting times and increase early intervention. Additional new staff who are trained in suicide prevention. Opening Young Futures hubs with mental health services for children and young people. Amendment to the Mental Health Act to increase patient choice, autonomy, rights and support. |
| Social Mobility | Supporting small businesses and self-employed people by taking action on late payments. Increasing and protecting social housing. Introducing a mortgage guarantee scheme. Merging Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service to provide a national jobs and careers service to support people into work and helping them stay in work. Supporting people with health conditions and disabilities into work. Tackling the backlog of Access to Work claims. Reforming or replacing the Work Capability Assessment. Establishing a youth guarantee of access to training, apprenticeships or support to find work for all 18-21 year olds. Guaranteeing two weeks’ work experience for all young people. Ensuring equal minimum wages regardless of age. Modernising the national curriculum to prepare young people for work and life. Establishing Skills England, a body to bring together businesses, training providers, unions and government. Improving access to universities. Reviewing Universal Credit to ensure it makes work pay and tackles poverty. Collaborating with voluntary sector, faith organisations, trade unions, businesses and local authorities to reduce child poverty. Review of pensions to improve retirement security. Ending the leasehold system, tackling ground rent charges and unfair maintenance costs. |
| Employment Law | Implementing Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay and new legislation, including banning zero hour contracts, ending fire-and-rehire, introducing basic right to parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal. Creating a Single Enforcement Body to ensure employment rights are upheld. Ensuring minimum wage is a living wage. Removal of age bands for minimum wage, ensuring equal minimum wage. Tougher action on breaches by employers. Rights and protections for whistleblowers in the workplace. |
About the Labour Party
| Party | Established | Current Leader | Slogan | General Stance | Typical Voters |
| Labour Party | 1900 | Keir Starmer | “A Fairer, Greener Future” | Center-left; emphasizes social justice, public ownership, higher taxes for the wealthy, welfare state. | Working-class, urban voters, younger people |
As mentioned in our previous post, Bounce Black is a proud member of the Black Mental Health and Wellbeing Alliance (BMHWA), who have published the groundbreaking Black Mental Health Manifesto.. Here’s a little bit about the Black Mental Health Manifesto we’re supporting:
The Black Mental Health Manifesto
The Black Mental Health Manifesto contains six key asks from the next Government which will facilitate the flourishing of Black people in the UK in mind and body, namely through:
- A comprehensive government strategy to eradicate racism, led by a cabinet-level minister.
- Reform of the Mental Health Act to address disproportionate detention rates of Black individuals.
- Ending hostile environment policies affecting refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants.
- Embedding NHS England’s Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework in all mental health services.
- Developing an anti-racist, diverse curriculum in schools.
- Investment in community-led research on Black mental health.
For more context about the rationale for these asks, check out the full manifesto here and a summary version here. We’ll be keeping an eye out for movement towards fulfilment of any of these asks, which will also be shared on our blog.
For now, let’s hope it is indeed a time for genuine and lasting change!
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