Jeremy Corbyn launches digital manifesto - full speech
Immediate release 30th August 2016
Jeremy Corbyn will use “digital technology to mobilise most visible General Election campaign ever”
Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour Party, has today launched a digital democracy manifesto in East London to “democratise the internet”.
The full manifesto can be viewed here.
At the event he also set out how Labour “will utilise the advances of digital technology to mobilise the most visible General Election campaign ever” if he wins the current Labour leadership election. He pointed to his campaign’s phone canvassing app, inspired by the Bernie Sanders campaign in the US, as an example of the future of political campaigning in the UK.
The Digital Democracy manifesto includes plans for a:
- Universal Service Network - We will deliver high speed broadband and mobile connectivity for every household, company and organisation in Britain from the inner city neighbourhoods to the remotest rural community.
- Open Knowledge Library - We will create a free-to-use on-line hub of learning resources for the National Education Service.
- Platform Cooperatives - We will foster the cooperative ownership of digital platforms for distributing labour and selling services. The National Investment Bank and regional banks will help to finance social enterprises whose websites and apps are designed to minimise the costs of connecting producers with consumers in the transport, accommodation, cultural, catering and other important sectors of the British economy.
- Digital Citizen Passport - We will develop a voluntary scheme that provides British citizens with a secure and portable identity for their on-line activities. The Digital Citizen Passport will be used when interacting with public services like health, welfare, education and housing.
- Programming For Everyone - We will require that all publicly funded software and hardware is released under an Open Source licence.
- A People’s Charter of Digital Liberty Rights - We will launch a public consultation with people and parties across the political spectrum to draw up a digital bill of rights.
- Massive Multi-Person On-line Deliberation - We will utilise information technologies to make popular participation in the democratic process easy and inclusive. We will aim to organise both online and offline meetings for individuals and communities to deliberate about pressing political issues and participate in devising new legislation.
At the event this morning in East London, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, said:
“Thank you everyone for coming here today.
"Twenty years ago, this speech would have been prepared, at best, on a basic desktop computer. Research would have required wading through stacks of paper notes. Live transmission would have limited to big TV channels. If you liked the content and wanted to campaign for me, you would have to attend a physical phonebank, with landlines.
"Today, it can be delivered to an audience of millions at the touch of a button. As the conversation continues on social media, millions of ordinary people gain a voice, however piecemeal. Our campaigns are run with big data and cutting edge software. You can phonebank from anywhere with an app, in whatever free time you have.
"We are pioneering techniques and innovations that will form the basis not just of this campaign, but Labour’s path to victory at the next general election.
"Britain has led the world in the development of technology. And it is exciting to be here today in East London, a place of so much innovation and creativity, to launch our campaign’s digital manifesto.
"The internet, and the development of smartphones and computers, has transformed our daily lives. I can call a friend on the other side of the world just by opening the Skype app on my phone. And we can access information like never before. We are long past the point when ‘google’ became a verb.
"Politics is changing too. The issues may not change that much – people want decent housing and decent jobs, they want access to education and opportunity, they want thriving public services and a society which works for the millions not just the millionaires. But the terrain on which opinions are formed is changing.
"With the rapid advances in digital technology, data and information can become sources of inequality and exploitation as well as. It hasn’t been easy to ensure democracy always takes place online. This is why our manifesto we’re launching today seeks to democratise the internet.
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"Let me take you through the manifesto.
"I don’t think it’s fair that people living in London get to enjoy 4G internet connection wherever they go, when in Wales, Cornwall and other places in the UK, they can’t even get a single bar of reception.
"Across the country, outside of the South East and especially in rural and remote parts of the UK, people are struggling with slow or no internet. In today’s connected age, this inequality of coverage is not trivial – it is a barrier to learning and to business opportunities, and it is a source of social and economic isolation.
"To improve connectivity we want to see a Universal Service Network that will deliver high speed broadband and mobile connectivity for every household, company and organisation in Britain from the inner city neighborhoods to the remotest rural community.
"The cost of this is estimated at £25billion, and would be covered by our National Investment Bank.
"Secondly, as part of Labour’s plans for a universally accessible National Education Service, we will create a free-to-use online hub which we’re calling an “Open Knowledge Library”, a digital repository of lessons, lectures, curricula.
"We will foster the cooperative ownership of digital platforms for distributing labour and selling services. The National Investment Bank and regional banks will finance social enterprises whose websites and apps are designed to minimise the costs of connecting producers with consumers – in transport, accommodation, cultural, catering and other important sectors of the British economy.
"In the new sharing economy, we will reform copyright laws to ensure that cultural workers are paid properly for their labour. And we will introduce new laws guaranteeing a secure employment contract and trade union membership to everyone who earns most or some of their livelihood from digital platforms.
"We are also interested in the idea of developing a voluntary scheme that provides British citizens with a secure and portable identity for their on-line activities. The Digital Citizen Passport will be used when interacting with public services like health, welfare, education and housing.
"To ensure everyone has access to software needed for programming, we will encourage all publicly funded software and hardware to be released under an Open Source licence.
"To protect us from unwarranted surveillance, and to protect our individual and collective freedoms, the next Labour government will introduce A People’s Charter of Digital Liberties, following a public consultation with people and parties across the political spectrum.
"Finally, we will use technology to in a broader policy to devolve and open up British democracy. We will organize online and offline meetings for individuals and communities to deliberate about pressing political issues and participate in devising new legislation. And if we can be sure of its reliability, we will look to introduce online voting in elections.
"From travelling all over the UK and meeting thousands of people over the past year, I know there is a huge thirst for people to get more involved in devising policy making and having a say in politics.
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"Labour have now lost two successive general elections. As this and other detailed policy announcements show, we have a plan for Britain. But in order to implement that plan, we need to be in power.
"We will not win elections solely by relying on the methods and strategies of the past.
"And I’m pleased to say that our leadership campaign, is leading the way in harnessing the advances of new technology so that we can organise political campaigning like we’ve never seen before in Britain.
"Our digital phone canvassing app for example, inspired by the Bernie Sanders campaign in the US, has already been used by thousands of people in our campaign.
"The creativity of the networked young generation is phenomenal. We have tens of thousands of young volunteers on our campaign all over the UK taking part in this digital revolution.
"The challenge is to now take this forward to the next general election. Labour under my leadership will utilise the advances of digital technology so that we can mobilise the most visible, targeted and effective General Election campaign in British history.
"Together, we will rebuild and transform Britain so that no on and no community is left behind.
"Thank you”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
- The full digital manifesto can be viewed here.
Costings
- The House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills found that London ranked 26th (out of 33) in European capital cities for broadband speed. The UK ranks ninth across the EU for broadband speed. (Ofcom, “European Broadband Scorecard 2015 – update”, May 2016). For the UK as a whole, the House of Lords Select Committee was “concerned about the pace of universal internet coverage and the delivery of superfast broadband.” (House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills, “Make or Break: the UK’s digital future”, May 2015, para.34) The British Chambers of Commerce amongst other business groups has expressed its concern about poor internet connectivity in the UK. (British Chambers of Commerce, “Bursting the Bubble”, October 2015.)
- Fibre-to- the-Home (FTTH) is next-generation internet connectivity, providing speeds of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), or around 100 times faster than the 10 megabits per second (Mbps) that the House of Lords Select Committee estimated to be typical for UK connectivity, or approximately three to ten times faster than current fastest domestic broadband availability. South Korea, China, Japan, and New Zealand all have programmes to roll out FTTP. Labour Digital has called for 1Gbps to provided to all homes, implying a UK-wide FTTP programme (Labour Digital, “Number One in Digital”, 2014). The House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport found that an apparent “lack of ambition for driving fibre to the premises across the country, could result in a hard-to- solve digital divide beyond 2020.” (House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, “Establishing world-class connectivity throughout the UK”, July 2016, para.30). Ofcom believes that the next decade will be “all about a strategic shift to large-scale investment in more fibre to the premise networks.” (“Establishing world-class connectivity throughout the UK”, para.125).
- Evidence from ultrafast broadband is still being gathered since the technology is new. However, “Superfast Cornwall”, providing fibre broadband to businesses, has already helped Cornwall overtake London as one of the UK’s fastest growing digital economies, with 153% growth in the last year alone. (Nesta, “Tech Nation 2016”, February 2016). Extending connectivity could lead to similar results elsewhere, fostering the growth of digital and tech clusters alongside other economic benefits. Studies of OECD countries suggest that a doubling of broadband speed adds 0.3 percentage points to economic growth. (Rohman and Bohlin, “Does broadband speed matter for economic growth? Investigating OECD countries”, April 2012). At higher speeds the effect will diminish but even a fraction of the impact would lead to significant productivity and growth benefits for the UK. Booz and Co. have estimated that £63bn would be added to the UK’s annual GDP from the provision of world-leading internet connectivity. (Booz and Company, “This Is For Everyone”, November 2012, p.21)
- The maximum cost for nationwide FTTP coverage is £25bn, spread over a number of years, which fits easily inside the £500bn investment commitment already announced. £13bn would provide 80% coverage (Analysis Mason, “The costs of deploying next-generation fibre-optic infrastructure”, 2008). This investment could be funded at minimal cost to the taxpayer and with the most rapid deployment possible, using the National Investment Bank and relying on all-time low government borrowing costs. The provision of a valuable national asset would produce significant returns over time, both in economic growth and additional tax revenues arising from growth, far outweighing the initial investment. Building on existing fibre-optic roll-out schemes would reduce the total costs below this headline figure, and building on current practice we would look to schedule installations where the demand was urgent, such as to existing tech clusters.