Workers Party makes pay and housing pledges in election manifesto

The Workers Party of Britain (WPB) has launched its election manifesto with a series of promises to improve “poverty pay” and boost social housing.

The party, launched in 2019 after Labour’s election defeat, is running in its first general election with a slate of 152 candidates.

At an event in Manchester, leader George Galloway said his party favoured an expansion in council housing and the transformation of the leasehold system.

Other policies include raising the tax-free allowance from £12,570 to £21,200 for “two million low-paid workers”.

Unlike the main parties, the WPB has not detailed how much its policies would cost in a separate document.

Pressed on how his party would raise funds, Mr Galloway said “hundreds of billions” could be saved by scrapping the UK’s nuclear weapons.

Mr Galloway, who became the WPB’s first MP in March after winning a by-election in Rochdale, used a press event in Manchester to launch the party’s policy platform, entitled “Britain Deserves Better”.

But in a wide-ranging speech and Q&A session with reporters, he launched a series of broadsides against the two main parties, plus Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

He confirmed the party would “principally” be targeting Labour in areas including Birmingham, Manchester and east London, and accused the party of being “diametrically opposed” to its founding mission to represent workers.

However he also criticised the Tories for making “such a mess of Britain,” and said there was a “very real danger” of Mr Farage “running away with this election”.

The WPB describes itself as a socialist and working class party, which wants to bring about “a redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people”.

Its policies include “all workers having the option of retiring at 60” and “selective nationalisation” of utility companies.

It also says it would ensure “mandatory working class representation” at the Bank of England, including on the nine-member committee that sets its interest rate.

Speaking at the launch event, Mr Galloway said his party wanted to see a million new council homes built, in which tenants would be able to elect their landlords.

He also said his party, which favours withdrawing the UK from Nato, would end “subservience” to the US, describing the UK as an American “vassal state”.

He argued the UK should end its “posture of confrontation”, warning the world was “closer to World War Three than we have ever been”.

His fledgling WPB had limited success at the ballot box before Rochdale, where former Labour and Respect MP Mr Galloway was returned to Parliament for the first time since 2015 after running a campaign focused on the war in Gaza.

Mr Galloway predicted his party would win “hundreds of thousands” of votes at the election on 4 July, but this would not result in a “proportionate” number of MPs, describing the UK’s electoral system as “rigged” against smaller parties.