Labour’s internal divisions have surfaced at the party conference, with left-wing MPs attacking moderate colleagues and demanding a more radical programme of public ownership, higher taxation and looser immigration rules.
The confrontation comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham has placed sweeping reforms of public services and social care at the centre of his government’s agenda, including plans for a National Care Service.
Labour’s left has welcomed the direction of travel while pressing ministers to go considerably further.
At a rally organised by the Socialist Campaign Group during Labour’s conference in Liverpool, Kim Johnson, a Labour backbencher, delivered a stark warning to colleagues she regards as insufficiently left-wing.
In a recording reported by the Daily Express, Johnson said some Labour MPs “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Labour Party”.
Addressing more fiscally cautious members, she added: “They need to p*** off is what I say.”
The remarks underline tensions within a party whose parliamentary majority contains competing views over the scale of public spending, taxation and the role of the state.
The Socialist Campaign Group represents Labour MPs on the party’s left, while a newer grouping, Socialism26, has also campaigned for policies including public ownership of utilities and a National Care Service.
The pressure on Burnham is not confined to public ownership.
Neil Duncan-Jordan, the Labour MP for Poole and a former UNISON organiser, told a left-wing fringe event that the government needed to be “much bolder” on funding social care.
Duncan-Jordan has previously argued that social care should be brought back into public ownership and has made migrant workers central to his reform argument.
Speaking about Burnham’s National Care Service plans, he said the government could not “fix social care if you are going to kick out migrant workers”.
He argued that existing workers should “be allowed to stay”, putting him at odds with ministers pursuing tighter restrictions on migration and settlement.
On the financing of the proposed care service, Duncan-Jordan said it should be “for us to pay as a society as a whole”.
“Our job is to advocate for something much bolder than we’ve got now. Something that pools the risk and shares the cost.
“If we don’t do that, then the National Care Service won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.”
His intervention reflects a wider argument over how Labour should finance an expanded social care system. The government has committed to creating a National Care Service, with Baroness Casey’s work intended to help shape its future structure.
The clash has given Conservatives ammunition, who accuse Burnham of facing growing pressure from Labour’s left.
Matt Vickers, Conservative deputy chairman, said: “Labour’s hard-left forced the former Prime Minister into a humiliating U-turn on welfare reform, and they are lining up their next demands on ILR and tax rises. The Government should not cave.
“The hard-left’s answer is always the same – more immigration, more spending and higher taxes. The Labour Party is divided, but one thing is becoming clear – the hard-left thinks it is in charge.”
Conservatives have also accused Labour’s left-wing MPs of seeking to push Burnham towards higher taxes to finance an expansion of state provision.
A Tory source said: “To placate the hard-left, Andy Burnham will have to hike taxes to pay for their endless socialist projects, while hardworking people are left picking up the bill. The Labour Party is as hopelessly divided as ever.”
The dispute exposes a fundamental tension facing Burnham: how far to expand the state’s role while maintaining fiscal credibility and managing the political consequences of higher taxation.
For Labour’s left, the conference has provided an opportunity to press for a more expansive programme. For the government, the challenge is translating its ambitions for public services into a programme it can fund while managing competing demands over spending, taxation and immigration.
The arguments are likely to intensify as ministers turn the conference’s political promises into policy.
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