Britain's Labour Party promises reforms, but won't reverse Brexit
Britain's main opposition Labour Party has unveiled its new plan to re-start the country's economy, and bring about major changes in how the country is ruled.
The new blueprint, drawn up by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has already been dismissed by critics, who have raised questions about how many of the recommendations are achievable.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has not committed to all of them just yet, instead saying they show the direction his party wants to move in.
Among the 40 proposals in the report -- which is called "A New Britain" -- are plans to stop politicians from having second jobs and to cut down on foreign money in UK politics.
They also want to transfer tens of thousands of government jobs out of London; empower local authorities to raise their own revenues; set up regional innovations clusters; and create directly-elected mayors in Scotland.
But the headline idea is to scrap Britain's House of Lords and introduce an elected second house of representatives instead.
This is not a new idea from Labour: critics point out that it was part of their election manifesto in 1910, and in more modern times was a proposal at the 1967 Labour Party conference in the English seaside town of Scarborough.
Critics also say that without reforms to Britain's first-past-the-post voting system for national elections, a new upper house could also become dominated by one party and not be more fully representative of voting patterns.
"I think the House of Lords is indefensible. Anybody who looks at the House of Lords would struggle to say it should be kept, so we want to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber that has a really strong mission," Starmer said on Monday morning.
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