Ahead of the general election, all the major parties have released their manifestos. Some are more exciting than others: the Greens, for example, want to introduce a four-day working week, abolish tuition fees, build more social housing, and take action on the climate crisis. By contrast, the Labour Party – who are set to win the election with a huge majority and end 14 years of Tory rule – wants to adopt a brutal approach to migration and restrict the number of trans kids able to access puberty blockers (Starmer has also said that he would ban all trans women from women-only spaces).

Of course, it’s a huge relief that the Tories are on their way out, but if you’re struggling to feel enthused by the prospect of Keir Starmer becoming your next Prime Minister, you’re not alone. Sure, Labour’s manifesto isn’t as disturbing as the Tories’ hellish litany of pledges, but it’s still depressing to think that a party which is supposed to represent the left is apparently incapable of imagining a genuinely different and fairer country.

We know what we’d do differently. Ahead of tomorrow’s election, we asked a select number of activists, commentators, and Dazed contributors to spell out their ideas for a better future. From tackling the housing crisis, averting climate catastrophe, and addressing mental health issues at the root – here’s what we would do if we had the keys to 10 Downing Street.

HOUSING

Kwajo Tweneboa, housing activist and Dazed 100 alumni

“If it was up to me I would immediately suspend the Right to Buy scheme so that homes can be built while also not being sold off – this would allow inroads to be made on the current waiting list and deficit of social homes that we currently have. I’d also build 600,000 new high-quality and built-to-last social homes over the course of five years; strengthen safety and building regulation for social tenants, especially after Grenfell; reevaluate the current and shockingly poor ‘decent homes standard’; reform the speed at which it takes to deal with anti-social behaviour; and ban social landlords from evicting children and young adults and rendering them homeless after their parents pass away. 

“In terms of the private sector, the first thing I would do is abolish Section 21 and put an end to no-fault evictions, plus address the affordability of private rentals. I’d also introduce a landlord register so that landlords can be monitored – this should help put an end to illegal lettings. In addition, I would implement stricter safety regulations and introduce penalties for landlords that fail to meet these regulations, with a permanent ban on landlords that repeatedly break or ignore safety regulations and endanger lives.”

THE NORTH

Alex Niven, author of The North Will Rise Again

“The last 14 years have been worse for the North than any time since the Thatcher years. Austerity disproportionately affected northern urban areas, and which massively exacerbated an already vast structural divide between London and the English regions in terms of jobs, resources, health, living standards, and so on. At the same time, gimmicky Tory projects like ‘the Northern Powerhouse’ and ‘Levelling Up’, which were supposed to tackle regional inequality, have been an absolute joke.

“The North needs a more radical form of devolution than any of the major parties are offering currently – something more like the German federal system. At the same time, it needs massive government investment to reverse the effects of 2010s austerity. The transport system in the North needs to be renovated and extended, with much better and faster inter-city connections, new lines into smaller towns and rural areas, and integrated transport systems all over the place. More major political, economic and cultural institutions need to be relocated to the North to provide opportunities for northerners to work in their regions and not have to relocate to London. Finally, more general reforms in British society – the abolition of tuition fees, empowering renters, more generous and less punitive welfare provision – would allow young people in the North to be more creative, freer, happier and more together.”

MIGRANT JUSTICE

Benali Hamdache, migrant and refugee support spokesperson for the Green Party

“We need to start by ripping up every anti-refugee and migrant policy from the Tories over the last 14 years. No more hostile environment, no love tax for migrant spouses and no NHS surcharge. Next, it’s scrapping the institutionally racist Home Office, and empowering a kinder and fairer Ministry for Migration. Finally, it’s about tackling the issues that force people out of their homes, from climate inaction, to who we send weapons to, and reversing our cuts to international aid.”

CLIMATE

Mikaela Loach, climate justice activist

“My climate policy would be really ambitious – something that actually tackles the root causes of the climate crisis, rather than bowing to the wills of big businesses and the richest in our society.

“I want a climate policy that creates a better world for the majority of people: a policy that tackles the root causes of poverty, the root causes of racial injustice, policy that sees the interconnections of all of these issues. I’d tax the richest in our society with a wealth tax to fund this policy. I’d want to insulate every home in this country to reduce people’s bills in both the short- and long-term and reduce our energy usage. I want a climate policy that allows for community-owned energy systems, where big corporations can no longer hike prices. I want a climate policy that also recognises the responsibility the UK has to pay climate reparations to countries across the world that have contributed so much less to this crisis but are experiencing the worst impacts. That means committing to assisting and supporting other countries in their transition to renewable energy. There also definitely needs to be a commitment to ceasing new oil and gas fields, including halting development on the oil and gas fields that have been approved since the International Energy Agency have said there must be no new investment in oil and gas. That means no more Rosebank, no more Jackdaw, as well as no more new fields on top of that.

“We have the opportunity to create a world that is better for all of us – a world where all of us get to experience more joy, where we’re safer because we tackle the climate crisis. We need to make sure that the current climate policy and the climate action that takes us towards that better world.”

PALESTINE

Hamza Yusuf, British Palestinian researcher and writer

“We need an immediate and full recognition of a Palestinian state and build on recent momentum of Norway, Ireland, Spain and Armenia and suspend all arms sales to Israel. We need to ‘disclose and divest’ and endorse BDS initiatives that call for complete divestment from Israeli companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. We need a ban on all goods coming from the illegal settlements – sending a firm message that products made on stolen land with stolen resources and profit from grave human rights violations are a red line. We need to impose sanctions on Israel in the same way sanctions and measures were imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. We need to open investigations into crimes committed in Gaza by British nationals serving in the Israeli army and see the mechanisms and avenues for them to be held to account.”

HEALTH

Serena Smith, deputy editor of Dazed Digital

“The first step to fixing our broken NHS is pumping money into it. Where to get the money from? An estimated £570 billion is being held by British residents in overseas tax havens – maybe we could pinch some of that. We could implement a wealth tax for the mega-rich which could potentially bring in up to £130 billion. I also wouldn’t mind paying more income tax if it meant I could actually see a GP without having to grovel over the phone and wait two weeks for a ten-minute phone appointment. Research suggests that the majority of Brits feel the same.

“So, the money is there. What to do with it? Paying healthcare workers fairly would be a start. A new report has found that half of student nurses are considering changing careers, and many NHS workers are leaving the UK in droves to work elsewhere. Valuing these key workers and paying them fairly would boost staff retention rates and subsequently address the issue of overwork – and, in the long-term, encourage the next generation of workers to join the health service. We could also build more hospitals and hubs and ensure existing buildings are up to modern standards; offer everyone access to an NHS dentist; and bring back bursaries for nurses in training.

“Public health could also be improved by addressing British society’s relationship with work. Reducing working hours or advocating for a four-day week – like the Green Party are doing – would grant people more time to cook healthy meals, exercise, and help prevent burnout, subsequently relieving pressure on the NHS.”

MENTAL HEALTH

Evie Muir, author of Radical Rest

“The landscape for mental health care that I hope for would be a system that decolonises its preoccupation with a Western, Eurocentric model – which sees the mind and body as two separate entities requiring differing forms of treatment – and integrates holistic, Indigenous, nature-allied, and community-centred practices in a way that is accessible to all. Talking therapy and pharmaceutical medications help so many people suffering from mental health conditions, myself included, but our current system positions these as the only options, with carceral institutionalisation as the only route to ‘support’ for someone in a crisis. What I’m imagining is a buffet of options for people to choose from where holistic medicines such as embodied practices, acupuncture, kinesiology, homeopathy and herbal medicines for example, community care and Western technologies complement each other and work together.

“However, I think so much of what we are told is ‘mental illness’ can also be understood as a perfectly reasonable response to existing under a deeply harmful and traumatising society dominated by patriarchal racial capitalism. Through a disability justice lens we can reframe this and understand that it’s actually society that is sick, and therefore the only way we can actualise healthy people and a healthy planet is if society is transformed entirely.”

TRANS RIGHTS

Eli Cugini, writer and Dazed contributor

“Transphobia is a key social glue of the 2024 Tory party; the Conservatives and their affiliate outlets put out a constant stream of dehumanising rhetoric about trans people, which is designed to keep basic assertions of our personhood unspeakable. The Tories have specifically aimed to worsen cultural conditions for trans people: appointing a committed transphobe to Secretary for Women and Equalities, commissioning the Cass Report, weakening the rights of trans people in school and at work, attacking trans-inclusive education, and destroying access to state healthcare. This has gone hand-in-hand with impoverishing us through austerity, as we are disproportionately low-paid and dependent on precariously funded public services. 

“We need a desegregated, informed-consent healthcare system now. Immediately. Trans people are dying on inhumane waiting lists for care that is safe, effective, and widely available. The policies that would make the biggest difference to trans people, especially young trans people, are mostly along the general lines of more services and less criminalisation – more and cheaper housing, better wages, decriminalising sex work and migration – but there’s a specific need to dismantle segregated trans healthcare, and to cement trans children’s rights to autonomy and education in school.”