The supreme court declares unanimously that the prime minister has broken the law.
The court ruled that the prorogation of parliament is void.
This story keeps lurching in all sorts of directions.
Radio: MPs must get back.
We just spent a week out in the country making another film about the real fundamentals
of how people live and work in this case.
We're at Labour party conference in Brighton.
Brexit is taking another twist.
And we are struggling to keep up.
You missed another story!
Exactly.
It's a very fast-moving world now.
And most people I meet, including me, want it to somehow
slow down.
And ironically, in voting for it to slow down, it's now moving even more quickly.
I know, it's not going to slow, is it?
You only get fast-moving, lurching politics in the midst of a fast-moving, lurching society
and right at the route of fast-moving, lurching around sort of economy
and that's what we got.
Amnesty International Labour campaign for human rights.
Extinction! - Rebellion!
Do I have to pretend to be racist to get in one of your videos, John?
You obviously don't watch our videos.
All right.
When did you last watch one of our videos?
When you're doing all your poverty porn
'People around the country …'
With Labour conference upon us, Anywhere but Westminster
is doing what we do best:
sampling the opinions of what remains of the working class,
in a rock-solid Labour heartland –
London.
Can I ask you a quick question?
No sorry, I'm in a rush, I'm late already.
I need to deliver this.
Traffic lights. Maybe traffic lights is it.
Can I ask you one question before this light changes?
I'll tell you what, I'm not used to this.
I tend to do my journalism in much quieter places.
We've come to London to look at work,
how fast it's changing and the role that might be playing in the mess we're in.
You're self-employed?
I'm self-employed yes.
So holidays and sick pay and all that …
No, that's fine. I don't take a lot of holidays.
No, no, nothing like that.
Obviously, what's that?
Holiday pay, I was like, I haven't had that for years.
How do you feel about that?
Time was that was seen as being sort of just a basic part of a job.
It is what it is, mate, isn't it?
We are meeting somebody who's very pushed for time,
who earns their living pinging around London at the absolute sort of cutting edge of work.
That's cool, right, five to seven minutes.
You pick up and deliver medical samples?
Yeah.
For private medical companies, although we can't see them, they're all over the place
at these sort of supposedly high-end workplaces.
Yeah, and eCourier is my client.
Even though I'm wearing their uniform, I perform other deliveries …
I'm just going to call them to tell them that I'm down here.
Hi, it's eCourier downstairs.
Max is also at the cutting edge of the fight for basic working rights,
unionising and organising other couriers.
You should be getting things like minimum wage, paid annual leave
pension auto-enrolment and protection from discrimination
as a minimum.
Basic rights, they are?
Basic rights, the small package, we're not even asking for the big employee package
which includes sick pay, redundancy, parental leave, protection from unfair dismissal …
Out comes the package.
And is there any risk anyone is going to sack you for going on the strike?
They can sack me now.
What's there to lose?
You're in the classical as viewed in the writings of Karl Marx,
all that straight-up policy, you're in the classical worker's position.
You've got nothing to lose.
But my chains.
My bike chains.
Oh my God, is that the cringeness of the video?
Whatever, like at the end of the day, like me and my colleagues need more money.
How many deliverables do you reckon you'll do today?
So, 38 or 35 or 40 …
35 deliveries?
Depends if we are busy.
It's dangerous!
Very, it's a statistical certainty in our job because
of the amount of miles we do, we are going to have a crash of some sort.
One of our guys like, Stevie, almost lost like two fingers in Harley Street, the other week.
You know?
So, a car door opened …
If you're injured at work, what happens then?
You just lose wages, you lose money …
Hello again!
Sorry!
It's alright.
With the union or at the union?
How is he working at the union?
Oh, Jesus!
OK, I've just sent it.
That was about what's really in the midst of all this
just what it's like unionising and organising people in this line of work.
I know, it's all done by iPhone.
Oh, it's a dream!
We do get a very clear sense here about how the modern class system works in the sense
that there's one clearly identifiable group of people,
that most of whom are dressed very formally, in suits and posh shirts
and they work in offices.
There's another group of people who are dressed much more functionally
and are doing that sort of all the service work, just moving around at speed.
It's almost invisible until you start looking for it and then
you realise it's everywhere.
When we got in touch with eCourier, they told us
they were committed to operating best practice in terms of how people work and
the need to ensure the most effective and appropriate delivery model.
They told us they'd offered over 25 couriers worker status over the past year and
that they were now in discussions about the same thing with an additional 36 couriers.
I've seen activity this weekend in Reading … wildcat strikes.
Bristol is kicking off.
Bristol?
Is that the Brazilian who just got super pissed off?
They have to protest, they have to join together.
After quite a long day, we're now going to a branch meeting
at the IWGB, the Independent Workers [Union] of Great Britain.
A very small, agile union which organises couriers – it's Max's trade union.
Hiya!
I just want to ask you and see what comes back.
Where does politics fit into all of this?
Employment law needs to change.
The laws do exist, the problem is the enforcement.
There's no enforcement body, there's no employment agency vans,
that's going to come and storm our premises in the same way as the Border Agency do.
It never ends.
So we've made the 21:01 to Chesterfield, two minutes to spare.
So we are really going from the cutting edge of the new labour movement to one of the
cradles of the old labour movement.
Do you live around here?
Yeah.
How long have you lived here?
All my life, 70 odd years.
What did you use to do?
Mining.
Did you?
Yeah.
Was it good work?
Yeah, comradeship and things like that … Yeah you just took it as an everyday thing.
I'd go back tomorrow if I got the chance … So everybody watched your back,
things like that, you know?
Were you in the union?
Yeah, NUM [National Union of Mineworkers].
That's gone as well, you see.
Yeah, everything's just gone.
What did you used to do for a living?
An underground fitter.
Were you? What in the pits?
Yeah.
It was dangerous work.
Well, you had an accident yourself.
I was repairing a chain and pulled it and the chain slipped and just took me …
I thought it would pull my arm out –
Which union were you in?
NUM.
Right.
With all that, went voting Labour?
Yeah.
Has that changed?
Yeah …
Nobody likes Corbyn.
Well Jeremy Corbyn claims he's as socialist as they come and
he's from the same culture and all that …
I just can't relate to him at all because
he's not that type of, you know, he doesn't seem to be Labour …
A soldier but he doesn't seem to be.
You know, seems to go against everything what we want.
Which is what?
Well, we voted for Brexit, didn't we?
He wants to vote again. We already voted.
Brilliant, lovely talking to you.
The question is, what is Corbyn?
Is it the reaction to a Labour party decline?
Why did the Labour party follow this pattern of the rise and fall?
The answer is because it's been built on a whole culture
that rose and fell.
It was built around, manual labour
and trade unionism …
and solidarity in places like this.
– Watching each other's back.
Because what drives politics isn't Jo Swinson or was Corbyn's speech any good,
it's this deep tectonic thing.
It's always, it's production, it's production.
This place is having a very rough time,
it's fair to say.
Right, we need to get out here.
This is where Sports Direct is headquartered.
It ain't helping … whatever Mike Ashley's doing, it ain't helping, is it?
We just got to the town, right?
You see all this shops here that are shuttered up
is that because they are just temporarily closed or they shut for good?
I think some of them are shut for good.
I know that is temporarily closed.
We're going to one one minute and then it's shut next.
How old are you?
18.
Do you work?
Yeah.
What do you do?
I'm full-time hairdresser.
I'm studying to be an architect.
You've got the national headquarters of Sports Direct here.
Jimmy?
I used to work there.
Oh, that's good!
Go on, can we talk to you about working at Sports Direct?
How long did you last?
There? Three months.
What happened?
The day I got laid off, and after I finished my shift
they rang me and said I can't go back to work the next day.
That's all I got.
That's all he got. No explanation of why he'd been laid off.
Not saying he's lazy or not good, they said,
he's good at his work, they just don't need him any more.
He got a message a couple of weeks later saying, 'Would you want to join again?' and he was like, 'No'.
You can't just keep using people like that.
How can you live your life if you're gonna take a job on and three months later …?
That's what I mean, because we had a flat at the time and we had to give the flat up
because in one week we would have a good wage and then it would be like gone.
So then we were like, ringing the landlord saying,
we can't afford to pay this week.
It's bullshit. Sorry!
Do you know what Trade Union is?
No.
Do you know what a trade union is?
No.
You know?
No.
There's mining in your family?
Yeah.
Go on, what? Your parents, your dad or something?
Granddads.
So you are all old enough to vote?
I voted to stay in the EU.
Yeah … But there was a general election two years ago.
You know, Jeremy Corbyn v Theresa May and all that business …
Do you know what the Labour party stands for?
They've got work to do, don't they?
Labour has got to unite the country.
Brexit is the latest Tory vessel for division.
Johnson and Cummings seek to divide our class over leave or remain.
We must campaign for remain!
Why is the Labour party going through all these contortions about Brexit?
Well it's about a very, very deep things that go way beyond whether we are in the EU or not.
It's about what it's like out there.
It's about the kind of economy we've got.
Because much as anything it's about what that word 'Labour'
means in the 21st century.
The point is, they are not taking easy positions,
this is a group of people collectively thinking very hard.
There it is, this is it.
Can I see all of those in favour of composite 13?
And all those against.
The chair decides the conference has defeated a motion
that would commit Labour to supporting remain
before a general election.
Card vote! Card vote! Card vote!
This is proper conference drama which we haven't seen for a while.
My heart is beating faster. it's quite thrilling stuff.
… as I called it that it was lost!
Why don't you guys actually vote for people who actually supported card vote 14
and are supporting Jeremy Corbyn.
I want to talk to you as well, go on!
No, because you quickly all rush to vote for people so that you can show a division.
He is the party leader but he does not tell us which way we should vote and it's wrong
for us to keep expecting him to say whether or not he's going to campaign
to remain or if he's is gonna complain to leave,
that is not right.
He should be able to lead the country in whatever way people decide to vote.
Sorry do you want to talk to me about what you just said?
No I don't.
I think it's ridiculous.
What are your fears about that?
We are going to lose voters across the country.
The young people are going to lose out.
They don't have a voice in this.
Can I ask you a quick question?
Yes, you can.
Labour members back the leadership.
Membership has shown clearly today that the membership back Corbyn.
Brilliant.
And all those stories that you've had in the press about membership
v Corbyn are absolutely rubbish.
Membership are solidly behind him.
We are all Jeremy Corbyn.
It's quite difficult to explain what's just gone on there.
Because on one level it's just about backing the leadership, but on another,
what they voted to do really is to try to hold this coalition of leave
and remain voters together and, you know, if you know that Brexit is only
symptomatic of other things that's a … proxy, really, for keep trying to
keep towns and cities and the young and old and the new economy and the old economy
and all that.
Somehow keep this coalition which is shaking because of Brexit.
To try to hold it together.
This is Max, the courier we've met in London,
on their way to Labour party conference.
There's also a big decision looming for Max and the couriers' union, who are 48 hours
away from voting in a strike ballot.
How are you?
You just rush … you have to rush everywhere.
Have you been working today?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
God!
Max has an attitude you don't find much in the politics of 2019.
Determined, calm and radical but also pragmatic.
Can I give you a leaflet about our campaign?
It's not affiliated to the TUC, is it?
It's not affiliated to the TUC.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that it's not.
It's not necessarily a bad thing.
What we're about is being effective.
I don't want to be too political.
We are unaffiliated which works quite well for us.
Why?
Because it gives us freedom and flexibility,
to quote Deliveroo,
to do what we want.
How do you feel about the Labour party?
Oh man, so much politics.
That's the party of labour.
It's better than it used to be, in my opinion …
Would you like it to have a strong position to remain?
Yeah, on a personal level, I would like to remain because
it's, you know, it's not ideal but it's better than leaving and there will be a
bonfire of rights if we leave.
You hear a lot about the old working class
and the old working class being like coalminers, steel workers …
And maybe the new working class maybe working in occupations like yours.
Yeah.
I don't know what you think of that.
I think there's a lot of chat and analysis and like trying to understand
what's happening at the moment and thinking that's the solution but
like chatting about it isn't a solution, doing something is the solution.
I am just a boring git.
Yeah, it's really, really hard to unionise couriers because they are like
needles in a haystack and they're always in motion.
How do we reach out to those people?
Henry is by the door with a strike fund bucket.
And join us on the picket line. More the merrier.
People need that support in real life.