brexit countdown_bg Created with Sketch.

Labour activists yesterday voted for a huge overhaul of border controls and an end to many curbs on migration.

Two years after Jeremy Corbyn campaigned on an election manifesto vowing to end freedom of movement, delegates at the party’s conference backed a move to ‘maintain and extend free movement rights’.

The motion said all immigration detention centres should be scrapped – a move that could lead to the release of potentially dangerous illegals.

It also said migrants should be given an unconditional right to family reunion – making it easier to bring relatives here.

There would be no caps on arrival numbers, or any rules stipulating certain skills or income.

All UK residents would be given the vote, allowing three million EU nationals to have a say in a potential second referendum.

It is not clear how many of the proposals will make it into Labour’s next general election manifesto. However sources said that Mr Corbyn would abide by conference decisions.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured in the House of Commons today, has been told by Labour activists that the party's next manifesto must include a pledge to 'maintain and extend' free movement after Brexit

The Labour Party's annual conference in Brighton continued today despite the fact that Parliament has resumed sitting and many MPs have returned to London

Such a stance would alienate those Labour supporters who voted Leave to tighten up border controls. In other developments:

Conference activists voted in favour of powers to seize landlords’ properties;

The motion called for the ‘stabilisation’ of house prices, an end to right to buy, and a pledge to build two million more council homes;

Drugs firms savaged Labour’s plans to bring down the price of medicines by setting up a state pharmaceuticals firm;

Mr Corbyn appeared to back away from a conference vote to ban private schools, saying he would concentrate on taxing them.

The immigration motion was put down by Labour’s Camberwell and Peckham branch, which is represented in the Commons by Harriet Harman.

It said: ‘Free movement, equality and rights for migrants are socialist values and benefit us all.

‘Labour will include in the manifesto pledges to oppose the current Tory immigration legislation and any curbing of rights.’ It concluded that Labour must ‘actively challenge anti-immigrant narratives’ and extend equal rights to vote to all UK residents.

EU nationals who have not become citizens can vote in local elections, but not in general elections or referendums.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary pictured on September 15, criticised the vote by Labour delegates and said that the EU referendum showed people wanted tighter border controls

Tory deputy chairman Paul Scully accused Labour of seeking to gerrymander elections.

‘The right to vote in parliamentary elections and choose the next UK government is rightly restricted to British citizens and those with the closest historic links to our country,’ he said.

‘Labour’s policies on uncontrolled immigration are completely out of touch with public opinion, which is why they want to gerrymander the polls.’

The controversial motion was passed by a show of hands on the last day of the party’s conference in Brighton yesterday.

Drug companies’ fury at Corbyn plan for grabbing their patents Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to seize drug companies’ patents and make cheap copies of their medicines would put patients at risk, experts have warned. The pharmaceutical industry, academics and former Labour officials said removing the incentive for drugs firms to operate in Britain would create a ‘hostile environment’ for investment. Experts added that patients would lose out as companies would take their treatments elsewhere. Mr Corbyn said on Tuesday that Labour would tell companies to make drugs affordable in order to get their public research funding, and create a ‘publicly-owned generic drugs manufacturer’ to give the NHS cheaper medicines. World Trade Organisation rules enable drug companies to exclusively sell their drugs under a patent, usually for a 20-year period. After the patent expires, other companies may make and sell ‘generic’ versions of the drugs – often at much-reduced prices. Advertisement

A spokesman for the Labour for Free Movement campaign said: ‘Today we made history. Let it be the moment the Labour movement launched its fightback against xenophobia – and came out fighting tooth and nail for migrants’ rights.’

But Home Secretary Priti Patel said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn does not believe in any limits on immigration. Corbyn’s Labour even wants to extend free movement to more countries and allow potentially dangerous illegal immigrants to roam our streets.’

She added: ‘The British people voted to take back control. It’s only Boris Johnson and the Conservatives who will deliver Brexit by 31 October and end free movement once and for all.’

Alp Mehmet, chairman of the MigrationWatch UK think tank, added: ‘This is a foolhardy call for completely uncontrolled mass immigration as well as for the dismantling of any effective means of removal.

‘Thirty million UK adults – or 60 per cent – wish to see immigration reduced. If these reckless policies ever reach the statute book, we will all rue the day, especially the most vulnerable in our society.’

The motion said: ‘Confronted with attacks on migrants – from the racist hostile environment to the Conservatives’ immigration bill that plans to end free movement and strip the rights of working-class migrants – we stand for solidarity, equality and freedom.

‘Scapegoating, ending free movement and attacking migrants’ rights are attacks on all workers. They make migrant workers more precarious and vulnerable to hyper-exploitation, pressing down wages and conditions for everyone.

‘They divide us, making it harder to unionise and push back.’