Jeremy Corbyn has urged Labour to end the trench warfare that has accompanied his first year as leader and unite to fight the Conservatives and win back power at Westminster. In a well-received speech at the end of his party's conference in Liverpool, Mr Corbyn acknowledged that, at just 26 per cent in the latest poll, Labour had an electoral mountain to climb.
“But if we focus everything on the needs and aspirations of middle- and lower-income voters, of ordinary families, if we demonstrate we’ve got a viable alternative to the government’s failed economic policies, I’m convinced we can build the electoral support that can beat the Tories,” he said.
The Labour leader, who was re-elected last week with an enhanced majority, said the party was about campaigning and protest but it must above all be about winning elections. He claimed that his election and the huge expansion of Labour’s membership in the past year reflected a thirst for a new kind of politics, and a new way of running the economy.
‘Grotesque inequality’
“It’s not about me of course, or unique to Britain but across
Europe
,
North America
and elsewhere, people are fed up with a so-called free market system, that has produced grotesque inequality, stagnating living standards for the many calamitous foreign wars without end and a political stitch-up which leaves the vast majority of people shut out of power,” he said.
Mr Corbyn admitted that the “robust debate” surrounding the challenge to his leadership had sometimes spilled over into online abuse. And he issued his clearest condemnation yet of anti-Semitism, insisting that Labour must fight it wherever it appears, and ensure that the party was a safe and welcoming place for everyone.
“Let me be absolutely clear, anti-Semitism is an evil, it led to the worst crimes of the 20th century, every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that it is never allowed to fester in our society again. This party always has and always will fight against prejudice and hatred of Jewish people with every breath in its body,” he said.
Immigration
The speech won praise across the party, even from MPs who had been in the forefront of the attempt to unseat Mr Corbyn as leader. And his proposal to allow local councils to borrow in order to build new homes won plaudits beyond the party. But his insistence that controlling immigration should not be a priority in a post-Brexit deal with the EU put Mr Corbyn at odds with many Labour MPs and activists.
“A Labour government will not offer false promises on immigration as the Tories have done. We will not sow division by fanning the flames of fear. We will tackle the real issues of immigration instead whatever the eventual outcome of the Brexit negotiations and make the changes that are needed,” he said.
Earlier, shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said Labour had to show it understood why so many of its supporters voted for Brexit, by addressing their concerns about immigration. Mr Burnham, who will be Labour's candidate for mayor of Greater Manchester next year, said Labour voters in constituencies like his were not narrow-minded or xenophobic.
“But they do have a problem with people taking them for granted and with unlimited, unfunded, unskilled migration which damages their own living standards. And they have an even bigger problem with an out-of-touch elite who don’t seem to care about it. If Labour now argues for the status quo, it will look like we have abandoned them too,” he said.
