IN a speech in Telford yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, urged that ‘his government’ should be judged on the ‘real change’ it delivers and ‘the concrete improvements it makes to the lives of millions’.
Asking the electorate to take the Labour Party on trust, Corbyn said that the next Labour government should be judged on whether it has delivered in five years:
- An end to in-work poverty
- An end to food bank use
- An end to 1.4 million older people not getting the care they need
- A million new affordable homes
- An end to rough sleeping
- An end to tuition fees
- Reduced waiting times for A&E and cancer treatments
- Brexit sorted in six months
- Smaller class sizes
• ‘A Green Industrial Revolution to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.’
Corbyn continued that ‘The politics I stand for is about sharing power and wealth with people who don’t have a lot of money and don’t have friends in high places’, and it is those people that he will ‘champion’ to ‘bring about real change’.
Making what sounded like a retirement pledge, he argued about his leadership: ‘You have to stand for something. But leaders must also trust others to play their part.
‘Think of it like this: a good leader doesn’t just barge through a door and let it swing back in the faces of those following behind.
‘A good leader holds open the door for others to walk through because everyone has a contribution to make.
‘And when I talk about real change, that isn’t something that will be done to you. It’s something that can only be done with you.’
He continued: ‘So if you, the British people, elect a Labour government on December 12, I will be proud to be your prime minister. Because I will be a very different kind of prime minister. Not the kind of prime minister who believes he was born to rule. Not the kind who thinks politics is a game.
‘But the kind of prime minister who only seeks power in order to share power – because it isn’t about me, it’s about all of us.’
Outside Downing Street later, after meeting the Queen, PM Johnson told the media, ‘I don’t want an early election … but we’ve got to the stage where we have no choice, because our parliament is paralysed.’
He continued: ‘The Tories will get Brexit “over the line”’, if they win the general election and then ‘unleash the country’s potential’.
He added he would end the ‘paralysis’ in Parliament and take the UK out of the EU in January.
A Labour victory would mean a ‘horror show’ of further Brexit delay.
If his ‘modern and compassionate’ party won the election, he said he would take the UK out of the EU within six weeks, a move which would release a ‘flood of pent-up investment’ in the economy.
In contrast, he said a Labour victory would result in another referendum and a second vote on Scottish independence.
He concluded: ‘Come with us and get Brexit done and take the country forward or spend the whole of 2020 in a horror show of dither and delay.’
- Three Labour MPs including Jeremy Corbyn ally Chris Williamson have been banned from standing as MPs in the current election
Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn was being investigated over a sexual harassment claim – denied by him – while Roger Godsiff was facing a reselection battle in Birmingham Hall Green.
New candidates will be chosen to replace them.
Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee has not made a final decision on whether Keith Vaz can stand for the party.
The Leicester East MP was last week suspended from the House of Commons for six months by a standards watchdog.