LABOUR leader Miliband adopted the traditional Tory slogan of ‘One Nation’ at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester yesterday.
‘In this most difficult economic time we’re going to change things,’ Miliband said, ‘and here’s how we’re going to change things . . . just think of the Olympics and the Paralympics.’
He declared: ‘We have to recall the outstanding volunteers who are with us here today,’ adding ‘we succeeded because of our outstanding troops and we say to them, just as you do your duty by us, we will do our duty by you.’
He continued: ‘We succeeded because of one reason more than any other. We succeeded because of us, the British people . . . we succeeded because we came together as a country . . . I can’t remember a time like this in the whole history of my lifetime . . . that sense that a country is together, that is what the Labour Party believes in.’
He then elaborated his main theme, speaking warmly of the 19th century Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
‘Disraeli was celebrated for a vision of Britain where patriotism was acceptable . . . Disraeli called it one nation . . . I believe in that spirit of one nation, one nation, where we have a shared destiny . . . that is my vision of Britain, that is the Britain we must become.’
He claimed that at the end of the Second World War, ‘we built the peace because Labour and Conservative governments believed in one nation.’
Miliband then proceeded to reveal that one of the aspects of ‘one nation’ is cheap or slave labour.
He continued: ‘With one million young people out of work we just can’t succeed as a country . . . to overcome the challenges we face we must remember that spirit of one nation, a country where everyone plays their part, a country we rebuild together. . .
‘Those who can work have the responsibility to do so and those out of work have the responsibility to take the work that’s on offer.’
Continuing what has been the main theme of the Labour Party Conference so far this week – his and shadow chancellor Balls’ war on the unions and support for the public sector pay freeze – Miliband said: ‘We’ve got to live within our means . . . we must be the party of the private sector just as much as the party of the public sector.
‘We must be the party of south just as much as the party of the north.
‘We must be the party as much of the squeezed middle as those in poverty.’
‘We must be a one nation party to become a one nation government to build a one nation Britain.’
He used the ‘One Nation’ phrase 46 times.
Dave Wiltshire, National Secretary of the All Trades Unions Alliance commented to News Line: ‘It’s just a complete lie. It’s not one nation. This is a country divided into classes – the working class who produce the value and the capitalist class who extract it from them in the form of profit.
‘The working class has no common interest with the bankers and the bosses, who intend to survive the crisis by driving down wages, forcing young people into near slavery and taking over the budgets of the nhs, driving people off benefits, all to keep their rotten system alive.
‘They’ve declared war on the working class, telling workers that we have to accept our lot and submit to them.
‘The concept of one nation is another move along the lines of seeking a coalition with Liberal Democrats and even a wing of the Tory Party.
‘This would be the most reactionary form of national government.
‘The unions should immediately break with this collaborationist position and call a general strike to get rid of this coalition and bar the way to a right wing Miliband government.’
