THE TORIES ‘are declaring war on organised Labour in this country’ Jeremy Corbyn, newly elected leader of the Labour Party, told delegates at the TUC Conference in Brighton yesterday.
He said that on Monday ‘the Tories put the second reading of the Trade Union Bill to Parliament and sadly it achieved its second reading and has now gone in to committee stage.’
He added: ‘Trade unions are an essential and valuable part of modern Britain, six million people voluntarily join trade unions and I am proud to be a trade unionist. That is why we are going to fight this Bill all the way. And when we are elected as a majority in 2020, we are going to repeal this Bill and replace it with a workers rights agenda and something decent and proper for the future.’
He went on to say: ‘We are going to try and stop the Bill from passing.’ Earlier in his speech he said: ‘We have to do things differently and do things together. Had we had a different approach, would we now have the millstone of Private Finance Initiatives around the necks of so many hospitals and so many schools in this country?
‘Or would we instead have a more sensible form of public sector borrowing to fund for investment and fund for the future, rather than handing our public services to hedge funds, which is exactly what this government would like us to do.’
Later in his speech he said: ‘Tories’ welfare reform is about building on cuts that have already been made, making conditions worse for the poorest people. The cuts to Disability Living Allowance have put people under so much stress, one person even committed suicide.
‘What kind of society are we living in when we put something through which sees ordinary people committing suicide. We will be putting amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill to end the cap on benefits. We need to raise wages and control rents, not the other way around. I want to be back in Parliament to vote against taking away Working Tax Credit, which ordinary families need.
‘The Tories call us deficit deniers, they are poverty deniers. They ignore food banks and pay day loans and are cutting tax benefits, imposing austerity on poor people.’ He ended: ‘The trade unions got us the right to work and the welfare state we have to build on that.’
