Corbyn outlines nationalist, anti-migrant pitch for Labour government
By
Robert Stevens
26 July 2018
Jeremy Corbyn addressed the Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) Wednesday to outline his pitch for a Labour government.
In a speech titled “Build it in Britain Again,” he outlined a right-wing programme centred on economic nationalism and barely disguised anti-migrant prejudice.
Under conditions of a worsening crisis for Theresa May’s Conservative government, with the pro- and anti-European Union factions at loggerheads as the March 2019 deadline for Brexit approaches, Corbyn sought to reassure business that Labour was the party it could trust to navigate troubled waters ahead.
Just three years ago, Corbyn was elected Labour leader by a landslide on the basis that he represented a left-wing and even socialist opposition to austerity and war. With the possibility that he could lead government coming closer all this is being ditched.
There was not a single reference to socialism, capitalism, or even the “working class” in the speech. There was just a single reference to austerity, but no talk of ending it.
There were obligatory references to the plight of the majority of the population, with “the spread of insecure work, low pay and zero hours or temporary contracts,” causing “stress, debt and despondency,” as the “the super-rich have grown still richer.” But there was no call for any serious inroads against the wealth of the super-rich, or any appeal to the working class as the only social force capable of doing so.
The intractable problems of society were couched purely in the realm of a few misconceived ideas. “We can get rid of the magical thinking of the free market that has led to a minority becoming extremely rich at the expense of…