Jeremy Corbyn calls for unity with Labour’s right-wing and the “business world”
By
Robert Stevens
29 September 2018
The Labour Party’s conference finished with a speech from Jeremy Corbyn that was a pitch for a “mainstream” government, a precondition of which was unity with the Blairite right of the party.
Corbyn delivered his address after an avalanche of bogus allegations by the Blairites, in alliance with the Tory government, military/intelligence complex and corporate media that he is an anti-Semite, supporter of terrorism and a threat to national security.
Such is the hostility to the right that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), led by the trade unions and with the support of Corbyn himself, spiked demands for mandatory reselection of MPs that would have seen dozens expelled. After authoring this sabotage, Corbyn delivered a speech peppered with pledges to implement a minimal programme of reforms to rebuild “our divided country” and offer “an alternative to the politics of austerity, of social division and of international conflict,” while insisting, “Our movement has achieved nothing when divided.”
Labour stood for “democracy and social justice against poverty, inequality and discrimination,” but “If we are to get the chance to put those values into practice in government we are going to need unity to do it.”
Leading right-wingers, including Tom Watson and Sir Kier Starmer, were name-checked by Corbyn as being integral to his shadow cabinet, figures who would play a vital role in government.
Addressing those who have spent years slandering him and his supporters, including Chuka Umunna, who recently referred to Labour members as “dogs,” and Margaret Hodge, who screamed in Corbyn’s face that he was a “f***ing…