BY HAJERA BLAGG In an exclusive interview Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says
why it’s vital for Unite members to vote Labour Ask any prime ministerial hopeful on the campaign trail what their first priority will be in office, and you’re likely to get an answer that will appeal to the greatest number of voters, or else the ‘right kind of voter’. And this year, it’s the so-called ‘Workington Man’.
Labour’s green policies aren’t simply about reversing climate damage but creating opportunities for all who have been left behind under decades of de-industrialisation and years of austerity.
But Jeremy Corbyn’s top priorities start from the very bottom – to empower those who are in fact among the least likely to vote.
“On day one, I will say to our civil servants to end rough sleeping in Britain as quickly as you possibly can,” the Labour leader tells uniteWORKS after a rally in Liverpool. “It’s just not right that in the fifth richest country in the world, that many thousands sleep rough on the streets and many thousands more are concealed homeless. The damage it does to them and their children and their communities is huge.”
It’s answers like these that give the distinct feeling that Corbyn is in it not simply out to win, but also to govern – for the very real opportunity to tackle society’s most entrenched and ignored problems.
And while Brexit may be the most immediate issue facing the electorate, the elephant in the room is the issue to eclipse all issues – an impending climate emergency which threatens not only trade and living standards but any sort of living at all.
Tackling this issue head-on, Corbyn tells uniteWORKS this is another of a future Labour government’s top priorities. Dubbed the Green Industrial Revolution, it’s a name to match its uncompromising ambitions.
This revolution, Corbyn says, “will bring hundreds of thousands of good quality, well-paid, high-skilled unionised jobs through green energy generation in Britain so our young people can look forward with confidence to a future where they matter”. He’s unflinching in his assessment of what precisely is at stake in this election.
“It’s been labelled a Brexit election and of course Brexit is a big issue. But in reality it’s about the future direction of this country – are we going to continue with austerity, with wage freezes, with cuts to public expenditure and threats to our NHS? Are we going allow Boris Johnson to take us on the road to a trade deal with Trump and the USA? Or are we going to have a Labour government that will defend jobs, defend living standards and invest in communities?”
Transformative vision And while the Labour party of 2019 has in some circles been dismissed as overly- ambitious in its transformative vision, for Corbyn, it’s really all just common sense. Not the so-called ‘common sense’ of the hopelessly out-of-touch Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who the Labour leader slammed for his recent comments on Grenfell fire victims.
“Rees-Mogg said it would have been common sense to leave the building,” Corbyn angrily points out. “It would have been common sense not to put flammable cladding on a building; it would have been
common sense not to close the fire station; it would have been common sense to invest in sprinklers. That’s what we’ll do.”
Such common sense appeals to the masses of people now packing Labour rallies in towns and cities across the UK. It’s at such rallies that you get a real sense of Corbyn as leader – not, as he says, the kind who “thinks politics is a game”, but one who “seeks power in order to share power”.
It’s this power-as-sharing democracy that has epitomised the Labour Party under Corbyn, and will, he pledges, define his future premiership, one where working people are at its centre.
He appealed to Unite members to vote Labour for a once-in-a-generation opportunity to effect real change.
“Your union comes from the tradition of many unions,” Corbyn said. “You’re founded and brought together from dock workers, from engineering workers, from land workers as well as transport workers and others. And you have that incredible history where you stood up for so many different sections of our community. Thank you for what you do.
“If you want to live in a country where we invest in the future, where we protect rights at work from day one, where we end zero hours contracts, where we end universal credit and the indignity that heaps on people, then please vote Labour – for your future and the future of your children.”
Find out more VOTE 2019
7 uniteWORKS Winter 2019
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
