Triumphant Corbyn eyes path to power at UK Labour conference
LONDON: Britain’s revitalised Labour opposition kicks off its annual conference yesterday with leader Jeremy Corbyn set to lay out his party’s agenda, free from the leadership challenges of previous years.
The left-of-centre party confounded expectations in June’s snap election by gaining an extra three million votes, a ringing endorsement for the anti-austerity programme of its veteran leftist leader.
His party is now polling higher than Prime Minister Theresa May’s governing Conservatives, unthinkable only a year ago when Corbyn had just won a leadership battle sparked by MPs angry at his lukewarm campaigning to stay in the European Union.
“The election has changed politics in this country,” Corbyn told The Guardian newspaper in a recent interview, adding that ‘the strength of the party’ would be the focus of the conference in Brighton on England’s south coast.
“We are now the mainstream,” he insisted.
Labour has yet to set out a clear position on Brexit, particularly on what terms Britain will retain access to the EU’s single market.
Corbyn earlier this month called for ‘full access’, later adding “whether that’s formal membership – which is only possible, I believe, if you are actually a member of the EU – or whether it’s an agreed trading relationship, is open for discussion”. — AFP