Fury at Corbyn’s cry for mass strikes to force PM from office
JEREMY Corbyn provoked anger last night by calling for a campaign of mass trade union militancy to “change our country” and help force Theresa May out of office.
In a rabble-rousing speech to union leaders, the hardLeft Labour leader claimed that workplace activism was more effective in achieving radical change than voting.
He forecast that the Prime Minister will be “prised” out of Downing Street long before the next general election which is due in 2022.
And he delighted union bosses by claiming that a Labour government would cave in to all their demands for inflation-busting pay rises in the public sector.
Radical
Mr Corbyn was given a standing ovation, with many delegates chanting his name, after delivering his set-piece speech to the annual gathering of the Trades Union Congress in Brighton.
He used his speech to call for the Labour movement to maximise pressure on the Government.
“We don’t know how long it will take, but this weak and chaotic Government will be prised out of Downing Street,” he said. “We know that the advances we made in the general election in June are a powerful springboard to win the radical Labour government we want to see, so that together we can change our country – so it truly works for the many, not the few.”
He also urged Left-wing activists, including tens of thousands of younger voters who have flocked to Labour under his leadership, to join trade unions and begin agitating in workplaces.
“Winning a Labour government, even one with a programme to transform the country, is simply not enough,” he said. “That is why the most important thing any worker can do is to join a trade union. And I want young people especially to hear this message.”
Celebrating the fact that “many people have recently got involved in politics for the first time”, Mr Corbyn said: “Politics is about power and democratic politics is about putting power in the hands of the many not the few. That principle applies in the workplace too.”
Backing the threat of mass strikes in the union campaign for big public-sector pay rises, he said: “Unions have a right to ballot members on industrial action. Surely it is the role of government to respond to concern and anger.” And he condemned offers of ministers for annual public-sector pay rises above the past 1 per cent cap – but below inflation – as being inadequate.
“A pay cut is a pay cut and we must be united in breaking the pay cap for all workers. So let me be absolutely clear today. [Labour] totally rejects the Tories’ attempt at divide and rule; to play one sector off against another.
“A Labour government will end the public sector pay cap and give all workers the pay rise they deserve and so desperately need,” he said.
Dictated
Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, welcomed Mr Corbyn’s rhetoric. He said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour is not just a very welcome breath of fresh air, it is also a reminder that a better Britain is possible, and that these toxic Tories are well and truly on borrowed time.”
But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: “This speech was nothing more than a back rub for Labour’s union backers – the very same union leaders that hold our country to ransom – and it’s time that Labour stopped being dictated to by their union paymasters.”
AT the TUC conference in Brighton yesterday Jeremy Corbyn called for mass action to oppose the Government’s policies. Earlier in the day union baron “Red” Len McCluskey had said he’d willingly break the law if he deemed it necessary.
Corbyn and his friends may not like it that Mrs May is in power but ours is a democratic country based on the rule of law. Disagreeing with an election result is no excuse for trying to cripple the country’s economy. Nor is it ever acceptable to threaten to use union power illegally to disrupt key industries and put pressure on the Government.
The thuggish behaviour of the union activists gathered in Brighton provides the perfect illustration of how nasty, intolerant and dangerous the hard-Left really is.