Theresa savages Corbyn betrayal of his own party

THERESA May launched an excoriating personal attack on Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, saying he had betrayed his party’s history of decency and tolerance.

The Prime Minister called what had happened to the Labour Party under his leadership a ‘national tragedy’.

She said his response to the anti-Semitism scandal, the Salisbury poisonings and the hard-Left attacks on his own MPs showed how far the party had fallen under him.

And she contrasted him unfavourably with Neil Kinnock, Jim Callaghan and Clement Attlee, saying Labour’s past leaders would never have responded in the same way.

Mrs May added that it was the ‘duty’ of the Tories to make sure Mr Corbyn cannot do to the country what he has done to Labour.

The Premier also rounded on Labour’s economic policies, warning that spending promises and a nationalisation programme would cost taxpayers £1trillion and drive investment and jobs out of Britain.

Mrs May made an impassioned defence of decency in politics one of the central themes of her speech, quoting murdered MP Jo Cox’s argument that political opponents have ‘ more in common than divides us’.

She said the Tories should stand up for a ‘politics that unites us rather than divides us’.

She added ‘that used to be Labour’s position’ – but the party had now been replaced by the ‘Jeremy Corbyn Party’.

She said the heirs of Labour figures such as Hugh Gaitskell and Barbara Castle, Denis Healey and John Smith were now on the backbenches. She asked: ‘Would Neil Kinnock, who stood up to the hard-Left, have stood by while his own MPs faced deselection, and needed police protection at their party conference?

‘Would Jim Callaghan, who served in the Royal Navy, have asked the Russian government to confirm the findings of our own intelligence agencies?

‘Would Clement Attlee, Churchill’s trusted deputy during the Second World War, have told British Jews they didn’t know the meaning of anti-Semitism?

‘What has it come to when Jewish families today seriously discuss where they should go if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister? When a leading Labour MP says his party is 2institutionally racist”?

‘When the leader of the Labour Party is happy to appear on Iranian state TV, but attacks our free media here in Britain?

‘That is what Jeremy Corbyn has done to the Labour Party. It is our duty, in this Conservative Party, to make sure he can never do it to our country.’

Mrs May said last week’s Labour conference showed the party was offering ‘false hope’ and ‘bogus solutions’. She said: ‘Even some in the Labour Party admit their programme of nationalisation, and their endless expensive promises, would cost £1trillion.

‘That is not government money but your money. Because Labour would have to pay for it by raising taxes higher and higher.’

Last night allies of Mr Corbyn hit back. Unite boss Len McCluskey said: ‘With so much of her speech devoted to attacks on and lies about Jeremy Corbyn and Labour policies Theresa showed she’s run out of road.’