Haven’t we heard that speech before? World,
‘Heller was consulted and gave permission for his material to be sourced, as Jeremy Corbyn felt it captured perfectly what he wanted to say to the British people.’ Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman
JEREMY CORBYN’S first major speech as Labour leader was written in the 1980s and rejected by every Labour leader since Neil Kinnock, undermining his claim to have ushered in a ‘‘new politics’’.
At the party’s annual conference in Brighton, Corbyn repeated almost word-for-word significant parts of a speech written by Richard Heller, a freelance writer who said he sent the text to the Labour leader’s office a fortnight ago.
Heller said he wrote much of the speech in the 1980s and had offered it to every Labour leader since. Heller posted the speech on his website four years ago.
Corbyn’s spokesman initially described the similarities between the two speeches as ‘‘pure coincidence’’ before admitting his team had spoken to Heller.
‘‘Heller was consulted and gave permission for his material to be sourced, as Jeremy Corbyn felt it captured perfectly what he wanted to say to the British people.’’
Heller said he had ‘‘offered’’ the speech to ‘‘each and every Labour leader’’ before Corbyn and that he had ‘‘no idea’’ the new leader was going to use it as part of his conference address until yesterday.
It is the latest setback for Corbyn’s beleaguered leadership.
In the 17 days since he became leader he has found himself embroiled in controversies over his refusal to sing the national anthem, his endorsement of the IRA, the lack of women in his cabinet and his failure to confirm whether he will kneel before the Queen to join the Privy Council.
He is also the first Labour leader to score negative approval ratings in his debut poll.
After delivering the speech, Corbyn immediately faced criticism for failing to mention the deficit, immigration, terrorism or the EU referendum. He instead used his address to talk about reform of the Labour Party, his opposition to the Trident nuclear deterrent, and called for British people to reject globalisation.
Asked why Corbyn did not mention the deficit or immigration, his spokesman said: ‘‘He’s not going to cover every subject in his first speech. We don’t have policies on every position.’’
The final section of Corbyn’s 59-minute address featured a series of long passages on economic theory that are published on Heller’s website. The most emotive sections, in which Corbyn railed against globalisation, were all Heller’s.
In the passages, Corbyn said: ‘‘The many with little or nothing are told they live in a global economy whose terms cannot be changed. They must accept the place assigned to them by competitive markets.
‘‘Our Labour Party came into being to fight that attitude. That is still what our Labour Party is all about. Labour is the voice that says to the many, at home and abroad, ‘you don’t have to take what you’re given’.’’
In another section he stated: ‘‘Since the dawn of history in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing.’’
Heller said he was ‘‘delighted the passage has been used’’ and he was ‘‘sorry’’ if the disclosure ‘‘might detract from its message’’.