Labour unveils ‘radical’ poll manifesto

BIRMINGHAM: British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday set out his party’s manifesto for next month’s election, promising the most radical plan for change for decades.

The party’s programme of pledges includes nationalisations, a huge investment in public services and corporate reform, which Corbyn insists are “fully costed” and deliverable.

On Brexit, the key issue of the Dec 12 election, he has promised to strike a new exit deal with the European Union and hold a second referendum on Britain’s membership.

Opinion polls show Labour trailing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives but the opposition is still hoping to galvanise voters like it did in the last vote in 2017.

Ahead of the manifesto launch in Birmingham, central England, Mr Corbyn claimed the programme was “full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation”.

He repeated the attacks on the rich and powerful that have been a feature of Labour’s campaign so far, arguing that after nine years of Tory austerity measures, it was “time for real change”. “This is a manifesto of hope,” he said. Mr Corbyn said hostility from business groups, political rivals and the right-wing media was inevitable, as “the system is working just fine for them — it’s rigged in their favour”.

Conservatives have accused Labour of reckless spending and outmoded socialist ideas, but Mr Corbyn compares himself to President Franklin D Roosevelt, whose “New Deal’’ helped tackle the Great Depression.