Dover.uk.com
If this post contains material that is offensive, inappropriate, illegal, or is a personal attack towards yourself, please report it using the form at the end of this page.

All reported posts will be reviewed by a moderator.
  • The post you are reporting:
     
    Courtesy of the Times.


    Jeremy Corbyn has sought to distance himself from Donald Trump after suggestions that his new “Build it in Britain” campaign echoes the protectionist policies of the US president. The Labour leader declared yesterday that Britain had too heavily relied on “cheap labour from abroad”, as he set out his party’s plans to channel more investment into domestic manufacturing and to use state aid powers “to the full”. The speech brought comparisons with Mr Trump’s “America First” approach and Mr Corbyn was branded a “Trump acolyte” and “economic nationalist”. He insisted that his policy echoed the US president “not at all. Absolutely not at all.”

    Speaking today as he visited Bombardier, which is bidding for HS2, Mr Corbyn was asked about potential similiarities and said: “What we are saying is invest in our manufacturing base so that we can trade with other people. Germany does that, France does that, Italy does that, Spain does that, we don’t. It’s not protectionism, it’s the opposite because that gives us a chance to trade in the future.” Highlighting how Labour’s interventionist approach to the economy would help ailing industries, he added: “We allowed Redcar to close down when it could have been saved, eventually Port Talbot was saved in the steel industry. Too often, really good ideas that are developed here don’t get brought through to production because nobody is prepared to invest in them.”

    Mr Corbyn revealed his UK-centric policy in Birmingham yesterday. It was seen in Labour circles as a pitch to blue-collar Leave voters in the Midlands and North. Party insiders have worried that Mr Corbyn’s appeal is limited beyond metropolitan, liberal, middle-class Remainers. To try to promote a positive view of Brexit, he said the falling pound would benefit British manufacturing and bolster domestic industries. Heaping criticism on Theresa May for allowing billions of pounds’ worth of work on passports, military ships and health supplies to go overseas, he signalled that a Labour government would avoid “offshoring” jobs.

    He also vowed to end the “racket” of public sector outsourcing and to “reprogramme the economy” to shift focus away from the City and the financial sector back towards manufacturing. Paul Mason, the left-wing commentator, backed the Labour leader and denied that his plan promoted economic nationalism. He argued that a “deglobalising” process was under way and said every country must devise industrial strategies to contend with the “fragmentation” of the world economy. “Corbyn’s strategy, of using state purchasing preference and industrial policy to try and revive a national manufacturing sector and bring jobs onshore, is sensible,” he wrote in the New Statesman.

Report Post

 
end link