JEREMY CORBYN will warn against Labour’s plans to “hollow out our NHS by continuing Tory underfunding and privatisation” at an emergency rally today.
The former Labour leader will join healthcare workers and campaigners outside Archway Tube station in his Islington North constituency, warning that “more austerity and privatisation is not the answer” to the NHS crisis.
His intervention comes two days after the launch of the Labour manifesto, which failed to rule out cuts to the health service and dropped the party’s previous promise that the “NHS is not for sale.”
Mr Corbyn is standing as an independent against Labour candidate Praful Nargund after being blocked from representing the party, which has now expelled him.
At the rally, the lifelong socialist is expected to say: “Unlike Labour and the Tories, I do not believe the expansion of the private sector is the answer to the NHS crisis.
“I’m proud to have spent my life campaigning with my community for universal public healthcare. With your support, that is what I’ll continue to do.
“In Islington North, we have a message to anybody looking to promote private healthcare: keep your hands off our NHS.”
'Privatisation of healthcare is very, very important and it’s about what the private sector can do to prove its worth to the public sector' pic.twitter.com/hHtSPxBH7I
This manifesto is our manifesto – it belongs to every single person who has written to me over the last 41 years, met me at a community event or simply stopped me in the street. Meeting people, talking to people and working together to bring about a fairer society – that is what being an MP is all about.
The issues facing people in Islington are part of a much wider set of crises. There are more people living in desperate poverty than I have ever known. More rough sleepers struggling to survive. More refugees fleeing the horrors of war and climate catastrophe. We will not solve these crises unless we build a new kind of politics. Our people-powered campaign will demand a redistribution of wealth, ownership and power. For rent controls. For an end to the two-child benefits cap. For a Green New Deal. For safe routes for asylum seekers. For a fully funded, fully public NHS.
This future is no pipedream – our community is proof that a kinder world is possible. I visit community centres which are welcoming, creative places, where people can meet each other, learn, eat together, receive support when they need it, and give it when they are able to. I meet carers doing all they can to support relatives or friends, often in the most difficult circumstances. I meet members of mutual aid groups who are building a new economy, one act of solidarity at a time. If we applied these basic principles across the board, we would create a society that cares for each other and cares for all.
When I vote in Parliament, I do not vote alone. I vote with my community – and this campaign is bringing together people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds in pursuit of a better world. We are offering people something very precious: hope.
Join us at www.votecorbyn.com to prove that when we come together to fight for a better society for everyone, we can win.
CONTENTS
ACTION ON THE COST OF LIVING End the energy and water rip-off Fair pay for Islington workers Abolish the two-child benefit cap Universal basic income Wealth tax
HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT Security for renters Build social housing Housing insulation Leasehold reform Cladding justice
DEFEND OUR NHS End privatisation Support our doctors and nurses Mental health A National Care Service Reproductive health
A GREENER ISLINGTON A Green New Deal Protect our parks Save our buses Walking and cycling Animal welfare
EDUCATION FOR ALL Save our schools Education is not a commodity Lifelong learning Update our curriculum
A SAFER ISLINGTON A public health approach Tackling hate crime and extremism A fairer criminal justice system
HUMAN RIGHTS ARE UNIVERSAL Peace Reparations Refugees are welcome here Migrant justice
OUR DEMOCRACY The right to protest The right to strike Decentralisation Local public ownership Media and sport
Corbyn said he wanted to be an “independent voice for equality, for democracy and for peace”
The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn formally launched his campaign to be elected as an independent MP for Islington North last night (29 May). Corbyn is standing as an independent after being blocked from being a Labour candidate in the general election.
At a packed meeting, Corbyn started the launch by saying that he wanted to be an “independent voice for equality, for democracy and for peace” and slammed what he described as a “political system that is no longer, sadly, offering the hope to so many people that it should.”
Corbyn continued by saying: “Politics should be about hope. Politics should be about making sure that those that are silenced are heard, those that are pushed aside are brought back in, those whose needs are so often unmet. It short, it is about the hope that we can bring to people. That’s what politics ought to do.”
Among the specific policy areas Corbyn pledged to campaign on were scrapping the two child benefit cap, ending sanctions for benefits claimants, taking public services such as water and Royal Mail into public ownership and introducing rent controls in the private sector.
SIR KEIR STARMER has been concealing the truth over Diane Abbott’s exclusion from Labour in Parliament, it was revealed today.
BBC Newsnight reported that the party probe into Ms Abbott’s offence — a brief newspaper letter for which she immediately apologised — finished last December.
She has since remained without the Labour whip entirely at the discretion of chief whip Alan Campbell, who is appointed by and answers to the Labour leader.
Yet Sir Keir has repeatedly claimed that the decision on Ms Abbott’s future — she cannot stand in the general election for Labour without the matter being resolved — was nothing to do with him.
This has now been exposed as a falsehood. The fact that Britain’s first black woman MP has remained suspended to the point where her career may be terminated has been a decision of the Labour leadership.
Ms Abbott has long ridiculed Sir Keir’s hands-off pretence, tweeting last week that the situation was “everything to do with him.”
