UK: Corbyn calls for 'a kinder politics' in first party conference speech as Labour leader

  • 8 years ago
He promised to shake up the UK’s political system.

And on Tuesday, in his first party conference speech as new Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn delivered.

There was no apology for the Iraq war just yet, as some had predicted, but the veteran left-winger was scathing about it and Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons – arguments that helped him come from nowhere to secure a landslide leadership win earlier this month.

“What happened this summer in the Labour leadership election was nothing short of a political earthquake,” he told delegates to the annual conference in the southern English city of Brighton

“According to the script, Socialists and Social Democratic parties were in decline. Social Democracy itself was dead on its feet. Yet something new, invigorating, popular and authentic has exploded.”

Corbyn, 66, pledged to listen to the thousands of new members who have joined Labour since he ran for leader, many of them younger voters disillusioned with establishment politics

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