UK Labour 'ready for govt': Corbyn

Britain's main opposition Labour party is "now the political mainstream" and "ready for government", leader Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday following unexpected advances in a June general election.

Labour was "on the threshold of power," Corbyn told the party's annual conference in Brighton, the first since the election in which Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority.

"We've become a government in waiting," he said, adding that Labour were "ready to build a new and progressive relationship with Europe".

Corbyn has met with significant resistence from Labour MPs over his attempts to move the party to the left since being elected leader in September 2015.

But he defied expectations by winning 30 more seats in June on a manifesto promising nationalisations and a huge increase in public spending.

"A new consensus is emerging from the great economic crash and the years of austerity, when people started to find a political voice for their hopes, for something different and better," Corbyn told delegates.

"This is the real centre of gravity of British politics. We are now the political mainstream."

Corbyn offered no details on Labour's position on Brexit in the speech and instead attacked Conservatives for "bungling" Brexit negotiations.