‘Thatcherism on steroids’
British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of seeking to hijack Brexit to unleash a Thatcherite bonfire of regulation that would usher in what he cast as a much harsher brand of American-style capitalism.
Britain is heading towards a deeply unpredictable Christmas election on Dec. 12 that could decide the fate of both its planned departure from the European Union and the future of the world’s fifth-largest economy.
Corbyn, a 70-year old socialist campaigner, is proposing an overthrow of what he casts as a venal elite led by Johnson which he says wants to use Brexit as a Trojan horse to turn the United Kingdom into a deregulated paradise for global capital.
He invoked the memory of late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and said Johnson wanted to strike a trade deal with US President Donald Trump that would sell off parts of the National Health Service (NHS).
“What Boris Johnson’s Conservatives want is to hijack Brexit to unleash Thatcherism on steroids,” Corbyn told supporters in Harlow, a suburb northeast of London which voted strongly in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum. The nationwide margin was 52%-48% in favour of Leave.
“A vote for Johnson’s Conservatives is a vote to betray our NHS in a sell-out to Trump,” he said, to chants of “not for sale, not for sale” from the audience.
“Iron Lady” Thatcher radically transformed the British economy along free-market lines but was hated by some voters for crushing the trade unions and privatising swathes of industry.
Johnson has repeatedly said the NHS would not be on the table in trade talks with US.
After rejecting calls from many senior Labour figures to take a definitive position against leaving the EU, Corbyn is focused on underscoring Johnson’s failure to deliver on his promise of Brexit on Oct. 31 and the need to get on and tackle domestic issues such as a shortage of affordable housing.
Corbyn, whose party is trailing the Conservatives in opinion polls, hopes to turn the debate from whether Brexit should happen to what kind of country Britain will be, regardless of how it resolves its relationship with the EU.
Corbyn says if elected he would negotiate a new deal with the EU that would keep Britain more closely aligned economically with the bloc and do more to protect workers. He would then put it to the people in another referendum.
A YouGov poll published on Tuesday found 65% of voters were unclear about Labour’s Brexit position.
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