MP, Leader of the , will accuse the Prime
Minister, , of being “too weak” to stand
up to US President Donald Trump in a speech to the GMB trade
union conference in Brighton today (Tuesday 5 May).
The Labour Leader will criticise the UK Government’s “timid
response” to Trump’s unilateral increase in US steel tariffs and
call it the latest in a long line of Tory failures to stand up to
Trump. He will declare that “the Tories are simply too weak to
stand up to the powerful.”
will accuse of trying to “appease Donald
Trump in the hope of getting a race-to-the-bottom trade deal with
the US” after Brexit, and say that “the Trump trade tariffs show
that’s a Tory pipe-dream”.
Corbyn will call the move to impose further steel tariffs
“wrong”, risking “hurting workers” in the US and around the
world. Suggesting he understands why some US workers welcome the
tariff intervention, he will say that “trying to hold back the
tide is no substitute” for a “proactive” government role in
“modernising and upgrading industry so that it’s cleaner, more
efficient and works for the many, not the few.”
The speech will lay out how workers, trade unions, and
communities will play a vital and active role with the next
Labour government to “upgrade our economy by taking on the power
of the tiny elite that’s holding us back with their failed free
market fundamentalism.”
He will announce Labour’s support for the GMB’s six pledges for
the water industry once it has been brought into public
ownership, ending the “failed and unpopular privatisation
experiment”. He will praise the GMB for its campaigning against
the Tories sending a billion pound military ship building
contract for three new Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels overseas.
He will also announce that the , which was already a living
wage employer, will now pay all staff at least £10 per hour and
pay tribute to the GMB and UNITE, who are the staff recognised unions.
MP, Leader of the , is expected to say:
“US President Donald Trump’s latest unilateral steel tariffs are
wrong. The Trump tariffs risk hurting workers in the United
States and around the world by sparking tit-for-tat
retaliation.
“But US workers, whether in steel or any other industry, are not
wrong to want a government that actively supports them and the
real, everyday economy. For forty years, they’ve seen a
completely rigged system shift more and more power and wealth to
a tiny financial and political elite.
“Donald Trump’s government doesn’t support workers. Trying to
hold back the tide with one hand and giving eye-watering handouts
to the super rich with the other is no substitute for a
government taking a proactive role in modernising and upgrading
industry so that it’s cleaner, more efficient and works for the
many not the few.
“The next Labour government will work with the real experts –
workers, technicians, engineers and designers, their unions,
consumers and communities - to upgrade our economy by taking on
the power of the tiny elite that’s holding us back with their
failed free market fundamentalism.
“Empowering people and standing up for the many, not the few is
what the labour movement is all about. But the Tory Government’s
timid response shamefully fails to stand up to Trump. We’ve now
seen it time and time again. and her government were too
weak to stand up to Trump over the Muslim ban, or his promotion
of the disgusting Britain First, or his plunging the future of
the planet into ever greater danger by pulling out of the Paris
Climate Change Accord, or his punitive tariffs on Bombardier, or
his ripping up of the Iran nuclear deal, or his reckless threat
to peace by recognising Jerusalem, including occupied Palestinian
territory, as Israel’s capital.
“The Tories are too weak to stand up to the powerful, and too in
hock to them even if they wanted to. is appeasing Donald Trump in
the hope of getting a race-to-the-bottom trade deal with the US
after we leave the European Union. The Trump trade tariffs show
that’s a Tory pipe-dream.”
On the public ownership of water, is expected to say:
“The privatisation of water has been a failed and unpopular
experiment. It’s been bad for workers in the industry and bad for
bill payers. The only people it hasn’t been bad for is rich
shareholders. Public ownership will deliver a better deal for
workers in the industry, which is why we are fully signed up to
support GMB’s six pledges for water, as well as better value for
individuals and families.”
On £10 per hour, is expected to say:
“We need bold action to quickly get more money in people’s
pockets at the end of the month. That is why in our last
manifesto Labour promised to ban zero hours contracts and
introduce a real living wage of at least £10 an hour by 2020.
“And that is why today I am announcing today that the under our new General
Secretary Jennie Formby is committing to pay all of our staff, at
any level of our organisation, no less than £10 an hour.”
