Corbyn to launch Labour’s Build it in Britain campaign

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, will today launch Labour’s campaign to boost British manufacturing after Brexit in a speech to the EEF, the manufacturers organisation, in Birmingham. Corbyn will tell manufacturers that Labour’s policies will drive an industrial renaissance.

Corbyn will hit out at the Conservative Government for “overseeing the decline” of our industries and “farming out” major contracts overseas. Instead, he will say, public contracts should be used to provide public benefit, expand our industrial base and drive up tax revenues.

Jeremy Corbyn will lay out how Labour’s “joined up” industrial strategy will help upgrade our economy to secure good jobs, compete on the international stage and promote green industries.

Jeremy Corbyn will slam the Tories’ handling of Brexit, saying their “customs chaos” has “real and damaging effects”.

He will also say that the fall in the value of the pound after Brexit should have helped British exporters, but the Tory Government’s lack of an industrial plan means our manufacturers have been “sold out”, with our economy left over reliant on imports and the financial sector.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, is expected to say:

“Labour is launching this campaign today because we want to see well-paid jobs in the industries of the future, fuel the tax revenues that fund our public services and the NHS and increase living standards for all.

“For the last 40 years, a magical kind of thinking has dominated the way Britain is run. We’ve been told that it’s good - advanced even - for our country to manufacture less and less and instead rely on cheap labour from abroad to produce imports, while we focus on the City of London and the finance sector.

“A lack of support for manufacturing is sucking the dynamism out of our economy, pay from the pockets of our workers and any hope of secure well-paid jobs from a generation of our young people. It must be our job in government to reprogramme our economy so that it stops working for the few and begins working for the many. That is why we will build things here again that for too long have been built abroad because we have failed to invest.”

On keeping public contracts in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is expected to say:

“We have plenty of capacity to build train carriages in the UK and yet repeatedly over recent years these contracts have been farmed out abroad, costing our economy crucial investment, jobs for workers and tax revenues. If we want to reprogramme our economy so that it works for everybody, we must use powers we have to back good jobs and industry here.

“Between 2014 and 2017, Network Rail awarded contracts worth tens of millions of pounds to companies outside of the UK, while the NHS awarded contracts worth over a billion. In the same period, the Ministry of Defence awarded contracts elsewhere worth over £1.5 billion pounds, even though we are under no obligation, under either European or international law, to open up defence contracts to overseas bidders.

“Labour is determined to see public contracts provide public benefit, using our money to nurture and grow our industries, our people and to expand our tax base. The next Labour government will bring contracts back in-house, ending the racket of outsourcing that has turned our public services into a cash cow for the few. And we will use the huge weight of the Government’s purchasing power to support our workers and industries.”

On Brexit and supporting our British exporters, Jeremy Corbyn is expected to say:

“We know that the single biggest way that we can help our exporters is securing full, tariff free access to our biggest export market, the European Union. By now, the message should be clear - but the Conservative Government refuses to listen. BMW, Airbus, and company after company has warned of the real and damaging effects of Conservative customs chaos.

“Theresa May and her warring cabinet should think again, even at this late stage, and reconsider the option of negotiating a brand new customs union. This decision doesn’t need to be a matter of ideology, or a result of divisions in the Tory Party. It’s a matter of practical common sense.

“A botched Tory Brexit will sell our manufacturers short with the fantasy of a free trading buccaneering future, which in reality would be a nightmare of chlorinated chicken, public services sold to multinational companies and our country in hock to Donald Trump.

“Our exporters should be able to take proper advantage of the one benefit to them that Brexit has already brought - a more competitive pound. After the EU referendum result, the pound became more competitive and that should have helped our exporters. But they are being sold out by a lack of a Conservative Government industrial plan, which has left our economy far too reliant on imports.”

On a green industrial strategy, Jeremy Corbyn is expected to say:

“British solar firms were hit by cuts to subsidies in 2015 and 2016 and changes to business rates for buildings with rooftop panels. As a result, between now and 2022, France is forecast to add five times as much solar capacity as the UK; Germany ten times.

“Labour will have a joined up plan to keep our industries, old and new, humming with activity. It will help us build a clean, green 21st century economy, right here in the UK: building solar, wind farms and tidal lagoons to help us tackle climate change.”