Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn blasts “racist” migrant limits and claims immigration is not to blame for overcrowding in Britain
Mr Corbyn refuses to back down over row with his MPs
IMMIGRATION isn’t to blame for Britain’s chronic overcrowding and it’s “racism” to erect barriers, Jeremy Corbyn has lectured the Labour faithful.
Instead, he deepened the split party’s troubles while using his annual conference speech to preach a message of “socialism for the 21st century”.
Mr Corbyn insisted the massive pressure on the NHS, housing and wages are all the fault of politicians for under spending.
He raged: “It isn’t migrants who put a strain on our NHS, it only keeps going because of the migrant nurses and doctors who come here filling the gaps left by politicians.
“It isn’t migrants that have caused a housing crisis; it’s a Tory government that has failed to build homes”.
Pouring more money into the most swamped areas with impact funds is the solution, the veteran 67-year-old socialist argued.
Making the explosive link between a block on new arrivals and race hate, Mr Corbyn insisted: “That is the Labour way to tackle social tension - investment and assistance, not racism and division”.
The Opposition Leader’s hour-long and at times stuttering address to the party faithful in Liverpool was a full-blooded celebration of Socialism.
Mr Corbyn even insisted on rewriting years of Labour Party tradition to end his speech by singing the left’s song, The Red Flag, next to a woman on stage beside him wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that read 'proud to be Socialist'.
For decades previously, the leader’s speech and the song were done two days apart.
One of his very few policy announcements was a pledge to allow councils to borrow billions against their current housing stock to build more homes – which critics argued would leave them in perilous debt.
He championed a shadow minister’s plan to scrap tests for sick benefit and tough sanctions for failing to look for work.
And he issued a warning to scared businesses that he will be asking them to “pay a little more in tax”.
But Mr Corbyn did admit Labour has “a mountain to climb” to win back power.
And in a concession to warring moderates, he offered a compromise of purpose by saying: “Our party is about campaigning and protest too, but most of all it's about winning power”.
But Labour’s ocean-deep divisions were swiftly made clear when delegates argued openly with each as they filed out of the Liverpool docks auditorium.
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Earlier, Mr Corbyn faced a mass revolt as members of his top team spoke out against his continuing anti-barriers rhetoric despite the EU referendum verdict.
Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham - who also announced his shadow cabinet resignation yesterday as he prepares to run for Manchester mayor – bluntly told the conference hall: “This Party must fully face up to this fact: millions of lifelong Labour supporters voted to leave the EU and - let's be honest - voted for change on immigration.
“We haven't yet even begun to show to them that we understand why”.
Former Corbyn loyalist and shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, added: “We have to have controls on immigration, that’s quite clear.
“You have to know who is coming in to your country and who is leaving your country.
Former leadership rival Yvette Cooper warned Mr Corbyn he was making Labour look like it has a “tin ear to the concerns of the country”, and hit back to insist: “It isn’t racist to talk about how best every country manages migration or to say that whilst immigration is important, low skilled migration should come down”.
Tory chairman Patrick McLoughlin said the party’s spit-ridden conference revealed it is “too divided, distracted and incompetent” to be allowed into power.
Business groups recoiled at the fear of more regulation and extra taxes.
And John O'Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, branded the speech “a prospectus for poverty, unemployment, debt and recession”.