Jeremy Corbyn is the ‘very dangerous’ leader of a Labour Party that has gone ‘completely mad’ warns Liam Fox
International Trade Secretary said the hard-left group Corbyn-backing Momentum movement were 'extremists'
JEREMY Corbyn is the "very dangerous" leader of a Labour Party that has gone "completely mad", Liam Fox has warned.
The International Trade Secretary said the hard-left group Momentum movement were "extremists" and warned of the "damage" it could do to the country.
In one of the strongest attacks yet by a Tory minister on the Labour leader, Dr Fox warned it would be a mistake to dismiss Labour as a joke that could not win power.
"I do not find Jeremy Corbyn funny. I think it's extremely dangerous for the Conservative Party or any other political grouping to say that this party has now taken such leave of its senses that it couldn't possibly be elected," he said.
The Cabinet Minister told a fringe event at the Tory party conference this afternoon: “This is a very dangerous leader of a very dangerous party at the present time, a party that doesn't believe in Nato, that would abandon our nuclear weaponry, that doesn't believe in most of the accepted rules of our economics.
"This is a very dangerous party indeed and we should not at any point stand back from pointing out how dangerous they actually are."
Labour's official policy is to support the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system and its commitment to Nato, but Mr Corbyn has a long-held belief in unilateral disarmament and has questioned the value of maintaining "huge land-based forces".
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Former defence secretary Dr Fox said Momentum's position meant "this time the extremists have the support of the leadership of the party", unlike in the 1980s.
"This is a very dangerous movement," he added.
"We have got to not hesitate at any opportunity to point out to the country what damage they could do to us."
Elsewhere in his speech Mr Fox admitted crying with pride as the UK voted to leave the European Union
He also said the Government had a "duty" to implement the will of voters but refused to guarantee the Brexit process would be completed by the 2020 general election.
Dr Fox insisted the UK would automatically be a member of the World Trade Organisation after leaving the EU and pointed to the US as a country which was able to do business with the European bloc without benefiting from the customs union.
But despite hinting he would not put retaining being part of the customs union at the heart of his plans, he dismissed the suggestion he was advocating a "hard Brexit" with minimal links to the EU.
The prominent Leave campaigner did admit to his pride at voters rejecting the Remain camp's tactics, which were dubbed Project Fear by critics.
He said: "I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was really quite tearful when David Dimbleby said 'that's it, the British public have voted to leave the European Union'.
"I just felt that given all those big international organisations who had been telling us how bad it would be if we left, I have never actually felt so proud of my fellow countrymen and women as I did at that moment."