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TODAY the Daily Record backs Jeremy Corbyn to be the next Labour leader – for the sake of our nation.

We believe he best represents the core Labour values needed to build a fairer country and improve the lives of ordinary Scots.

Corbyn’s anti-austerity message inspires people and restores their faith that a better way is possible.

And with the first unadulterated true-blue Tory Government in power for almost 20 years, we desperately need Labour to reconnect with its roots.

Across the UK, the injustices are plain to see. The City goes back to making money as if nothing had happened, the use of food banks is soaring, child poverty is on the rise and the gap between rich and poor has widened enormously.

Despite all this, Labour has failed to construct a message that resonates with voters ... until Corbyn emerged as a potential leader.

He is the Labour leader Scotland now needs after politics in this country changed forever last year.

Town halls up and down the land were packed with people passionately discussing politics for the first time in decades.

Young people had their imagination fired again. A sense of hope filled the air. Whether you were a Yes or a No voter, you wanted a better future.

Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to be Labour leader has spread that feeling across all of the UK.

His rallies in Scotland last week were breathtaking.

In Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, there was a sense of optimism that would have been

unimaginable when Labour suffered its general election disaster in May.

(Image: SWNS Group)

In England, Labour have fallen into the trap of believing the best way to replace a despicably right-wing Tory Government is to copy them.

In Scotland, they’ve allowed the SNP to practically exterminate them – despite a record of talking left but failing to deliver left-wing policies.

Since Scotland’s independence referendum almost a year ago, it has become crystal clear that the public are fed-up of politicians who care more about style than substance and who put more stock in opinion polls than they do in principles.

Tony Blair’s Labour government achieved many great things, including for Scotland.

But the constant shapeshifting in response to focus groups eventually eroded the party’s sense of itself.

And if the MPs didn’t know what the Labour Party stood for any more, how on Earth were the public meant to know?

Our rejection of Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham comes after their absurd stance on last month’s vindictive welfare cuts, when all three abstained rather than vote against brutal Tory ideology.

It was a pivotal moment. Failing to see the flaw in abstaining showed flawed judgment and cast doubts on their ability to lead.

More crucially, it was the moment when many would-be Labour voters concluded that the party had truly lost its way.

Corbyn, on the other hand, did the natural and right thing – he voted against the Tories.

(Image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)

And his campaign has breathed new life into the party – for the first time since the heady days of Blair’s 1997 election victory, there is a sense of belief that Labour really can change the face of Scotland and Britain.

The Tories offer only fear. Fear of welfare cuts. Fear of austerity. Fear of endless erosion of public services and our quality of life.

Instead, Corbyn offers a vision of hope.

Hope that we can lift the shroud of poverty that casts a long shadow over our country.

Hope that we can create a more equal society, where binmen and builders are valued as much as bankers.

Too many politicians – even among Labour’s ranks – tell us these are just pipe dreams.

But the truth is, politics in Britain needs to reboot for the 21st century.

If we are all to prosper, we need to drag the centre ground of British politics away from the Tories and reclaim it for real Labour values.

A Labour Party led by Corbyn would never make the mistake of abstaining on the Tories’ despicable welfare measures.

The central political argument of our time is on the economy and austerity. Labour have allowed the Tories to define the terms of the discussion in Britain. No longer.

The policy platform for Scotland set out by Corbyn here will chime with Record readers.

He wants to end austerity, change the welfare state in a way that actually makes it fairer, grow our way out of the deficit and rid the world of the abomination of nuclear weapons.

The biggest question over his potential leadership is the distinction between protesting against poverty, which he is good at, and being able to act to eradicate poverty.

The major criticism thrown at him is that his left-wing platform is unelectable.

Corbyn must learn from the lessons of history. In the 1980s, Labour’s rigid principles opened the door to more than a decade of Thatcherism. Far from protecting the poor, the high principles of the left ensured their sacrifice to a right-wing government.

(Image: Daily Record/Victoria Stewart)

That is why a Corbyn leadership would have to temper these principles with the pragamtic and practical desire to govern.

That means Labour ending the unseemly and divisive arguments of the leadership campaign and uniting with one purpose – to win power.

It is not an abandonment of social justice to seek popular support for your policies. The only way poverty can be eradicated is if there is popular support for Labour policies.

That means speaking not just to the true believers but seeking to convert people too.

That is why the UK Labour leader will have to listen to people like Kezia Dugdale and party rivals – to forge a Labour Party that can win.

There is an appetite out there for an anti-austerity message that wants to reverse welfare cuts, scrap Trident and do away with the House of Lords.

The SNP won the most dramatic landslide in the history of Scotland on that message and the people of England and Wales are not somehow less open to it – they’ve just been lacking a party that was offering it.

There is no short-term solution for Labour.

It will be a difficult, arduous struggle to regain the trust of the people of Scotland and the UK.

The party’s problems are so deep-seated and the causes so long-brewing that it will take years to rebuild – but it is a struggle that must be won.

(Image: REUTERS)

Of course, we do not agree with Corbyn on everything. He has shared platforms and engaged with people whose views many would find abhorrent. As a candidate to be the next Labour Prime Minister, he will have to be more careful about the company he keeps.

The other three candidates have strengths that a Corbyn-led Labour Party must harness. As capable

politicians, Burnham, Kendall and Cooper all have major roles to play.

But after 32 years as an MP, the stars have aligned and Corbyn’s moment has come.

So we ask our readers who have a vote in the contest to think about the long-term health of the party. Can a move to the right really be the answer? Is conceding that the Tories are correct about welfare scroungers really the way forward?

No – and nor is a lurch to the far left that leaves Labour in the ditch.

Somehow, the party must weld the enthusiasm around Corbyn’s principles to the wider popular appeal that wins votes.

That marriage requires incredible political skill and determination – qualities which no candidate has on their own. Together though, united, Labour can win.

The party has done it before. For the sake of the country, it must do so again.