Labour leader seeks to deflect Tory attacks on his style of leadership ahead of election

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Jeremy Corbyn will promise to be a prime minister who will “hold open the door for others to walk through” on Wednesday, as he seeks to pre-empt Tory attacks on his style of leadership.

Addressing a rally in Telford on Wednesday, Corbyn will claim he is only seeking power in order to share it as he launches his own attack on Boris Johnson’s leadership.

“Think of it like this: a good leader doesn’t just barge through a door and let it swing back in the faces of those following behind. A good leader holds open the door for others to walk through because everyone has a contribution to make,” he will say.

The Conservatives have repeatedly singled out Corbyn’s leadership style for ridicule. Michael Gove mocked him last week as being “terminally weak”, and when Labour was resisting the idea of a general election, Johnson repeatedly referred to him as a “chlorinated chicken”.

The Labour leader will seek to confront such attacks directly. “I will be a very different kind of prime minister. Not the kind of prime minister who believes he was born to rule. Not the kind who thinks politics is a game,” he will say.

Corbyn will be giving his third major speech of Labour’s general election campaign, which he launched in London last Thursday.

He will promise to bring about “real change” – the slogan of Labour’s campaign – and call on voters to judge his party by its record on tackling an extensive of social issues, from class sizes to pensioner poverty.

The speech comes as Labour seeks to draw a line under the divisive issue of Brexit – which Corbyn addressed in a speech on Tuesday – and move on to other policies.

At Tuesday’s event in leave-supporting Harlow, Essex, the Labour leader defended his claim that a trade deal with the US could cost the NHS £500m a week in increased drugs prices as “accurate and credible”.

Labour has repeatedly sought to highlight the risk of health service privatisation in a post-Brexit trade deal with Donald Trump.

Corbyn repeated the argument that it could add £500m a week to the NHS drugs bill – which Gove had earlier dismissed as “ridiculous nonsense”.

Challenged about the analysis, Corbyn described it as “an accurate and a credible figure”.

The party is so keen to highlight the figure that it mocked up a picture of a bright blue Conservative battlebus, with “we’ll send Trump £500m a week,” emblazoned on the side – and called it a “donation” to Johnson’s campaign.

Corbyn’s audience of Labour activists took up a chant of “not for sale, not for sale,” when he mentioned the risk of NHS privatisation. Corbyn replied “I hear you!” and urged them to ensure voters hear that message too.

The US government would seek to secure “non-discriminatory treatment” for American companies within Britain’s public sector, according to the official document setting out US negotiating aims for a free-trade deal.

The £500m-a-week figure comes from health academic Andrew Hill, from Liverpool University, and represents an estimate of the increased cost, if all NHS drugs were charged at US prices.

In a recent Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, Hill said “our annual drugs bill for the NHS is £18bn, if we had to have American drug prices we are talking about £18bn a year going up to £45bn, so that’s an extra £27bn a year, or £500m a week extra for the NHS to pay.”

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The Conservatives have repeatedly ruled out making the NHS part of any trade deal, with Boris Johnson telling the House of Commons earlier this year, “under no circumstances will we agree to any free trade deal that puts the NHS on the table. It is not for sale.”

However, the Dispatches team found evidence that drugs pricing had been raised in several meetings between UK and US officials.

Labour has alighted on the issue because it helps to underpin Corbyn’s argument that Johnson would like to “hijack” Brexit, to impose rightwing policies on Britain.

In his speech on Tuesday, Corbyn repeated his insistence that Labour will not take sides between leave and remain ahead of the election.

He said working-class voters in Harlow and York – leave- and remain-voting constituencies respectively – are “up against it” but “not against each other”.

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Speaking before Corbyn, the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, insisted Labour’s position was “simple”. And Starmer warned that if Johnson won a majority Britain would take “a decisive lurch to the right”.

As well as Starmer, who has been a keen advocate of a remain position, the carefully choreographed event at a hotel also featured the shadow employment rights minister, Laura Pidcock, who in the past has been more sceptical about a second referendum.

“We refuse to be driven down the road of leave and remain: we respect those on both sides of the argument. This election is about saving the planet, for goodness sake. It’s about ending homelessness with a massive housebuilding programme. It’s about saving the NHS, taking the profits out of ill health.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Corbyn with Labour’s candidate for Harlow, Laura McAlpine, and the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Harlow, where Corbyn was speaking, is a seat held by the Conservative Robert Halfon with a majority of just over 7,000.

Labour is targeting seats like these, but Halfon, who was out campaigning locally himself, said Corbyn’s promise of a second referendum with remain on the ballot paper would “go down like a cup of cold sick here”.

“He’s come to a 70% leave area, with Emily Thornberry saying we’re a remain country: it’s like Dracula walking into a garlic factory,” he said.