Labour leader tells TUC conference his party will oppose cuts to tax credits, and brushes aside criticism over lack of women in top posts

Jeremy Corbyn has accused Conservative ministers of being “poverty deniers” and said Labour can win the 2020 general election by creating a radical grassroots movement.

In a speech short on soundbites but welcomed by union leaders as a breath of fresh air, the new Labour leader told delegates at the TUC conference that austerity was a political choice and a more equal Britain was “not a dream”.

He pledged that Labour under his leadership would oppose cuts to tax credits, and he outlined plans to place unions at the heart of the party’s policies.

In further developments on Tuesday, tensions within the shadow cabinet over Europe emerged as Lord Falconer threatened to quit if Corbyn campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union.



Len McCluskey, leader of the Unite union, expressed concerns to the Guardian over the lack of women in top jobs in the shadow cabinet, which was hurriedly put together on Sunday.



In Brighton, Corbyn was welcomed to the conference hall by a crowd of more than 100 supporters shouting “2020, Jez we can”. In his speech he sought to draw new distinctions between Labour and the Conservatives.

“They call us deficit deniers; they spend billions cutting taxes for the richest families and for the most profitable businesses. What they are is poverty deniers,” he said.



“They are ignoring the growing queues at food banks, they are ignoring the housing crisis, they are cutting tax credits … Let’s be clear: austerity is actually a political choice that this government is taking and they are imposing it on the most vulnerable and poorest in society.”

He said Labour would vote against cuts to tax credits. “We oppose the benefit cap. We oppose social cleansing. We will bring the welfare bill down by controlling rents and boosting wages, not by impoverishing families and socially cleansing our communities,” he said.

Extracts from the speech circulated by Labour beforehand showed Corbyn had intended to deploy a phrase used by Margaret Thatcher during her showdown with miners in 1984. “For the Tories, you are still the enemy within. They think they will put me and Labour on the back foot by highlighting our support for trade unionism,” he had been expected to tell delegates.

The omission risked comparisons with Ed Miliband’s failure to deliver a passage about tackling the deficit that had been briefed in advance of his 2014 party conference speech.

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Referring to figures released last month showing that nearly 90 people a month were dying after being declared fit for work, Corbyn said: “I simply ask the question: what kind of society are we living in where we deliberately put regulations through, knowing what the effects are going to be on very poor and very vulnerable people who end up committing suicide?”

Corbyn brushed aside criticism that he had failed to recruit women to top jobs in the party. “After consideration and thought we have appointed a shadow cabinet with a majority of women members for the first time ever,” he said. Sixteen of the 31 shadow cabinet positions have gone to women.

Corbyn disclosed that Labour had gained 30,000 new members since he was elected on Saturday, and party membership stood at about a third of a million. “It is a very fast journey at the present time,” he said.

He pledged to oppose the trade union reform bill and compared the Conservatives’ plans to those used by General Franco to quash dissent during his Spanish dictatorship.

“I am a proud trade unionist. That is why we will fight this bill all the way, and if we win a majority in 2020 we are going to repeal this bill.” he said.

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Corbyn outlined plans to democratise the party using social media and said every union branch and Labour party member should submit ideas for new policies.

He said he would end top-down policymaking. “I want everyone to put their views forward, every union branch, every party branch, so we develop organically the strengths we all have, the imagination we all have.”

Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, said Corbyn had taken a “staggeringly different approach to previous Labour party leaders that have addressed the TUC. There were no walkouts this time, it was standing room only. There is very much in Jeremy’s leadership for the working people of this country.”

Dave Prentis, the Unison general secretary, said Corbyn had “rekindled the spark of hope that has been dampened for so long, and given people a vision of what a fairer, more equal country could look like”.



While the speech in Brighton was greeted with enthusiasm by delegates, it was described as rambling and unrealistic by some Labour MPs. One told the Guardian: “It offered nothing to the vast majority who did not vote Labour in the last election.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Falconer said he believed the UK should remain a member of the EU “come what may” and his position in the shadow cabinet would be impossible if Labour’s leadership said otherwise.

“If the Labour party adopts a position which says we might leave the EU and might argue against it then of course my position would become impossible at that point,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One. “But that’s not the current position.”

Hilary Benn, the new shadow foreign secretary, issued a statement seemingly at odds with Corbyn’s stance, saying the party “has always been committed to not walking away” from Europe.

Corbyn and his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said this week that Cameron should not have a “blank cheque” in his negotiations on the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU.

In a first policy announcement since his appointment on Sunday night, on Tuesday McDonnell pledged to introduce a £10-an-hour living wage. In the last budget the chancellor, George Osborne announced a new national living wage of £9 an hour by 2020.