EDINBURGH: The man expected to win control of Britain’s opposition Labour Party has charted a potential collision course with Prime Minister David Cameron over Europe, demanding socialist reforms before pledging the party’s support at an in/out referendum.
Labour supporters are voting in a month-long contest to select a leader whose first major test will be to steer the 115-year-old party through a referendum on Britain’s EU membership by the end of 2017 ahead of a national election in 2020.
Jeremy Corbyn, a 66-year-old admirer of Karl Marx who opinion polls show is most likely to win the Labour leadership, has said he is not content with the current state of the EU but that he does not want to walk away from the 28-member union.
“What I want to see is greater social solidarity across Europe,” Corbyn said on the sidelines of a campaign event in Edinburgh. “I’m for a sort of social, environmental, solidarity agenda rather than a market agenda.”
When asked if Labour would campaign to leave the EU if Cameron — who has never specified “social solidarity” as a priority — failed to deliver those reforms, he said: “We would have to have a discussion in the Labour party on this, maybe a special conference.”
“There are many views on Europe in the Labour Party and I wouldn’t want to suppress any of those views.”
Among Cameron’s key aims are limiting in-work benefits for EU migrants, cutting back regulation, increasing free trade and ensuring British interests are not damaged if the eurozone integrates more deeply.
Corbyn’s EU reform ideas open up the possibility that, if he becomes leader, Britain’s second most influential political party could oppose Cameron’s renegotiated settlement with the EU and campaign to leave the world’s largest economic bloc.
Reuters
