Jeremy Corbyn: Government should have used post-referendum Sterling slump to help firms
2 min read
Ministers failed to capitalise on the fall in the value of the Pound after the EU referendum to help the UK's struggling exporters, Jeremy Corbyn will claim.
The Labour leader will say the slump in Sterling was "the one benefit" that Brexit delivered for manufacturing companies.
Sterling fell by 12% against the Euro and 5% against the US Dollar in the months after the UK voted to quit the EU.
Mr Corbyn will say the "more competitive Pound" should have been exploited by the Government as a way of encouraging British firms to sell more of their products overseas.
He will make his remarks in a major speech in Birmingham launching Labour's 'Build It In Britain' campaign, which is aimed at boosting the manufacturing sector after Brexit.
"Our exporters should be able to take proper advantage of the one benefit to them that Brexit has already brought - a more competitive pound," Mr Corbyn will say.
"After the EU referendum result, the Pound became more competitive and that should have helped our exporters. But they are being sold out by a lack of a Conservative government industrial plan, which has left our economy far too reliant on imports."
The Labour boss will also blast the "magical thinking" which has seen Britain manufacture less and import more as the way to economic success over the last 40 years.
He will say: "A lack of support for manufacturing is sucking the dynamism out of our economy, pay from the pockets of our workers and any hope of secure well-paid jobs from a generation of our young people.
"It must be our job in government to reprogram our economy so that it stops working for the few and begins working for the many. That is why we will build things here again that for too long have been built abroad because we have failed to invest."
Mr Corbyn will also hit out at the Cabinet's failure to agree on a coherent policy for Britain's future customs relationship with Brussels.
"A botched Tory Brexit will sell our manufacturers short with the fantasy of a free trading buccaneering future, which in reality would be a nightmare of chlorinated chicken, public services sold to multinational companies and our country in hock to Donald Trump," he will say.
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