Jeremy Corbyn to attack Britain as ‘complicit’ in human rights abuse
2 min read
Jeremy Corbyn will today blast the Government for “turning a blind eye” to human rights violations through the Saudi bombing of Yemen in order to protect arms sales.
The Labour leader will say in a speech to the UN that while the UK “champions some human right issues”, on others it is “silent, if not complicit, in their violation”.
“Total British Government aid to Yemen last year was under £150 million, less than the profits made by British arms companies selling weapons to Saudi Arabia," he will tell an audience in Geneva.
“What does that say about our country’s priorities, or our Government’s role in the humanitarian disaster now gripping Yemen?”
Mr Corbyn will outline what he sees as the "four threats" facing the world, including "the growing concentration of unaccountable wealth and power in the hands of a tiny corporate elite", climate change, the refugee crisis and a “bomb first, think later” approach to resolving conflict.
And following last year's EU referendum, he will say Britain “is at a crossroads” where “we have to rethink our role in the world”.
He will also hit out at those who “want to use Brexit to turn Britain in on itself” or “to put rocket boosters under our current economic system’s insecurities and inequalities”, while insisting that Labour “stands for a completely different future when we leave the EU…”
In a swipe at “powerful international corporations”, Mr Corbyn will mount a call for an end to the “broken economic system”.
“This moment - a crisis of confidence in a bankrupt economic system and social order - presents us with a once in a generation opportunity to build a new economic and social consensus which puts the majority in the driving seat,” he will say.
He will also pledge to crackdown on tax havens in light of the Panama papers, which showed that the “super-rich and powerful can’t be trusted to regulate themselves”.
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