Did Corbyn see Farage "get up smiling.”

For those on the Progressive left  Jeremy Corbyn is beginning to look tarnished.

Senior Scottish Labour figures have criticised Jeremy Corbyn’s “incredibly disappointing” comments on immigration, likening them to the views of former Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
Former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray attacked remarks on leaving the EU made by the UK Labour leader in his speech to the party’s conference in Dundee on Friday.
Setting out his position on the Brexit deal, Mr Corbyn said a future Labour government

 “cannot be held back inside or outside the EU … from preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour, to undercut existing pay and conditions in the name of free market orthodoxy”

Kezia Dugdale, the former Scottish Labour leader, said the party had “allowed the myths of EU immigration rules to be perpetuated” after Mr Corbyn called for post-Brexit curbs on low-paid immigration.
And Ian Murray, an ex-Shadow Scottish Secretary, warned 

“the only person smiling after that passage in Jeremy’s speech would have been Nigel Farage”.

 SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon also accused Labour of sounding like Ukip after Mr Corbyn described foreign nationals as “cheap” workers. 

she tweeted.

“Labour spelling Keir Hardie’s name wrong was amusing. Hearing them echo Nigel Farage is profoundly depressing,”

The Keir Hardie reference  is to this bacdrop at the conference
 

The Labour leader claimed Brexit would deliver the benefit of preventing firms “importing cheap labour” to undercut the wages of UK workers.

And he tried to outflank the Prime Minister, accusing her of planning to “tie the UK permanently to EU rules, which are used to drive privatisation and block support for British industry”. 

“We cannot be held back, inside or outside the EU, from taking the steps we need to develop and invest in cutting edge industries and local business, stop the tide of privatisation and outsourcing, or from preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour to undercut existing pay and conditions in the name of free market orthodoxy,”

Ms Dugdale said: “Our party, a party of internationalism and equality, one that believes in freedom, hope and opportunity, should be one that’s at peace with making the positive case for immigration.

“A party that doesn’t just accept – but proactively argues – that our country is culturally deeper and economically richer because of immigration, not despite it.

“A party that states clearly and unequivocally that your troubles finding a job, getting a house, or seeing your doctor are caused by the Tories austerity ideology, not your Polish next-door neighbour.

“Every day we fail to do that, is a day in which Nigel Farage and his kin get up smiling.”

Mr Corbyn may well be appealing  to those Labour voters who had drifted towards Ukip and voted for Brexit  because they believe the  anti-immigration rhetoric from Farage  and the right-wing media.

But how many of the thousands who joined Labour to vote for Corbyn did so because he was the man to speak up for progressive politics. Only to find that they have a leader who completely back the  Hard Brexit of Mrs May .

Maybe for different ideas on what Brexit will do. May. a Free Market economy that sees an ending on  what they believe  are restrictive rules including  pay and health ans safety.

Corbyn, a chance to build socialism in one country  but maybe alsoinspiring a socialist revival in Europe.

Both are wrong  but Corbyn in his rhetoric in Dundee, shows that for those on the progressive left who want to defeat the growth of the anti-immigration, quasi fascism that Ukip gave succour to he is not the one to lead it.

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