Agencies/London

Britain’s newly-elected hard-left opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday slammed Prime Minister David Cameron’s budget austerity as a “political choice” and called the Conservative government “poverty deniers”.
“Austerity is actually a political choice that this government has taken and they’re imposing it on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society,” Corbyn said in a speech at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the coastal resort of Brighton in southern England.
“They call us deficit deniers, but then they spend billions cutting taxes for the richest families and for the most profitable businesses. What they are is poverty deniers,” the 66-year-old socialist, a former trade union organiser, said.
“Gross levels of poverty and inequality, that is what the Tories have in store for us,” he said in a speech interrupted by applause and rewarded with a standing ovation.
Corbyn also condemned a draft law put forward by the Conservatives to limit strikes.
“They’re declaring war on organised labour,” he said, adding: “The burdens they’re placing... was in fact the strategy used by General (Francisco) Franco,” he said, referring to the Spanish dictator.
Meanwhile, uncertainty about what stance the Labour Party would adopt before a referendum on EU membership deepened yesterday when two senior figures in the new leadership team made conflicting comments.
Corbyn’s newly appointed economic policy chief, John McDonnell, indicated that it was not a foregone conclusion that Labour would accept whatever deal Cameron obtains and campaign to stay in.
“Jeremy said quite clearly he wants to remain in Europe but we want to see what Cameron’s package is,” McDonnell told BBC television.
“We’re not going to give Cameron a free hand on any negotiations at all. We want to see what he comes up with ...
“At the moment, it’s (about) trying to get a good Europe that serves all our interests, and I think we can do that.”
The EU referendum could be very tricky for Labour to navigate.
While many members and supporters strongly favour staying in the EU, the new membership terms negotiated by Cameron could be hard to swallow. With only a binary choice of staying in or leaving on offer, the party may face a painful trade-off of one priority against another.
Later in the day, Corbyn’s foreign policy chief, Hilary Benn, issued a statement that appeared to express much firmer support for EU membership, regardless of Cameron’s actions.
Benn listed the workers’ rights that he said had been protected and improved by the EU, before saying that Labour was strongly opposed to any attempt by Cameron to weaken those.
“The truth is, if we want to protect workers’ rights, the answer isn’t to leave the EU, but to get rid of this Tory (Conservative) government,” said Benn, who served in the centrist Labour cabinets of the previous decade.
“That’s why the Labour Party has always been committed to not walking away, but staying in to work together for a better Europe.”
Corbyn said on Monday that Labour should not automatically support any deal that Cameron negotiates for Britain to remain in the EU, and has highlighted protecting workers’ rights as an area where he says more needs to be achieved.