Jeremy Corbyn will launch Labour’s general election campaign with a rallying cry to voters to “take our wealth back” from the Tory party and the rich.
With just 30 days to go before the June 8 poll, the Labour leader will claim that millions of Britons are being “held back” by the “rigged system” overseen by Theresa May and her wealthy backers.
Corbyn will say that the choice has never been starker between the Conservatives’ vision of an economy run for the powerful and his own plans to act on behalf of “the British people”.
Undaunted by new opinion polls and last week’s local election losses, he will also tell the launch in Manchester on Tuesday that the issue of the UK quitting the EU “has been settled” by last year’s referendum and that Labour would instead pursue “a jobs-first Brexit”.
Corbyn will seek to make a deliberate break with Labour’s 2010 and 2015 general election campaigns, instead offering a set of “transformative”, radical policies that will offer “a real choice, a real alternative to the rigged system holding us back”.
In his strongest attack yet on corporate Britain, he will warn that if he becomes Prime Minister “there will be a reckoning for those who thought they could get away with asset stripping our industry, crashing our economy through their greed and ripping off workers and consumers”.
“Don’t wake on up on 9 June to see celebrations from the tax cheats, the press barons, the greedy bankers, Philip Green, the Southern Rail directors and crooked financiers that take our wealth, who have got away with it because the party they own, the Conservative Party, has won.
“We have four weeks to ruin their party. We have four weeks to take our wealth back.”
Labour has so far set out a string of policies including free school meals for primary pupils, scrapping NHS car parking charges and banning junk food ads on prime time TV, but much bigger policies are set to be rolled out in coming weeks, HuffPost UK understands.
Corbyn will seek to regain momentum for his campaign despite the loss of more than 380 council seats and two Metro Mayoral elections in its heartlands of Teesside and the West Midlands.
As well as key Shadow Cabinet ministers, the Manchester launch will see newly elected Metro Mayor Andy Burnham appear alongside his leader for the first time since his victory. Burnham was not present when Corbyn travelled to the city on Friday to hail his win.
A new ICM opinion poll on Monday gave the Tories a record 22-point lead, with May’s party on 49% to Labour’s 27%. The Liberal Democrats were on 9% and UKIP on just 6%.
Corbyn will say that he and his party have just four weeks to convince the voters that “Britain can be better, it can be transformed”.
“We can transform Britain into a country that - instead of being run for the rich - is a one where everyone can lead richer lives.
“And I mean richer in every sense. Richer because all of us have potential to fulfil, family to support, interests to pursue, richer when that potential is not held back.
“Labour will not allow the Tories to put their party interests ahead of the real national interest, the interests of the British people.
“When Labour wins, the British people win. The nurse, the teacher, the small trader, the carer, the builder, the office worker win.”
Acutely aware that many Labour ‘Leave’ voters are tempted to back the Tories to give Theresa May a stronger hand in her talks with the EU, Corbyn will say: “This election isn’t about Brexit itself. That issue has been settled.
“The question now is what sort of Brexit do we want – and what sort of country do we want Britain to be after Brexit? Labour wants a jobs-first Brexit, a Brexit that safeguards the future of Britain’s vital industries, a Brexit that paves the way to a genuinely fairer society and an upgraded economy.”
May underlined her “Presidential-style” approach to the general election on Monday with an event for candidates in London that referred to them as ‘Theresa May’s Team’ rather than ‘Conservatives’.
Both parties are due to unveil their manifesto pledges next week.