Does corbyn have any integrity?

Jeremy Corbyn: leaving EU would lead to 'bonfire of rights'
Labour leader stresses need for international cooperation in speech calling for Britain to stay in EU

Speaking to an audience of Labour-supporting students and trade unionists in London, he repeatedly pointed to the shortcomings of the EU in its present form – but said he wanted to forge alliances with leftwing parties across Europe to reform it.

“You can’t build a better world unless you engage with the world,” the Labour leader said, urging young people to “make sure you register to vote, and vote to keep the UK in Europe in June”, and warning that a Conservative government would take the opportunity of Brexit to slash protection for workers, in a “bonfire of rights”.

“We want to strengthen the protection of every worker, all over Europe, not just in Britain,” he said, promising that a Labour government would cooperate with socialist allies to halt the “race to the bottom”.
Corbyn said the EU had helped to underpin “investment, jobs and protections for workers, consumers and the environment”, and working together with European allies offered “the best chance of meeting the challenges we face in the 21st century”.

He compared the decision to his own choice to remain within the Labour party, even when he had profound disagreements with its leaders. “I’ve had a few differences with the direction the Labour party has taken over the last few years, some people may have noticed. But I have been sure that I was right to remain a member of the Labour party.”

He added, smiling: “Some might say I’ve managed to do something more recently about changing the direction of Labour, and I’m enjoying that as well.”The most warmly received passages in his speech, however – greeted with enthusiastic applause – were his attacks on the Conservative government, for failing to stamp out tax evasion and “stand up for the steel industry”.

Asked to explain how he had come to back EU membership, given his previous hostility – including voting against Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community the last time it was put to a referendum in 1975 – the Labour leader said there had been a “very big debate” among party members, trade unionists and MPs.

“This is a decision about whether to stay in and argue for the kind of socially just EU that I want, and that my party wants, or to walk away.”
He said Labour had decided overwhelmingly to remain. “That’s the decision that’s been reached. Does it mean I recant on everything I’ve ever said or done? No,” he said, adding: “That is the position that has been adopted by the party; that’s the party I lead.”

When a reporter suggested his intervention in the referendum debate had been half hearted, coming after the prime minister has spent weeks criss-crossing the country and speaking to rallies, Corbyn said, to loud applause from the audience: “There’s nothing half hearted about anything I do.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/14/jeremy-corbyn-leaving-eu-would-lead-to-bonfire-of-rights

On the plus side, it sounded 100% sincere. If anyone was expecting Corbyn to parrot pro-EU homilies that he clearly did not believe, then they will have been disappointed. He did not say anything inauthentic or phoney. Possibly his best moment came when an ITV reporter accused him of being “half-hearted”. He rebutted the claim with the line: “There’s nothing half-hearted about anything I do.” And after that the Q&A got even better.

Corbyn has never been enthusiastic about the EU. But during the Q&A he was stirring and persuasive on issues such as workers’ rights and the migration crisis at an EU level. And when he described what it would be like living in a Tory Britain outside the EU, it felt as if he he might have had his own Bush moment and discovered a reason for engaging in this campaign.

Just imagine what the Tories would do to workers’ rights here in Britain if we voted to leave the EU in June. They’d dump rights on equal pay, working time, annual leave for agency workers, and on maternity pay, as fast as they could get away with it. It would be a bonfire of rights that Labour governments secured within the EU.
Not only that, it wouldn’t be a Labour government negotiating a better settlement for working people with the EU. It would be a Tory government, quite possibly led by Boris Johnson and backed by Nigel Farage, that would negotiate the worst of all worlds: a free market free-for-all shorn of rights and protections.

More of this, and Corbyn could energise the pro-European Labour vote. But whether we see it or not remains to be seen.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/14/corbyns-eu-referendum-speech-verdict-rambling-but-rather-special