Jeremy Corbyn Bets Everything on a Plan to Rewire the U.K. Economy
The Labour leader’s proposed reforms are part of his long battle against Margaret Thatcher and her legacy. Young people are eating it up—but is that enough?
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives at Media City in Salford, England, ahead of a televised debate with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Nov. 19.
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Imagine living in a country where you only have to work four days a week, where higher education is free and so is child care for all 2- to 4-year-olds, where you don’t have to pay for prescriptions or dental checkups, where even high-speed broadband is delivered to your home for no charge.
A fairy tale? Maybe, but those are just some of the promises Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour Party have made to voters as the U.K. sprints toward a general election on Dec. 12. They’re not even the most audacious proposals the 70-year-old lawmaker is pushing in his bid to “rewrite the rules of our economy.” He wants to renationalize railroads, utilities, the postal service, and British Telecom’s fiber-based broadband business. The bill for Labour’s program—£83 billion ($106 billion) in new annual spending and £400 billion for economic development projects over a decade—would be unprecedented in peacetime.