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Corbyn repeats support for united Ireland

In many senses this is refreshing, but it does beg the question of what sort of role he really sees for himself as Labour leader if he can’t get numerous ideas he has spoken passionately about for decades into official party policy.

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Mr Corbyn said the party’s 60,000 new members who had joined in the last fortnight included new and old members who had returned.

The Labour leader was speaking on BBC One’s Andrew Marr programme as the party’s conference got under way in Brighton.

The Labour leader suggested the SNP’s commitment to anti-austerity was superficial.

“My views I put forward in the leadership campaign were absolutely central”, he said.

All eyes will be on Corbyn when he makes his keynote speech on Tuesday, where he is expected to shun the usual conventions.

“And since 2007, they’ve followed a pattern. This is a bread and butter issue for people in Scotland“.

“I’m not here today to make another pledge to listen to people”.

However, shadow justice secretary Richard Faulkner said that the party “needed ultimately…to put a prospectus to the British people”.

CND expressed “surprise and disappointment” at Labour’s “failure” to include a debate on Trident replacement on its agenda.

“We will vote against any anti-Trident motion”.

“He sees it as his own personal or factional fiefdom which somehow he has a God-given right to control as though that were the natural order of things”, he said. “We are looking at 10 years of Conservative government and everything Tony Blair achieved, in terms of tackling inequality and policies like Sure Start, could be undone”.

“There is now a brilliant opportunity for the Labour Party to construct a fresh and new political economy which will expose austerity for the failure it has been in the United Kingdom and Europe”. “It is whatever is in the best interests of the country“.

The opposition party’s new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, opposes atomic weapons, and had said the issue would be debated at the party’s annual conference.

My advice to them is carry on being complacent, I’m quite happy about that.

“He is a great democrat and we are already seeing a refreshing change to the Labour conference, with open debates”, he told the Press Association.

His comments came as the subject threatened to cause major divisions at the party conference in Brighton with Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey issuing a challenge to the new leadership over changing the policy on supporting the renewal of the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

The Labour leader acknowledged he may be unable to persuade members of his shadow cabinet to oppose the renewal of the Trident weapons system and there may be a “difference of opinion” when the parliamentary vote takes place.

“Defence and security has been an issue that the Labour Party has been very, very keen to keep mainstream, certainly since the 1980s”, said Richard Whitman, an associate fellow at global affairs think-tank Chatham House.

In his two weeks since taking charge, he has been criticised for failing to present his policies clearly and for changing tack on issues such as Britain’s membership of the European Union, on which a referendum is due by the end of 2017.

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The rejection of a debate and vote on Trident means that Labour is still officially committed to renewing the deterrent.

UK Labour Party to vote on scrapping nuclear weapons