ANDY Burnham is to launch a blistering attack on Nationalism, branding it a “dead-end towards division, separation and conflict”, and pledge to defend the United Kingdom at all costs.
The Labour leadership candidate will also claim in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London on Wednesday that in the past his party has been “too weak in standing up to Nationalism” and will launch a thinly-veiled attack on his rival Jeremy Corbyn over the London MP’s call for Britain to quit Nato.
The Shadow Health Secretary will make a passionate defence of internationalism and will criticise those who question the membership of international alliances and institutions in favour of "isolationism" in an apparent swipe at Mr Corbyn, who has called for Britain to quit Nato and raised questions about its role in the EU.
Mr Burnham will say: “Around the world, Nationalism is on the rise in a way not seen since the end of the Second World War. The politics of identity and nationality is where the real action is to be found.”
He will say: “Here in this country, the governing party spent an election playing to English Nationalism and openly stoked resentment of Scottish Nationalism.”
Mr Burnham will say that as Nationalist parties take up positions of power, membership of international alliances and institutions will be questioned “as isolationist and protectionist policies are pursued" risking leaving a world less secure than since the end of the Second World War.
He will declare: "I will fight Nationalism wherever I find it. It is a dead-end towards division, separation and conflict. I consider myself British before I'm English and an internationalist at heart. Labour has been too weak in standing up to Nationalism."
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has declined to say whether a Corbyn victory would be good for Scottish Labour but stressed how she would be “delighted” to work with any of the four UK candidates.
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