Andy Burnham and other high-ranking Labour figures refuse to stand as Jeremy Corbyn repeats Iraq War apology
Jeremy Corbyn used his keynote speech at the Labour Party conference as an opportunity to reiterate his thoughts about the war
HIGH-RANKING Labour politicians refused to give Jeremy Corbyn a standing ovation as he repeated his apology for the Iraq War during his keynote speech at his party's conference today.
Andy Burnham, who today resigned from his Shadow Home Secretary post, Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner and the party's General Secretary Iain McNicol, stayed seated while others around them stood to applaud.
The Labour leader told the audience: "It was right to apologise on behalf of the party for the Iraq war, right to say that we have learned the lessons”.
The longstanding critic of the 2003 invasion added that it was also “right to say that such a catastrophe must never be allowed to happen again.”
Former Tony Blair aide John McTernan led the protest exodus of 12 members and he confirmed tonight he had left in disgust.
During his speech Jeremy Corbyn pledged Labour will not offer "false promises" on immigration and said his party will tackle the real issues of immigration instead.
And he said the party must listen to the concerns of voters across the land about immigration if they are to become a party of government.
Jeremy Corbyn's wife Laura Alvarez (centre) listens as he makes his speech at the Labour Conference in Liverpool
He has used his keynote conference speech to announce how he plans to do this with his party split over how to deal with immigration in the UK.
And he has put the entire party on notice for a general election in 2017.
He said: "Our job is now to win over the unconvinced to our vision.
"Only that way can we secure the Labour government we need.
"And let’s be frank, no one will be convinced of a vision, promoted by a divided party. We all agree on that.
"So I ask each and every one of you, accept the decision of the members end the trench warfare and work together to take on the Tories.
"Anything else is a luxury that the millions of people who depend on Labour cannot afford."
He told the delegates at the conference: "We must have zero tolerance towards those who whip up hate and division, stand together against racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and defend those being demonised.
Jeremy Corbyn says the Labour Party has an ambitious aim and is motivated by the gap between what Britain is and what it could be
"It has been shaming to our multicultural society that assaults on migrants have increased sharply since the referendum campaign a campaign that peddled myths and whipped up division.
"It isn’t migrants that drive down wages, it’s exploitative employers and the politicians who deregulate the labour market and rip up trade union rights.
"It isn’t migrants who put a strain on our NHS, it only keeps going because of the migrant nurses and doctors who come here filling the gaps left by politicians who have failed to invest in training.
"It isn’t migrants that have caused a housing crisis; it’s a Tory government that has failed to build homes.
"Immigration can certainly put extra pressure on services and that’s why, under Gordon Brown, Labour setup the Migrant Impact Fund to provide extra funding to communities that have the largest rises in population.
"What did the Tories do? They abolished it and then they demonise migrants for putting pressure on services."
To applause in the hall he said a Labour Government would bring this impact fund back.
And he added: "We will act decisively to end the undercutting of workers’ pay and conditions through the exploitation of migrant labour and agency working which would reduce the number of migrant workers in the process.
"And we will ease the pressure on hard pressed public services - services that are struggling to absorb Tory austerity cuts, in communities absorbing new populations."
And he said the Labour Party has to hear the concerns of people across the country about immigration: "Although most Labour voters backed us [in the EU referendum] we did not convince millions of natural Labour voters especially in those parts of the country left behind.
"Left behind by years of neglect under-investment and de-industrialisation.
"Now we have to face the future together we are not helped by patronising or lecturing those in our communities who voted to leave.
"We have to hear their concerns about jobs, about public services, about wages, about immigration, about a future for their children.
"And we have to respect their votes, and the decision of the British people."
Starting it off light the re-elected Labour leader started proceedings with a joke about Virgin Trains - following on from last month's traingate debacle.
He then paid tribute to the murdered MP Jo Cox and said it has been a testing time for the Labour Party.
But he said despite the testing time he is honoured to be elected as Labour leader again with an even bigger mandate.
He said: "I am honoured to have been re-elected by our party a second time with an even larger mandate.
"But we all have lessons to learn and a responsibility to do things better and work together more effectively.
"I will lead in learning those lessons and I’d like to thank Owen, for the campaign and his work as shadow work and pensions secretary.
"And all the Labour Party Staff and my own team for their brilliant work.
"One lesson is, that there is a responsibility on all of us to take care with our rhetoric, respect democratic decisions, respect our differences and respect each other.
"We know that robust debate has at times spilled over into abuse and hate around our party, including misogyny and anti-Semitism, especially on social media.
"That is utterly unacceptable.
"Our party must be a safe and welcoming space for everybody and we will continue to take firm action against abuse and intimidation."
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Addressing the issue of anti-Semitism in society, he said Labour Party members fight against it with every breath in their bodies.
He said hate on social media is "utterly unacceptable"and then describes anti-Semitism as "an evil".
"Anti-Semitism is an evil [and] led to the worst crimes of the 20th century.
"Every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that it is never allowed to fester in our society again.
"This party always has and always will fight against prejudice and hatred of Jewish people with every breath in its body," he said.
He hits out at Theresa May's government saying it is David Cameron's government repackaged with progressive slogans "with a right-wing edge".
And continuing the attack he says the Tories cannot respond to the new era because the old economic model is in their political DNA.
Speaking about education, he said it has always been a core Labour value and says the Tories have slashed adult education budgets.
He has said Labour will do a deal with business so they pay more tax and this will pay for a skilled workforce.
";So this is the deal Labour will offer to business.
"To help pay for a National Education Service, we will ask you pay a little more in tax.
"We’ve already started to set out some of this, pledging to raise corporation tax by less than 1.5 percent to give an Education Maintenance Allowance to college students and grants to university students so that every young learner can afford to support themselves as they develop skills and get qualifications.
"Business shares in economic success and it must contribute to it too.
"And I recognise that good businesses deserve a level playing field.
"So I also pledge to good businesses that we will clamp down those that dodge their taxes you should not be undercut by those that don’t play by the rules.
"There is nothing more unpatriotic than not paying your taxes it is an act of vandalism, damaging our NHS, damaging older people’s social care, damaging younger people’s education.
"So a Labour government will make shabby tax avoidance a thing of the past."
He said Labour will allow councils to borrow against their housing stock - and he said this would allow them to build 60,000 extra homes a year.
Before his speech senior Labour MPs challenged his view that there should be no efforts to curb the number of people coming to the UK.
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said the current immigration system was in "chaos" and insisted there must be "controls".
Asked if she meant there should be controls on numbers, she told BBC News: "I believe that you do need controls and we have always had controls on immigration."
She added: "Immigration is a good thing for the UK but what is not good is when people don't know about what numbers we have.
"I think you do have to talk about those things. People raise that on the doorstep all the time and it is important that we deal with those concerns."
Stephen Kinnock, the son of former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, said people wanted a "sense of reassurance and of control over our borders".
He said people were seeing problems such as overcrowded schools "through the prism of immigration".
"The only way we're going to solve that is by saying 'we've got a handle on this, we've got this under control'," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"I think we have a defining challenge of our age now, which is to address this problem, tackle it.
"This is not only about integration. This is also about regulating the inflow of Labour.”
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