Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of hypocrisy for claiming that he would condemn human rights’ abuses everywhere yet failing to do so in Venezuela.
Speaking in Glasgow, the Labour leader said that he would not be afraid to speak out against governments abusing their people anywhere in the world.
In what appeared to be an echo of Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” approach of 1997, Mr Corbyn said that his party would be more robust and forthright on human rights than the UK government.
To cheers he said: “A Labour government would not be afraid to pick up the phone to President Donald Trump and say ‘You are wrong on the Paris climate change agreement’.”
He also raised the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and President Trump’s initial failure to condemn the white supremacists. “And we would also be quite open in simply saying, ‘When the Ku Klux Klan and the fascists arrive in Charlottesville the whole world should condemn them,” Mr Corbyn said.
The Labour leader then challenged the UK government to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, which has been condemned for using western-bought weapons to attack Yemen.
Mr Corbyn said he would tell the Saudis “You are not getting weapons from us” to bomb Yemen.
He added: “I want a Labour government that’s not afraid to speak up against human rights abuses wherever they occur.”
But his approach was immediately condemned by the Conservatives, who accused him of hypocrisy.
Mr Corbyn, a supporter of the Venezuelan government, refused to condemn the socialist President Maduro this month when opposition leaders were rounded up and jailed. Instead he condemned the violence on “both sides”.
Ross Thomson, the Conservative MP for Aberdeen South, said: “Jeremy Corbyn will call out human rights abuses wherever they are — unless of course they are carried out by far-left repressive regimes he supports, like that in Venezuela. Mr Corbyn is a classic hypocrite. He condemns his opponents but stays silent when it comes to his friends.”
Labour’s so-called ethical foreign policy approach is generally considered to have been a mixed success. It was championed by Robin Cook, who became foreign secretary when Labour won the general election in 1997, but the policy was then overshadowed by the government’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
Mr Corbyn also said he was putting Theresa May “on notice” and would not rest until he had removed her from office. The Labour leader was cheered many times by the 400-strong audience packed into the Drygate Brewery in Glasgow as he insisted that he would stand up for the dispossessed, the poor and the vulnerable.
He said he wanted to send a simple message to Mrs May. “You are on notice, you are on notice about poverty, you are on notice about poverty pay, you are on notice about injustice and inequality,” he said.
“We are serious about investing in a future for all, we are serious about a £10-an-hour living wage for all to deal with poverty. That is why we are campaigning and that is why we are bringing people together.” Mr Corbyn drove home his left-wing message but he failed to talk about Brexit or the SNP and mentioned Scotland only in passing.
Instead, he focused on what he claimed were the failings of the Conservative government and his determination to oust it. He also said he would not retreat from the high-tax, high-spend agenda he promoted during the election campaign.
The rally was one of a series of events Mr Corbyn is doing in Scotland during a five-day campaigning trip north of the border. He is targeting SNP-held seats that Labour has to win if the party wants to regain power at Westminster.