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Corbyn Gets Rock Star Reception At Glastonbury

He’s not your normal headline act, but British politician Jeremy Corbyn got a rock star reception and pulled a huge crowd when he appeared on … Continue reading Corbyn Gets Rock Star Reception At Glastonbury


Corbyn

He’s not your normal headline act, but British politician Jeremy Corbyn got a rock star reception and pulled a huge crowd when he appeared on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on Saturday afternoon.

The crowd chanted ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ and waved flags with the Labour leader’s name on as he came on stage, introduced by Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis.

Addressing the crowd, Corbyn urged that there should be a more humane world, saying, “Build bridges, not walls.”

In a wide-ranging speech covering environmental issues as well as racism, Corbyn also spoke about the recent general election, saying he was proud of his party’s campaign, which he said brought “a lot of people back into politics”.

Corbyn, a 68-year-old leftist, has not only survived attempts by some members of his own party to oust him but has also now led Labour to unexpected electoral gains against the Conservatives.

Speaking a few minutes after Corbyn’s mid-afternoon speech, twenty-nine-year-old Lewis James from Kent said he was moved to tears by what he heard: “It’s very rare that your generation get a moment in time when you can start to change the tide and the tide will start to turn I was in tears watching him.”

In the lead up to the election, Corbyn offered voters a promise to build a fairer society through policies such as raising taxes for the richest 5 percent, scrapping university tuition fees and investing 250 billion pounds ($315 billion) in infrastructure – plans the Conservatives said were uncosted.

“I think it’s all about bringing Labour back to its roots, instead of this new Labour thing that Tony Blair found …Labour policies that Jeremy Corbyn has brought through are like scrap the table we’ve started over again,” 25-year-old Chloe Lawrence said.

Corbyn was on the main stage at Glastonbury for about ten minutes before American hip hop group Run the Jewels performed.