Britain's new hard-left opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn today accused Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives of "hitting working people" with a new draft law to alter strike ballot rules.
Corbyn wrote in today's Daily Mirror tabloid that Britain "already had the most restrictive trade union laws in western Europe" and that even senior Conservatives had likened the bill "to something from a fascist dictatorship."
David Davis, a former chairman of the Conservative Party, said that the bill had "Franco-like" sections -- a reference to Spanish long-time dictator General Francisco Franco.
Corbyn, 66, was elected by a landslide on Saturday despite starting the race as a rank outsider and said he would use his success to challenge the government over its stance on trade unions and welfare.
"The Conservatives claimed they were the party for hardworking people," he wrote in today's Daily Mirror tabloid.
"Today and tomorrow in the House of Parliament they will demonstrate that claim to be false. The Tories are hitting working people with a double whammy -- attacking the trade unions that defend jobs and win pay rises, and attacking the tax credits that provide a safety net for the millions of people stuck in low-paid jobs," he added.
"We need a strong Labour opposition, exposing the Tories' bluster and boldly standing up for working families."
Corbyn is Britain's most left-wing main party leader in decades, and his policies have been compared to those of radical leftists in Greece's Syriza and Spain's Podemos movement.
He vowed to fight Britain's current austerity drive, saying that Labour was "back as the party standing up for working people, back as the party with humanity for refugees and back as the party defending the welfare state."
His first battle will be against the government's trade union bill -- to be debated later today -- which aims to tighten up the rules on trade union strike ballots.
Many predict Corbyn will have difficulties in preventing a rift between the party's traditionalists and reformers, but he wrote today: "We are Labour. We are together.
