Jeremy Corbyn will accuse the government on Tuesday of selling out manufacturers by failing to introduce an industrial plan that could have helped them make more of the weak pound since the Brexit referendum.
The Labour leader will say that the British economy has become too reliant on imports, meaning that companies have been unable to benefit from the drop in the value of the pound against the euro and the dollar.
Launching Labour’s campaign to boost manufacturing after Brexit, he is expected to say: “Our exporters should be able to take proper advantage of the one benefit to them that Brexit has already brought, a more competitive pound.
“After the EU referendum result, the pound became more competitive and that should have helped our exporters. But they are being sold out by a lack of a Conservative government industrial plan, which has left our economy far too reliant on imports.”
His remarks follow a Labour awayday in central London on Monday, where shadow cabinet members presented plans for a populist leftwing legislative programme so the party is ready for a snap general election.
With the UK’s industrial base in decline for years, however, including under the last Labour government, Corbyn’s criticism – and his regret that companies could not make more of the weak pound – is likely to be met with scepticism.
In his speech to industry chiefs in Birmingham, he will tell manufacturers that Labour’s policies would drive an industrial renaissance, using public contracts to expand the country’s economic base, secure good jobs and drive up tax revenues.
He will urge Theresa May to reconsider the option of negotiating a new customs union, even though such a move was narrowly rejected by the Commons last week. “It’s a matter of practical common sense,” he will say.
Sir Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, told shadow ministers at the awayday that they could face a difficult first parliament if elected as a minority government in a snap election.
Sources said he talked about the challenges of driving through an agenda and working with the civil service were Labour to find itself in minority government. “Some people are concerned they could act as a block,” one source said.
The all-day session took place just yards from parliament, meeting in Transport House, the former Labour HQ, which now houses the Local Government Association.
The shadow frontbench was told to come armed with proposals for a draft Queen’s speech, a first budget and legislative ideas to span a five-year parliament that would be easy to sell if Labour found itself in minority government.
No general election is scheduled until 2022, but Labour has taken the lead in the polls recently, which critics have attributed to May’s Chequers plan for the Brexit negotiations and a series of cabinet and frontbench resignations.
The party has already hired dozens of local community organisers to help with election planning and selected more than 80 candidates for marginal seats, including the director of the Class thinktank, Faiza Shaheen, who will take on Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green.
Other target seats where Labour has already selected candidates include the former home secretary Amber Rudd’s Hastings and Rye seat, the 1922 Committee chair Graham Brady’s seat of Altrincham and Sale West and the seats of the prominent Tory remainers Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry.
