Britain’s opposition Labour party has elected veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader. The one-time outsider succeeds Ed Miliband, who stepped down after the party’s electoral defeat in May.
Avowed socialist and anti-austerity advocate Jeremy Corbyn won 59.5% of the ballots cast, or 251, 417 votes, to take over the leadership position, the party announced at a special conference in London on Saturday, DW reported.
He defeated three more centrist candidates.
His closest rival, Andy Burnham, scored 19%. In all, party members cast 422,664 votes.
Addressing the party after the result, Corbyn said he wanted Labour to strive for a diverse, “decent and better society” open to all.
Corbyn, who has often voted against past party decisions, scored during the leadership campaign on a message of promising to increase state-funded investments and re-nationalizing parts of Britain’s economy, including railroads.
The defeated trio–Andy Burnham, Yvetter Cooper and Liz Kendall–were widely regarded as advocates of policies of former Labour premier Tony Blair.
Saturday’s result means that he will debate head-to-head in the House of Commons every week with conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.
