AROUND 1000 people waited patiently in a drizzly and cold Castle Square for the Labour Leader’s visit to Haverfordwest. Despite being around an hour late, the crowd remained cheerful – listening to music from the stage, and speeches from various local contributors.

Just before Jeremy Corbyn took to the stage, Labour’s Preseli Pembrokeshire candidate, Phillipa Thompson addressed the crowd.
She is hoping to gain the the 300 odd extra votes she missed out on in 2017 to get elected.
The candidate addressed the crowd: “Good evening Haverfordwest!”
The crowd cheered loudly; Mrs Thompson went continued: “I’m delighted to be here alongside our leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. And Jeremy, the first time I met you was when you spoke to a group of us from the foreign office about working in parliament. And you spoke passionately about the shortage of housing in your constituency of Islington North. And if I remember rightly your first question as prime minister when you became leader of the opposition was about housing. So, I have the good fortune to have the opportunity later this week to be elected to represent the constituents of Preseli Pembrokeshire with just as much passion and just as much care as Jeremy has represented his constituents, and would now represent all of us for this country.

“Pembrokeshire is a fantastic place to live, and a fantastic place to visit. However, many of our young people in particular leave to find work. I would like see people Have more opportunities here in Pembrokeshire so that they have more choice. So, I hope Jeremy not to see you here only at election time but to welcome you back here again as Prime Minister.
Working together we can all make labour’s ambitious plans a reality for everyone in our country. With change coming right along the M4 and carrying on to this far-western edge of Wales.
I say on behalf of all of us here: Croeso i’r Sir Benfro – welcome to Pembrokeshire, Jeremy Corbyn!”

It was the moment the crowd had been waiting for.
Jeremy Corbyn took to the stage: “Good evening Haverfordwest… good evening Preseli Pembrokeshire!”
“Are you going to win it for Labour on Thursday? Is Phillipa going to be your next MP?
“This election is going to be about justice for people all over Britain.
“Last night you saw in the debate that was going on – you saw that the Prime Minister represents a party that is created and funded by billionaires.
“You saw that the only solution to his problems is a trade deal with the United States, which will put the NHS at risk of American companies taking it over.
“You can see what they are doing in this election campaign.
“A party for billionaires, funded by billionaires for the in equality of this country.
“Well, is it right that in the fifth richest country in the world there are five million children living in poverty? That over Christmas more than 100,000 children will know the security of a safe home in which to live? That thousands of people will be sleeping rough over Christmas in parks and tents, stations and bus stations, and all other places – they just try and find somewhere to survive. And all the while that gap between the richest and the poorest has just got wider, and wider, and wider.
“In 2010, the Tories and Liberal Democrats got together and formed a coalition government and decided to make the political choice – and it was a political choice – of austerity. They used it to cut local government spending in England – to cut the budget of the government of Wales.
“They used it to freeze benefits, to freeze public sector wages, to introduce Universal Credit – and to create – quite deliberately – poverty in the lives of very many millions of people.
“Most working-class families have a spending power of between 20 and 25% less than ten years ago. Small wonder that all over the country in Wales, England and Scotland, high streets are struggling to survive. Shops struggling to survive because of that loss of spending power. And so, we cannot go on like this as a country. We cannot go on with this degree of inequality and the levels of stress it creates in society. The growth of mental health stress and the mental health crisis. The growth of debt. Personal debt, household debt and student debt all over the UK. Surely to goodness we need to do things differently.
“And when the United Nations – yes, the United Nations – sends a special rapporteur to Britain you must ask yourself the question: Hang on a minute, we’re supposed to be a rich country. “We’re supposed to have a welfare state. We’re supposed to be a country which reaches out to everyone, and that report says that the 1940’s contract between the people and the government that says nobody should be in destitution has been “cast aside” and replaced in their words by “a cold and uncaring ethos”

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