Jeremy Corbyn speaking this week at a special cost of living crisis meeting held by the People’s Assembly

JEREMY Corbyn condemned the “sheer dishonesty” of the government’s new energy policy at a special cost of living crisis meeting held this week.

Organised by the People’s Assembly, the Islington North MP spoke on a panel alongside president of the RMT Alex Gordon, Raghad Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain, and founding member of the Stop the War Coalition, Lindsey German, to discuss “how to fight the cost of living crisis”.

Mr Corbyn said Liz Truss’s claim that she would “freeze” energy bills in October was one of “sheer dishonesty”.

“Our media are really culpable in their failure to analyse what is happening in front of them,” he said. “Energy bills have gone up roughly 100 per cent in the past year.

“And what [Ms Truss] has done is hardwired in that increase by pretending there’s going to be a bill freeze for the next year, by paying an unspecified but very large sum of money to every single one of the energy companies on the basis that they have to protect their profits.”

Mr Corbyn suggested the decision to pay off the energy companies with taxpayers’ money now could signal a new age of austerity in the future.

In the face of this prospect, the independent MP called for a “strong local coalition of opposition to austerity and the cuts that are coming but, above all, to defend and try to improve people’s living standards”.

Ms German said of Ms Truss’s energy plan: “Her deal around the energy crisis is an absolute disgrace, because what it is doing is really bailing out the energy companies, and we will be paying for 10 or 15 years in our bills. It would be much, much cheaper to nationalise those companies.”

Ms German also called for a general strike in response to the current crisis.

“We need a mass movement,” she said.

“Personally, I don’t think we’ve got… an indefinite period to keep pulling people out on strikes. I think we’ve got to go for doing it quickly and forcing the employers to give in as quickly as they can.

“We’ve also got to get the movements out on the streets as well,” she said. “We need to keep this going, we’ve got to really escalate, we’ve got to really spread these disputes, because this government is coming for us and we’re going to be coming for them in turn.”

Her call was echoed by Ms Altikriti, who emphasised the importance of “solidarity” and collective action in the face of the what she described as a “survival crisis.”

Mr Gordon also called on those present to “be creating networks of solidarity”, but warned the right to protest in Britain is being eroded.

“People [are] being arrested by the police for protesting against the inauguration of an unelected head of state,” he said. He added that the arrests in recent days were part of a broader trend which has seen police cracking down on protest in the country.

“We need to say that the right to protest is massively under attack,” he said.

Mr Corbyn added: “Yes, respect people that are mourning, respect people that are at vigils, but also respect the right to protest and the right to dissent.”