The Fire Brigades Union’s executive council has voted in favour of supporting Jeremy Corbyn MP for the Labour party leadership.

Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said: “Jeremy Corbyn is a natural choice for us as a staunch defender of the rights we in the trade union movement have fought so hard for. The FBU is not affiliated to the Labour party but the question of who leads Labour is obviously of great importance to all workers. Jeremy Corbyn should be the obvious choice for trade unions.

“We hope that under his leadership we would see a shift in focus away from the accumulation of wealth for the few, towards policies for the majority.

“We need to see investment in essential services from a leader who values and supports public sector workers, who isn’t willing to continue the game of Russian roulette that has been played with public safety since 2010 through unprecedented cuts to services and jobs.

“We believe Jeremy Corbyn is the right person to do that. We welcome the fact that Jeremy’s announcement has opened a debate about challenging the Tory cuts agenda and other real political issues facing the majority of people in the UK today.”

The FBU has been battling cuts to fire stations, equipment and jobs since 2010, with last year (2014) the worst year ever for firefighter job losses – 1843 jobs went across the UK.

Since 2010 some 6740 jobs have been lost, 4,300 of which were those of full time firefighters. Since 2011 overall jobs (including the control staff who take emergency calls) are down from 59,000 to 51,000.

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