UK Prime Minister Theresa May accused of stealing Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign slogans

British Prime Minister Theresa May at Parliament, June 13, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has been accused of stealing Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign slogans after failing to appeal to voters in last week’s general election.

The allegations emerged after May addressed the first parliamentary sitting since Thursday's general election, which saw the ruling Conservative Party lose its majority while Labour expanded its seats.

During her speech on Tuesday, May quoted a famous campaign line by Corbyn by saying that opportunity and prosperity needed to spread all over the UK so that “no one and no community is left behind.”

Corbyn has been using the line in reference since last summer, when he launched his bid for party leadership.

“I'll set out how Labour will build a society where no one & no community is left behind,” Corbyn said in a tweet on July 21, 2016.

The slogan was included in Corbyn’s digital democracy manifesto and was even featured in one of his campaign videos as a tagline.

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (Photo by AFP)

The Labour leader continued touting the line earlier this year, as he launched the campaign for the 2017 local election in April.

A Labour Party source said while May was indeed copying Corbyn’s catchphrase, she was far from implementing the policies that her chief rival meant by those words.

 “Labour has a serious plan to invest in communities, put more money in people's pockets and ensure opportunities for all, to transform Britain for the many, not the few,” said the source.

Earlier this month, May was hit by similar accusations over using a variant of the Labour campaign slogan by pledging to form a government for the many, “not the privileged few.”

Corbyn hits back

The main opposition leader, whose party now holds 262 parliamentary seats, took the opportunity to poke fun at May and her party.

He began his myriad of attacks by mocking May’s now infamous “strong and stable” slogan, saying his party was ready to offer “strong and stable leadership in the national interest.”

This was also a jab at May’s attempts to form a minority government with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which Corbyn calls a “coalition of chaos.”

Poking fun at pre-election speculations that May would win by a landslide, Corbyn said democracy was a “wondrous thing” that could produce “very unexpected results.”