Socialist Jeremy Corbyn elected opposition Labour leader

Labour Party leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn addresses a rally at the Rock Tower in north London on September 10, 2015

Avowed socialist and Karl Marx admirer Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of Britain's opposition Labour party on Saturday, a result that may make a British EU exit more likely and which senior figures have said would leave their party unelectable.

The grey-hair, bearded Corbyn, 66, who only received backing to enter the contest to ensure wide debate and never expected to win, defeated two former Labour ministers, Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham, and Liz Kendall, regarded as the representative of policies advocated by former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Corbyn, a left winger and parliamentary veteran with a long history of voting against his own party, triumphed on a message of promising to increase government investment though money-printing and renationalizing vast swathes of the economy.