UK foreign policy would change under a Labour government to one that "reduces rather than increases the threat" to the country, Jeremy Corbyn has said.
He said "many experts" had linked UK involvement in wars abroad to terrorism at home, as election campaigning resumed after the Manchester attack.
He also pledged to reverse police spending cuts - but stressed the blame for attacks lay with the terrorists.
Opponents criticised his speech, coming days after the attack which killed 22.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it was "absolutely monstrous" that the Labour leader had attempted to "justify" or legitimise the actions of terrorists.
And Lib Dem Leader Tim Farron accused Mr Corbyn of using the "grotesque" attack in Manchester to "make a political point".
Mr Corbyn delivered his speech as the bigger political parties return to the campaign trail following Monday night's suicide bombing at Manchester Arena.
He pledged a "change at home and change abroad" if Labour won power - with a new foreign policy approach and more money for police, the NHS and security services.
He said he did not want to make a "narrow political point" as Britons had to stand together after the attack.
But he added: "An informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people, that fights rather than fuels terrorism."
Media captionSecurity minister, Ben Wallace, says Jeremy Corbyn's comments are "inappropriate and crassly timed"
He said that "many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed out the connections between wars that we have been involved in, or supported, or fought, in other countries and terrorism here at home".
But he added: "That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children.
"Those terrorists will forever be reviled and implacably held to account for their actions.
"The blame is with the terrorists, but if we are to protect our people we must be honest about what threatens our security."
He said the causes "certainly cannot be reduced to foreign policy decisions alone" and said the prison system, where a "subculture of often suicidal violence" had developed among some young men, was also in need of "resources and reform".
Mr Corbyn also said that a Labour government would fund more police and ensure the security services had sufficient resources "to keep track of those who wish to murder and maim".
On deploying British troops, he said he would tell them: "You will only be deployed abroad when there is a clear need and only when there is a plan that you have the resources to do your job and secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace".
'Extraordinary and inexplicable'
Former MI5 chief Baroness Manningham-Buller told the Iraq Inquiry in 2010 that the 2003 invasion of Iraq had "undoubtedly increased" the terror threat to the UK and had radicalised "a few among a generation who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam".
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionFloral tributes have been laid to the victims of Monday's terror attack
Speaking in London at a press conference with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Boris Johnson said: "Now is not the time to do anything to subtract from the fundamental responsibility of those individuals, that individual in particular, who committed this atrocity.
"And I think it is absolutely monstrous that anybody should seek to do so.
"I have to say I find it absolutely extraordinary and inexplicable in this week of all weeks that there should be any attempt to justify or to legitimate the actions of terrorists in this way."
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the way to deal with terrorism was about being "tough at home" with anti-terror laws and powers for police and security forces, while taking military action "when you have attacks being planned against this country".
He added: "It is a fact of record that Jeremy Corbyn has opposed every serious piece of anti-terrorism legislation throughout his time in Parliament."
Media captionLabour's Barry Gardiner tells Today attackers use western military interventions "as an excuse"
Lib Dem Leader Tim Farron said he did not agree with what Mr Corbyn said, "but I disagree even more that now is the time to say it.
"That's not leadership, it's putting politics before people at a time of tragedy."
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said the only people to blame for the Manchester terror attack were "the man who carried it out and anybody else who aided and abetted him".
"But we must have a proper debate about foreign policy and whether that is helping or hindering the challenges, including terrorism, that the world faces today."
Paul Nuttall, leader of UKIP, said he "tended to agree" with Mr Corbyn on the link between British foreign policy and an increased UK terror threat.
"If the Tories got their way we would have ended up in Syria now, and it would have been even worse.
"However, I hope Jeremy Corbyn isn't using this as an excuse for what happened the other night."
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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