Jeremy Corbyn's leadership bid was supposed to inspire debate, yet none of the other candidates have challenged him on foreign policy
Jeremy Corbyn’s latest opinion on foreign policy is that the UK should show more respect to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Like his other announcements, they are going unchallenged by his rivals in the Labour leadership contest.
Like French far-right leader Marine Le Penn and UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Corbyn thinks that NATO, rather than Vladimir Putin, is at fault for the crisis in Ukraine.
Indeed, Stop the War Coalition, of which Corbyn is chair, regularly pushes pieces so blinkered they could well have been written by the Kremlin itself, such as the ridiculously titled ‘Why the United States launched its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.’
Moreover, Corbyn expressed regret that Poland was allowed to join NATO, claiming that, ‘We should have gone down the road Ukraine went down in 1990’ (because that has worked out so well).
There’s more. Corbyn’s associations with anti-Semites include: his ‘friends’ Hamas and Hezbollah, his praise for a blood-libel-spreading, 9/11 conspiracy theorist Islamist preacher, who he even invited to take tea on the terrace of the House of Commons, moonlighting for George Galloway on Iranian government propaganda channel Press TV, allegedly donating money to a pressure group run by a holocaust denier and deemed too extreme by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and defending a priest who shared on social media an article entitled ‘9/11: Israel did it’.
As far as I am aware, none of the current Labour leadership contenders have sought to challenge Corbyn’s views on these issues.
It is staggering that Labour Party figures accuse Corbyn of wanting to return to the days of British Leyland or a ‘Soviet-style’ economy simply for wanting to bring the railways into public ownership (something Andy Burnham claims to support), but will say nothing about his repeated association with anti-Semitic figures or his anti-NATO, pro-Russia, pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah stances.
Even in Alistair Campbell’s blog urging people to vote for anyone but Corbyn, there is no proper attempt to challenge Corbyn’s ideology; he simply says Corbyn would be bad for the Labour Party.
If Corbyn can still be defeated it will only be through convincing the party members and supporters why he is wrong – not simply saying he is wrong over and over again.
Whether one agrees with him or not, to the vast majority of people Corbyn comes across as a genuine character, with deeply held convictions (and a record for being the most rebellious Labour MP to back this up). He speaks to Labour members and supporters outraged by the fact the party leadership made such a mess on the welfare bill. Like them, he opposed it and like them, he does not want to tack further to the right.
It is perfectly understandable that party members and supporters are more inclined to vote for someone who comes across as a conviction politician – someone who talks about wanting to turn the party back into a social movement – rather than vote for someone based on whether or not the Tories will fear them.
Put bluntly, people voting for Corbyn know he will not do a Nick Clegg.
By contrast, rival candidates come across as though they are continuing Ed Miliband’s strategy of Balkanising voters: thinking that if they can simply say the right thing to different groups of supporters then they will secure their nominations – clearly this did not work for Ed and is failing epically at present.
There are very serious arguments to be had over many of Corbyn’s views and it’s puzzling that his rival candidates haven’t offered a more extensive critique of them; simply attempting to scare party members into not voting for Corbyn, just saying that he is bad, has failed.
Several MPs claimed they were backing Corbyn not because they support him, but in order to ‘broaden the debate.’ Even at this late stage, can we actually have that debate?
Lorin Bell-Cross is a researcher at BICOM and assistant editor of Fathom Journal. He is writing in a personal capacity. Follow him on Twitter.
241 Responses to “Why is no one challenging Jeremy Corbyn on foreign policy?”
Cole
The term ’emotional spasm’ phrase was actually Nye Bevan’s – on a previous occasion when Labour was in danger of veering to the unelectable left. Probably the Corbynites think he was a Tory – and probably Attlee too because he helped set up NATO.
I’m sympathetic to some of Corbyn’s views on the economy (though suggesting reopening coal mines is classically bonkers), but his views on foreign policy, neatly outlined in the article above, are abhorrent.
DemSoc93
I know where emotional spasm comes from. Presumably you think Bevan and Attlee are hard left dreamers consigning the poor and needy to their doom with the welfare state and progressive taxation.
Abhorrent is a strong word for making mountains out of molehills, as most of the LFF articles on Corbyn’s foreign policy have done, as I said above.
In any case, now you’ve caricatured my view and I yours, will you be answering any of the questions I asked?
stevep
I expect I could think of far nicer things to say about it, but I`m struggling.
Let`s just call it quits and say that it was the biggest waste of a landslide majority in parliamentary history.
Lamia
You are obviously beneath arguing with.
You are obviously unable to refute the point that Russia has annexed other countries’ territory in the past few years. Not surprisingly really, because it’s an unpleasant fact.
Pete Yelding
Right so this article has pretty much misunderstood every aspect of Corbyn’s extremely progressive approach to foreign policy. If you look back to his C4 interview with KGM he explains how he was using the tern of phrase ‘friends’ in relation to Hezbollah and Hamas, which translates across many languages and cultures, especially arabic, very simply as a polite and honourable starting point for a conversation. It is actually quite laughable that the mainstream media and those that absorb it back home on this tiny (much tinier than it thinks) Island often lack don’t recognise extremely useful diplomacy with regards to forming positive relationships in the international, extremely volatile (which we have a lot of responsibility for) political climate. This very simple (completely un-radical by the way) approach to unbiased international diplomacy is also apparent in his words about Russia. Think about the life time of anti-Russia propaganda we have had dangled in front of us from the UK and US (every baddy in the bond films, in fact many action films as a trivial example) – after a while any kind of public altering of that narrative is deemed as outright support. What is overlooked here is, again much more progressive, an understanding that our perception of international affairs or to quote Malcom X our “Yard Stick” isn’t the only one and to enforce that as the only way is in fact harking back to the imperial days where we foolishly championed ourselves as the bastions of moral values and civilisation. In reality these are entirely flexible and undefinable as absolutes. The only way to solve this is to establish relationships with others that are not so reductionist as right or wrong – this some times results in holding your own to account for not listening to the other side and taking an assertive stance on that for a greater good…
Now a spectator journalist would decry that as “cultural relativism” and would jump to accuse Corbyn of such also. This term often finds itself in the same paragraph as “post-colonial guilt” and is much like a lot of the right wing’s rhetoric nothing more than a get out clause for avoiding having to engage consciously with messy areas of neo-liberal pro-Western supremacist consequences. Corbyn’s approach to dealing with international affairs is far more likely to aid peace and equality across the globe than hinder it. As some one very much concerned with international affairs, in fact Corbyn’s foreign policy is the only one I see as useful and more immediately feasible from any of the parties, not just the mainstream.