Jeremy corbyn

The Syria missile strike has been backed by the governments of Germany, Canada, New Zealand and more – but not Jeremy Corbyn. Not for him the convention of the Opposition leader supporting the government in issues of war and peace. ‘I say to the Prime Minister: where is the legal case for this?’ he told Andrew Marr this morning. The legal case has been published here, at some length. Corbyn then suggested that international OPCW inspectors should be called in to judge what had happened. But is there any doubt about what happened? Today, the Sunday Times publishes testimonies of victims of the gas attack: accounts of differing people corroborate the

The best that can be said for Jeremy Corbyn’s response to air strikes against the Assad regime is that he is at least consistent. Why did he assert that the smart cuff meted out last night risked ‘escalating further… an already devastating conflict’? Because in Corbyn’s worldview, it is the felling of chemical weapons factories, not the extermination of children with the chemical weapons those factories produce, that escalates conflict. Why did he echo Syrian state media in questioning the legality of military action? Because Corbyn is a cynic who calculates that feigning concern for the global rules-based order — something he believes in only intermittently — is useful for stalling, deflection and water-muddying.

There are many figures in the Labour party who wish that Jeremy Corbyn would stay schtum on foreign policy. Whether it’s his anti-West views, warm feeling towards his ‘friends’ Hamas or complicated relationship with Russia, when the Labour leader turns to international affairs, many of his MPs look on in despair. But up until now Mr S had thought that the shadow cabinet were at least on his side. Perhaps not. In an interview with the House magazine, Kate Osamor – the shadow  international development secretary – suggests Corbyn should stop commenting on foreign policy and ‘just let his spokesperson speak’. Referring to Corbyn’s comments this week on the situation

What is it, psychologically, that makes it so hard for Jeremy Corbyn to recognise that some of his supporters are horrible people with horrible views (in this case, raving anti-Semites)? I remember asking myself the same question, in the early 1980s, about Tony Benn. I used to attend Labour party conferences and their numerous left-wing fringe meetings (often addressed by Benn’s no. 1 fan, J. Corbyn). Benn was always there, always courteous, genially smoking his pipe. Often, however, his supporters would say extremist things, and sometimes they would yell foul abuse — either at party and trade union moderates or at the media. Never once was Benn vile himself, but never once

When I lived in the Soviet Union in my early twenties, I developed a personal hostility to socialism. I saw the misery it had visited on that society – the political, spiritual and economic harm. I understood at first-hand how the secret police corrupted personal and public life, how state propaganda denied freedom of thought and how the regime hid the slaughter and imprisonment of millions of its own people. I came to the conclusion that whichever totalitarian power had survived World War II – Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union – they would probably have looked much the same by the time of their demise. I never understood why Westerners did not

The supporters of Jeremy Corbyn are meant to comprise the most cultish movement British politics has seen. Yet on the issue of left anti-Semitism they do not blindly follow their leader. For once in their lives, they give every impression of thinking for themselves. Corbyn has come as close as he can to admitting a mistake – which by most people’s standards is not close at all. Like Stalin airbrushing his own history, he has deleted his Facebook account. He did not explain how he found himself a member of Facebook groups that featured Holocaust denial, or defending  medieval fanatics who believe Jews drink the blood of Christian children, or

Jeremy Corbyn’s loyalists might howl at the suggestion that his style is similar to President Erdogan’s. But they would do well to pay heed to the parallels. The Turkish strongman, like the Labour leader, puts great effort into polishing his image as a pluralist and an ally of the minorities. On Friday he sent his customary Passover message to Turkey’s Jewish community, telling them that he regards them as ‘an inseparable part’ of the country. He did the same for Turkey’s Christians as they celebrated Easter on Saturday, adding that ‘(our) diversity is our treasure’. A day later, though, Erdogan stood in front of a crowd of his faithful and

This week, Jeremy Corbyn said he was ‘sincerely sorry’ for the pain that had been caused to the Jewish community by anti-Semitism in ‘pockets’ within the Labour Party. Alas, his apology wasn’t enough to stop protesters – including some of his party colleagues – gathering in Parliament Square on Monday to voice their concerns. Nor were Corbyn’s comments enough to dissuade some of his more loyal supporters that allegations of anti-Semitism aren’t always an MSM smear designed to keep the Tories in No 10. So that readers can make up their own mind as to the size of those ‘pockets’, below is a list which has been compiled detailing alleged incidents

The Labour Party brings to mind any number of Yiddish expressions — most of them involving the performance of lavatorial functions — but none more so than the proverb Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs.  The Almighty’s black humour is surely at work in the resignation of Christine Shawcroft, chair of the Labour Party disputes panel. The woman responsible for rooting out anti-Semitism has been caught defending a council candidate accused of posting Holocaust-denying content on social media. In a leaked internal email, Shawcroft called for Peterborough’s Alan Bull to be reinstated after suspension for ‘a Facebook post taken completely out of context and alleged

At last Jeremy Corbyn is being made to pay a price for Labour’s anti-Semitism under his leadership. It has now, for the first time, become definitely hard for him to get through mainstream interviews. He is challenged, and although his answers bend to the wind of criticism a little, this affords him no respite. His repeated response of saying how much he ‘detests all racism’ is like Sinn Fein’s traditional denunciation of violence ‘wherever it comes from’ — an evasion. His demeanour raises wider questions about whether he will ever answer anything which is difficult: there is a reason, after all, why he has not agreed to be interviewed on the

We may be witnessing a #MeToo moment in Labour anti-Semitism. Britain’s Jews, so damn accommodating and willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, have finally snapped and said ‘enough is enough’. At 5.30pm tonight they will gather in Westminster to protest in the most British way imaginable by handing the Labour Party a strongly-worded letter. The letter calls Jeremy Corbyn a ‘figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture’ and says he has repeatedly ‘sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews’. If anything, it goes a little easy on him.  The spark was Corbyn’s defence of, and dissembling over, an anti-Semitic mural in east London but the frustrations have been building up