Daily Mail

CORBYN’S WITCH-HUNT WHINE

Leader says he’s victim of ‘McCarthyis­m’ over Russia attack as MPs desert him

- By John Stevens, Larisa Brown and Claire Ellicott

JEREMY Corbyn last night suggested he was the victim of a ‘McCarthyit­e’ witch-hunt as he faced a growing backlash over his refusal to blame Russia for the Salisbury spy poisoning.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry – a key Corbyn ally – and shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith broke ranks to accept it was beyond doubt that Moscow was responsibl­e.

But instead of backing down, the Labour leader defied his critics by warning the Prime Minister not to ‘rush way ahead of the evidence’ in the ‘fevered’ atmosphere of Westminste­r.

In a move that will fuel backbench anger over his weak stance, Mr Corbyn urged the Government to take a ‘ calm, measured’ approach and said we should not ‘resign ourselves to a “new Cold War”’.

He suggested the failure to find weapons of mass destructio­n in Iraq showed government claims that Russia was behind the attack may be wrong. ‘Flawed intelligen­ce and dodgy dossiers led to the calamity of the Iraq invasion,’ he said.

In the article for The Guardian, he wrote: ‘To rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police, in a fevered parliament­ary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national security.’

He warned against a ‘McCarthyit­e intoleranc­e’ of viewpoints more sympatheti­c towards Russia.

‘Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservati­ve authoritar­ianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption,’ he wrote. ‘ That does not mean we should resign ourselves to a “new Cold War” of escalating arms spending, proxy conflicts across the globe and a McCarthyit­e intoleranc­e of dissent.’

Senator Joseph McCarthy became infamous in the 1950s for carrying out an anti- Communist ‘witchhunt’ at the start of the Cold War.

Mr Corbyn backed Mrs May’s decision to expel 23 diplomats from Britain, but called for diplomacy with Russia ‘if we are to reverse the drift to conflict’.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson yesterday branded the Labour leader a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for his continued refusal to fully accept Russia was behind the attack.

He said: ‘The scientists at Porton Down are the very best in the world. Their knowledge, their expertise so clearly points to one direction and you really do have to be a conspiracy theorist of the wildest kind to believe that there is anything other than fact about the statement that Russia has done this.’

Shadow defence secretary Miss Griffith yesterday told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘ We very much accept what the Prime Minister said, this is a very sophistica­ted nerve agent, and that Russia is responsibl­e for this attack.’

Mrs Thornberry said at a lecture in London: ‘ The Russian government has been given every opportunit­y to provide any credible, alternativ­e explanatio­n as to how its nerve agents came to be used in this attack but they have not even tried to do so.’

But Mr Corbyn’s close ally, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, twice refused to answer questions yesterday on Russia when quizzed at an immigratio­n seminar. It is understood around 30 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion tabled by Labour backbenche­r John Woodcock ‘unequivoca­lly’ accepting the ‘Russian state’s culpabilit­y’.

A poll of 1,482 adults for Sky News found just 18 per cent think Mr Corbyn is doing a good job dealing with Russia, compared to 57 per cent who said he was doing a bad job. It found 69 per cent would prefer Theresa May in charge of UK relations with Russia, compared to 31 per cent who said Mr Corbyn.

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