The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Malignant maverick
As an opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn has provided a certain amount of merriment from time to time – not because of his wit, which is largely non-existent, but because he divides opinion so sharply.
He has kept the Commons on its toes, not thanks to his political skills, but rather his lunatic fringe agenda and parallel universe version of events.
Any extremist, left or right, is obviously not harmless, but the Labour leader has been more of a maverick than a malignant force in British life – until now.
His refusal to defend Britain against the unacceptable behaviour of two foreign dictators has exposed him as an enemy, not just of the Tories, but of his own country.
First, he questioned whether Vladimir Putin was responsible for the chemical attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, saying he hadn’t seen “incontrovertible evidence”.
This was despite confirmation last week that the military-grade nerve agent Novichok had been used in the assault, a poison only the Russians could have deployed.
And then he appeared to give credence to the Russian foreign minister’s claim that the British were behind the recent outrage in Syria, in which innocent civilians were gassed.
This latest atrocity by the Russianbacked regime of Bashar al-assad, in the Syrian town of Douma, has become the tipping point for the West.
A long overdue strike against Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile was mounted on Saturday, by the UK, the US and France.
Given our recent history of intervention in Middle East conflicts, any military action is going to be controversial and an opposition party would not be doing its job if it didn’t demand a parliamentary debate on the matter.
Theresa May didn’t wait to be asked. When parliament resumed on Monday, she gave MPS the chance to challenge her decision, which had been taken on the advice of experts and without a Westminster vote.
She said much of the intelligence on which the action was based could not have been shared with MPS and a swift response was needed to safeguard the troops and prevent further suffering.
“We have always been clear that the government has the right to act quickly in the national interest,” she said.
There have been many incidents of governments sanctioning military involvement without recourse to parliament – as the Labour MP Mike Gapes spelt out.
Constitutionally, power over foreign affairs can be exercised by the executive via the royal prerogative. This was the normal practice until Tony Blair set the precedent for getting parliament’s permission in 1998 and 2003.
There is also the fact that May had little option to act as she did. Britain was committed to going into Syria with two other countries – the US and France – and could not then stand by while her MPS discussed the pros and cons.
But Corbyn is not concerned with the protocols of the past or the realities of the present. His insistence that the UN must approve any further strikes on Syria is, as he knows, pointless because Russia would use its veto to block such a move, as it has done to date.
He has called the strikes “legally questionable” and called for a war powers act to make the prime minister more accountable.
This is not just Corbyn rattling the cage. His reaction has proven once and for all that he cannot be taken seriously as a contender for Number 10.
There are rare occasions when politicians of all persuasions must trust the elected leadership to do what is right. Michael Foot, a Labour radical of another era, was with Margaret Thatcher when she responded to the fascist aggression in the Falklands.
May has made the argument that Saturday’s deployment was justified on moral grounds: Syria has repeatedly flouted international law on chemical arms and has to be taught a lesson.
All the Nato allies have given the military action their full support and while dissenting voices were to be expected from the fiercely partisan make-up of the current House of Commons, a principled opposition leader would have ultimately come down on the side of patriotic consensus.
Not Jeremy Corbyn, though. Far from conceding that a tyrant had killed enough of his own people and something needed to be done, he questioned who was responsible for the attack in Douma.
While it was “highly likely” that Assad was behind it, he said, other groups had carried out similar attacks and weapons inspectors must continue their work. This is not political opposition, it is borderline treachery.
What would Corbyn’s stance have been against Hitler, one wonders. Would he have sought “incontrovertible evidence” of that despot’s crimes before agreeing to fight for his country, or would he, as now, have chosen to give a murderous monster the benefit of the doubt over his democratically chosen premier?