No just war since 1945, says Corbyn
I’d only use military as last resort, says Labour leader, as he claims Second World War was UK’S last valid conflict
BRITAIN has not fought a just conflict since the Second World War, Jeremy Corbyn has claimed, insisting that he would only authorise military action as a “genuine last resort”.
Mr Corbyn refused to commit to sending British troops to defend a Nato ally which was under attack, saying he would seek economic and diplomatic solutions to any crisis.
The Labour leader, who is a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, raised questions about the future of the Trident nuclear deterrent, saying that it would be included in a defence review if Labour wins the election.
A Labour MP pointed to how Mr Corbyn had supported the IRA when it was bombing mainland Britain in the Eighties, saying: “He’s just anti-western military interventions.”
Mr Corbyn’s comments were also attacked by Rob Gray, an Army veteran who was jeered for challenging Mr Corbyn over his views on prosecuting veterans in Northern Ireland this week.
Mr Gray said: “The man’s an idiot. Jeremy Corbyn is an insult to friends of mine who died in Northern Ireland because he will not support British troops. The man does not care about our war dead, he cares more about the IRA dead, Hizbollah dead.”
Later Catherine West, a shadow foreign minister, admitted that Mr Corbyn might not have sent the task force to liberate the Falklands after Argentina invaded in 1982. Ms West said Mr Corbyn’s “initial reactions and his instincts … would have been to make discussions, negotiations and talks a higher priority”.
Confronted with Mr Corbyn’s 1982 comments describing the Falklands as a Tory plot, she said: “A lot of things happened in that conflict that not all of us feel very proud of.”
Speaking to the Chatham House think tank, Mr Corbyn was asked to name a “conflict that British troops have deployed to since the Second World War that you have supported”.
The Labour leader replied: “There are deployments – largely through the United Nations – that I think are the right things to do.”
He singled out the UN’S role in ending the civil wars in East Timor and Cyprus and the “incredible work done by Royal Marines” to save migrants in the Mediterranean.
Mr Corbyn questioned “the legitimacy” of the First World War, but viewed the Second World War as a just conflict.
A former chairman of the Stop the War coalition, he also questioned Tony Blair’s decision to intervene militarily in Kosovo and Sierra Leone in the late Nineties.
In his speech in central London, Mr Corbyn denied that he was a pacifist but said the “bomb first, talk later” approach to security taken by the Conservative government had failed.
He said: “The best defence for Britain is a government actively engaged in seeking peaceful solutions to the world’s problems.
“It doesn’t make me a pacifist. I accept that military action, under international law and as a genuine last resort, is in some circumstances necessary.”
The Labour leader failed to say explicitly that he would launch nuclear weapons to protect Britain’s interests.
He added: “If circumstances arose where that was a real option, it would represent complete and cataclysmic failure.
“It would mean world leaders had already triggered a spiral of catastrophe for humankind.”
Mr Corbyn pledged that RAF bombing raids on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) targets in Syria and Iraq would also be immediately reviewed should Labour win the election. His remarks were criticised by Lord West of Spithead, a former Labour shadow defence minister.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “I fought in the Falklands War – that was a just war because the people in those islands did not want to be under the control of Argentina.”