Corbyn’s biggest mistake is wanting to be seen as standing up for the underdog
May I congratulate you on your thoughtful editorial on Jeremy Corbyn’s foreign policyspeech ,“corbynh as asked a legitimate question” (27 May).
Unlike “clever” interviewers like Andrew Neil who try to reduce very complex questions to simple yes/no answers, you also noted that “the Labour leader chose his words carefully, insisting that the UK involvement in foreign wars ‘in no way reduced the guilt’ of the terrorist”.
Corbyn did not claim that Britain’s involvement in foreign wars “caused” the terrorism many countries are now facing. He said that the lack of a proper plan to deal with the aftermath of the wars “creat- ed a situation” of chaos which was exploited by organisations like IS. Just as the Treaty of Versailles did not create Nazism, the allies’ determination to make Germany pay dearly for the First World War reduced that country to its knees and created a situation which Hitler exploited, so too the toppling of Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi without a well-thought follow-up plan allowed IS to take over.
Andrew Neil and Co keep trying to force Corbyn to condemn the IRA “unequivocally” for their atrocities and refuse to hear his reply that he condemned the atrocities committed by both sides in Ireland. They also twist his statement that all wars involving “terrorists” (ie those who take up arms against the existing regime) are ultimately resolved by talking, not by bombs and bullets.
Corbyn’s opponents try to write him off as weak and unpatriotic, even describing him as a traitor, but they do not respond to the powerful point he makes that “the war on terror is not working”.
Whether you like him or not, possibly his biggest mistake in the past has been that he has always wanted to be seen as standing up for the underdog. The previous treatment of Catholics as second-class citizens in Northern Ireland didn’t cause the conflict there but was one of the factors which contributed to the troubles. Equally, the treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis has made it possible for Hamas to flourish.
It is that standing up for the underdog that characterises Labour’s manifesto and is resonating with the public. They realise that most of the population are being penalised for a financial crisis they did not create, while those responsible for it are still minting the money. There is a fairer way to redress this imbalance and bring hope to ordinary folk who are struggling to make ends meet.
Smearing Jeremy Corbyn may be effective politically, but it does not address the problems facing the UK at this time.
HENRY L PHILIP Grange Loan, Edinburgh As far as making excuses or offering “solutions’’ for terrorism goes, Jeremy Corbyn fails on every front.
His suggestion that the terror problem we are currently facing in the UK is due to our part in the “war on terror’’ is most interesting. His solution apparently amounts to giving over for approval to a deranged group of terrorist child slaughterers the foreign policy and action sofa democratic ally-elected western government.
Mr Corbyn does not seem to realise that kow-towing to terrorists demonstrably does not work – many of the anti-war on terror countries such as Spain, and even Muslim countries like Morocco and Indonesia have suffered horrific acts of mindless terrorism in their streets and trains and on their beaches; 9/11 happened before the war on terror in the Middle East that Mr Corbyn blames for all the problems.
Does he not realise these people attack whenever and wherever they are able to – and that they do not all sit somewhere discussing which country they will attack next, depending on its foreign policy?
ALEXANDER MCKAY New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh