Corbyn backs inquiry chairman over Blair comments

JEREMY CORBYN has said he agrees with Iraq War inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot that Tony Blair was not straight with the country in the run-up to the conflict.

Asked if he agreed with Sir John, Mr Corbyn said: “I have made that very clear in the past year, and, yes, I do. The case against the Iraq War is a very strong one. We have got to think very carefully as a country what has happened since the Iraq War and the consequences that flowed from what I believe was a catastrophically wrong decision in 2003.”

Asked if there would be further consequences for Mr Blair, the Labour leader said: “Well, I understand there are some preparatory legal proceedings going on. I’m more interested, actually, in what we do as a country, how we develop foreign policy, what the intervention strategy is in the future.”

Mr Corbyn said: “A year ago Sir John produced his report, which came on the back of other reports, including the Butler Report, all of which indicated that there was an interpretation placed on advice that Tony Blair was given that was simply not correct and we ended up going to war with Iraq and the consequences are still with us.”

Pressed on whether Labour coAsked how a future Labour government would do things differently, Mr Corbyn said: “We would base our foreign policy on peace, on justice, on democracy, on human rights. The default position would not be to intervene, the default position would be to bring about a political solution and we would put huge effort into achieving that.”