Fury of Labour Remainers after Corbyn’s attack on ‘EU Frankenstein’
What it does is create this military machine, this military Frankenstein, which will be so damaging to us all
JEREMY Corbyn faced a furious backlash from Labour Remainers last night after a newly unearthed video exposed his loathing of the EU.
The footage showed him attacking Brussels as a ‘European empire of the 21st century’ and a ‘military Frankenstein’.
Shot in 2009, it also showed Mr Corbyn, then a little-known backbench MP, attacking the idea of the Irish holding a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Pro-EU Labour MPs said it showed why the Labour leader was going to ‘facilitate’ Brexit, and once again questioned whether he actually voted Remain in 2016.
Senior Labour backbencher Owen Smith said: ‘ This is why Corbyn was always going to facilitate Brexit if he could: because he’s always believed in escaping the “European empire”. ‘But he voted ‘Remain’, of course...’ Labour Remainers have long harboured doubts about Mr Corbyn’s commitment to staying in the EU, and complained about his lacklustre efforts during the referendum campaign.
Mr Corbyn is a longstanding member of the deeply Eurosceptic Bennite wing of the Labour Party.
But the video was welcomed by pro-Brexit campaigners. Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage wrote on Twitter: ‘Love this speech by Corbyn on the second Irish referendum, he is a real Eurosceptic. His role will be crucial over the next few weeks. Will the real Jeremy Corbyn please stand up?’
Some pro-Brexit MPs hope Mr Corbyn’s longstanding antipathy towards the EU will help influence Labour’s position on Brexit in the coming weeks.
They also believe it means he is highly unlikely to back a second referendum.
The video, which was published by Labour gossip website The Red Roar, shows Mr Corbyn mocking the concept of holding repeated votes on the same issue. He was addressing an audience of Irish activists the year after the country rejected the controversial Lisbon Treaty by 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent.
Lisbon created the first president of Europe and a European foreign minister, handed new powers to the EU and limited the influence of member states.
Britain’s right to veto new EU rules in more than 40 policy areas was also removed.
In his speech, Mr Corbyn said: ‘Don’t scrap your posters, don’t recycle them, because you’re going to need them for a third referendum. Because I’ve got a feeling they’re going to keep on voting until they get the answer they want.’
He also argued that Lisbon made the EU ‘subservient to the wishes of Nato’, adding: ‘We are creating here one massive great Frankenstein which will damage all of us in the long run. What it does is create this military machine, this military Frankenstein, which will be so damaging to all of us.’
Mr Corbyn, the then vicechairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was speaking at a meeting organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement, which has strong links to the UK’s Socialist Workers Party.
‘If you succeed in getting a no vote here that will be such a boost to people like us, all over Europe, who do not want to live in a European empire of the 21st century,’ he said.
‘Now I’m pleased you’re having a referendum, I wish we were having a referendum in Britain.’
Ireland was the only EU nation to put the terms of the Lisbon Treaty to a referendum. The second referendum was won by the pro-EU campaign, receiving more than two thirds of the vote, after the EU offered new ‘guarantees’ on Irish sovereignty.
A spokesman for the Labour leader said yesterday: ‘Jeremy’s criticisms of the Lisbon Treaty over a lack of democracy in the EU, its strengthening of neoliberal economic policies and potential military expansion are well known.
‘That’s why he campaigned both to remain and reform in the 2016 EU referendum , so it could live up to the promise of a social Europe.
‘He is clear that a public vote must remain an option on the table to prevent the damage of a No Deal exit from the EU.’
In the 1975 referendum, Mr Corbyn voted for Britain to leave the European Economic Community. He also opposed the creation of the EU under the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.
A Briton kidnapped by islamic State seven years ago is still alive, the security minister claimed yesterday.
Ben Wallace said John Cantlie was still being held by the terror group – its last UK hostage – without revealing the source of his information.
the journalist was captured twice in Syria in 2012. the first time he was released thanks to the Free Syrian Army – but when he returned he was kidnapped again.
He has appeared in several propaganda videos for iS and was last put in front of the cameras, looking tired and gaunt, in a video released in December 2016. Since then there have been conflicting reports regarding his fate. it was claimed he was killed when the iS stronghold of Mosul fell but, as recently as last month, there were reports he was still alive.
Mr Wallace’s announcement came as a surprise to Mr Cantlie’s family, who tweeted: ‘We are aware of the current news circulating that John Cantlie is alive, whilst this is not substantiated at present, we continue to hope and pray that this turns out to be true.’
Mr Cantlie has worked for British publications including the Sunday times, the Sun and the Sunday telegraph.
Mr Wallace said the British government’s policy was not to pay ransoms and he would not discuss the possibility of any rescue mission. His comments came a day after the US called on Britain and others to take home their islamic State jihadis captured in Syria.
A spokesman for the State Department said other nations should repatriate and prosecute.
More than six British passport holders are in jails in northern Syria after being captured by Kurdish forces on the battlefield. they include two members of the notorious ‘ Beatles’ execution gang, Londoners Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh.
they are expected to face trial in the US for their role in the murder of Americans. Britain has so far refused to take jihadis back. Mr Cantlie was captured with James Foley, a 40-year-old US journalist who became the first public victim of ‘Beatles’ executioner Mohammed Emwazi. Known as Jihadi John, he was killed in a missile strike in Syria in 2015.
‘Continue to hope and pray’