Fury as Labour hopeful demands: Let’s talk to IS
LABOUR leadership contender Owen Smith was accused of being unfit for high office last night after suggesting Islamic State terrorists should be invited ‘round the table’ for peace talks.
In an extraordinary gaffe, he claimed ‘all of the actors’ involved in the Syrian civil war would have to be brought into negotiations if there was to be a successful conclusion to the conflict.
By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn suggested that IS should never be invited to peace talks, saying: ‘They’re not going to be round the table, no.’
The hard-Left party leader’s aides seized on his rival’s ‘ill-considered’ remarks, made during a debate on the BBC yesterday, as a sign that he is soft on terror.
Conservatives, meanwhile, said Mr Smith’s words showed that whoever won the Labour leadership election would be unable to keep the country safe.
A Tory member of the Commons defence select committee, former Army officer Johnny Mercer, said the remarks showed Mr Smith’s ‘unfitness for leadership’.
And Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, warned: ‘This sort of delusional sickness affects Labour widely. How could anybody
‘Negotiating with barbarians’
possibly take seriously a man who proposes negotiation with such barbarians?’
After the outcry, Mr Smith tried to row back, saying there should be ‘absolutely no negotiation’ with IS ‘until they renounce violence’.
Mr Corbyn has previously indicated he would not oppose ‘back-channel’ diplomatic contact with IS, but he said he did not want to see ‘dialogue’ with the group.
His rival’s remarks go much further, giving the leader’s allies a rare chance to paint Mr Owen as soft on terror.
Asked by presenter Victoria Derbyshire whether IS should be included in peace talks, Mr Smith said: ‘Ultimately all solutions to these crises do come about through dialogue. So eventually if we are to try and solve this, all of the actors do need to be involved.
‘At the moment, Isil are clearly not interested in negotiating. At some point, for us to resolve this, we will need to get people round the table.’
Mr Mercer said: ‘Everyone knows negotiation is far more desirable than violence in any conflict, but to suggest it in this case is to entirely misunderstand and fail to grasp the challenge posed by Daesh (IS).
‘His desperate attempts to outCorbyn Jeremy Corbyn have led him to the view that barbaric murderers who behead journalists and lynch homosexuals are the sort of people we should negotiate with.’
Col Kemp said both sides in the leadership battle were soft on IS, but the group would never negotiate anyway. ‘IS want only to massacre, torture, rape, subjugate and expand sharia rule across the Middle East and the globe,’ he added.
During the debate, Mr Smith accused Mr Corbyn of failing to crack down on anti-Semitic and misogynistic abuse in the party, but the leader insisted: ‘I have made absolutely clear that any kind of abuse is totally unacceptable.’
A poll for Ipsos Mori yesterday found more Labour supporters were satisfied with Theresa May than with their own leader.