Corbyn pledges to issue public apology for Iraq war if he wins Labour leadership

LABOUR leadership favourite Jeremy Corbyn has said he would apologise for the Iraq war if he wins the contest to replace Ed Miliband next month.

The surprise frontrunner said he will issue a formal apology on behalf of Labour which led the country into the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent conflict under Tony Blair.

Mr Corbyn, who fiercely opposed the war at the time, said Mr Blair had taken Britain into the conflict “on the basis of deception” and that his decision to support then-us president George W Bush in a joint invasion had cost Labour millions of voters.

Mr Corbyn said in a statement: “It is past time that Labour apologised to the British people for taking them into the Iraq war on the basis of deception and to the Iraqi people for the suffering we have helped cause. Under our Labour, we will make this apology.”

He went on: “It has also lost Labour the votes of millions of our natural supporters, who marched and protested against the war.

“We turned our backs on them and many of them have either withheld their votes from us or felt disillusioned, unenthusiastic and unmotivated.”

Mr Blair has been heavily critical of Mr Corbyn’s candidacy, insisting he would make the party unelectable.

Mr Corbyn also suggested that military interventions would be rarer under his leadership, given the convention of governments seeking parliamentary approval before taking action. His comments could prove significant, as David Cameron is widely expected to ask MPS approve air strikes against IS in Syria.

Mr Corbyn said: “Let us say we will never again unnecessarily put our troops under fire and our country’s standing in the world at risk.

“Let us make it clear that Labour will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law.”

But earlier Mr Corbyn was forced to defend comments in which he appeared to compare the actions of IS militants in Iraq with those of the US military during the war. He made the comments in June last year in an interview with Moscow-funded news channel Russia Today.

It came as Tony Blair’s former attorney general said David Cameron should “pull the plug” on the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War and give Parliament a vote to force a timetable for the long-delayed report’s publication.

Lord Morris of Aberavon, who was the former prime minister’s chief legal adviser from 1997 until 1999, before the 2003 invasion, said the families of soldiers killed in the conflict have been done a gross disservice by the delays.

Much of the anger is focused on the so-called “Maxwellisation” process, which gives the opportunity to individuals facing possible criticism in the report to respond.