Left-wing activist vows to keep party in the red
LEADING Welsh Labour left-winger Darren Williams has called for a future UK Labour government to adopt an uncompromising anti-war and anti-nuclear stance.
Mr Williams, who sits on Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee and is a founder of Welsh Labour Grassroots, the sister organisation of Momentum in Wales, argues that Jeremy Corbyn’s wish to pursue a less militaristic agenda is being constrained by MPs on the right of the party.
Writing in Planet magazine, Mr Williams states that the Blair government’s involvement in Iraq “has probably been more devastating in its effects than anything done by a previous Labour government: not just the continuous cycle of violence and destruction within Iraq itself, but the destabilisation of the whole Middle East, the growth of violent fundamentalism, the clampdown on civil liberties around the world etc.”
Mr Williams writes that “revulsion at Blair’s warmongering among Labour members and supporters was one of the main elements of the demand for change that found expression in support for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign”.
He states: “In foreign and defence policy, in particular, it’s difficult to overstate the significance of Labour now being led by someone who joined CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) as a schoolboy in 1966, and went on to become its vice chair, as well as co-founder of the Stop the War Coalition after 9/11.
“His election has begun to challenge the cross-party political consensus in support of so-called ‘humanitarian interventionism’.”
Mr Williams, a full-time official with the PCS union, argues that while there were moves in that direction in last year’s Labour General Election manifesto, it also boasted that the last Labour government consistently spent above the Nato benchmark level of 2% of GDP and committed the next Labour government to do the same, complained about Tory defence cuts and reaffirmed Labour’s support for the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons programme.
But Mr Williams states: “The political centre of gravity in the party is shifting and that will slowly be reflected in policy as new candidates and MPs replace those further to their right.
“Even a Corbyn-led government would probably need sustained pressure from ‘below’ to prevent it from being drawn into the kind of military adventurism that sullied the record of previous administrations.”